Grassroots Liturgist

I belatedly got into Game of Thrones, having initially dismissed it as a Lord of the Rings wannabe - I really must learn to be more open-minded. One recurring character is The Hound - a massive (though not as massive as his big brother, The Mountain), brutal, vulgar warrior whose casual disdain for other people is as blatant as the obscenities that spew from his mouth.  His story arc, however, seems to be taking him through something of a spiritual awakening.  At the beginning of series 7, he and a small group come across a deserted cottage and inside are the remains of a father and daughter who had killed themselves rather than starve to death in the fast-approaching winter.  What made it all the more poignant for The Hound is that he had, in an earlier programme, visited his own brand of cruelty on their already wretched lives.  And now he felt the nagging discomfort of guilt.  So much so that, in the middle of the night, he got up to bury their remains. A...

In an  earlier post I observed that the first thing that tends to be thought about when preparing the music for a Sunday parish Mass is what hymns to sing.  However, as the graphic below makes clear, they should not be the priority. There is a hierarchy of five levels and I guess that, rather like Piaget's stages of cognition, you shouldn't really start one level until you have fulfilled the preceding one.  If there is to be singing at the Mass (and, frankly, there should be some singing at every Mass since we are, naturally, musical creatures) then the absolute priority, before anything else, are the Gospel Acclamation and the Eucharistic Acclamations (Sanctus; Memorial Acclamation; Great Amen). Even at a weekday Mass, with no accompaniment, this should present little problem; who doesn't know the triple Alleluia? (though not during Lent, of course.)  And the music for the Eucharistic Acclamations can be found in our Missals.  The (English) Sanctus is base...

One thing that I try to keep to the front of my considerations when planning liturgy is to remember that the music must serve the Mass - the Mass is not there as a vehicle for the music.  To this end it is so important that we understand the Mass more and more - through both study and prayerful participation - so that our music is sensitive to the ebb and flow of what is happening during the Mass. Back in the day, when attending yoof Masses, the "Sign of Peace" was often followed by "Let there be peace shared among us".  It was always sung enthusiastically but (and leaving aside the fact that there is no provision for this in the General Instruction to the Roman Missal) it was a rude interruption on what is a very solemn part of the Mass.  It just doesn't fit!  Immediately following this lively rendition we were expected to behold, in prayerful wonder, the Lamb of God in the Blessed Sacrament.  As human beings we cannot go from such exuberance to such wondrous...

Fairly quickly after our Vigil Music Group started, I discovered a very significant resource - notation software.  For many, the go-to option for music notation software is Sebelius.  By all accounts it is very good but it costs well over £400 to buy or a £15+ monthly subscription.  What's more, for my purposes, it is far too powerful - I wouldn't use a fraction of its functions.  MuseScore, however, is more than powerful enough for my needs - and most people's, I suspect - and is totally free. It's not too difficult to get to grips with the basic functions and there are helpful tutorials available on YouTube .  I was very quickly able to create simple responses for the Psalm and, before long, was creating harmonies for some hymns and writing Mass settings.  It is very simple to change the key of a piece of music ("God's Spirit is in my heart" is FAR too low in the hymnal!) or to transpose the music for different instruments (eg B b Clarinet).  Usin...

At the end of the month I am attending the annual Summer School run by the Society of St Gregory (the national society of liturgy and music for the Catholic Church in the British Isles).  One of the workshops is called " Accompanying on a budget: Two guitars and a tin whistle?  Whatever your resources, you can be effective ".  I rather wish that this session had been available some years back when we first started the Vigil Music Group, as some of the things that I expect will be suggested in the workshop came to us slowly over a period of time. For example, it was only after we had two flautists, both simply hammering out the melody line, that it dawned on me that this was such a waste of the available talent.  So we began to introduce harmonies for at least one of the flutes, which made a massive difference all round; it made the music that much more rich and beautiful for the liturgy (a good thing), but it also permitted a greater artistic expression for the mus...

I was lucky enough to catch the BBC Radio 3 programme, Private Passions, while driving in my car the other week.   The guest was Eamon Duffy, Catholic historian and Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge. The whole programme is worthy of a listen, but at 23 minutes 42 seconds into the programme he is asked about the current state of music in the western Catholic liturgy.   He begins his response with, “That’s rather a depressing question”.   He singles out James MacMillan for praise and vaguely refers to (I’m guessing a very few) other Catholic composers, but otherwise he paints a very grim scene indeed.   I highlight a few key things that were said below…… #      “….we sing in Church the kind of music we would never dream of listening to and that we only otherwise hear at school assemblies….” #      “…[there has been] a radical impoverishment and a loss of the sense of the numinous.”   ...