Grassroots Liturgist

What makes good liturgical music? I genuinely believe that it doesn't matter at all whether your community has the finest church organ in the county played by a skilled and sensitive organist or you rely on  two guitars and a tin whistle , or even what musical/liturgical style you have; what makes liturgy beautiful is when you have a community gathered, strong in faith and the living of that faith, singing prayerfully with their collective heart, mind, soul and voice. I can't remember whether I have already told the following story - the old memory is not what it used to be.  Several years ago I spent a few days at a convent for a private retreat.  This convent was recommended by a couple of friends but I was warned that I may find their singing of the office 'hard work' - the sisters were mostly advanced in years and their singing voices were well past their best.  And yet I found it quite beautiful.  True, they would never be asked to record a CD.  Bu...

I have touched on this  before , but it is worth repeating: when you have a set up like ours - guitar(s) with flutes (and/or other such instruments) - it really is a waste to simply have the flautist belting out the melody.  Once the congregation know and are comfortable with something - be it a hymn or a mass setting - they will join in, especially if led by a cantor and/or singing group.  Instead, allow the flautist to play harmonies to enrich the music. For some time now I have been adding harmonies to music that we have been playing for the last four or five years, using the wonderful (and free) musical notation software MuseScore .  As the workshop at last year's Summer School made clear, anyone who is even remotely musical can develop their own, simple, one line harmony for any given melody; it just needs a little time and some trial and error.  But, if you have more than one 'solo' instrument, why stop at one harmony? When at full strength we present...

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.”   ...