Are YOU or your children in a schola?

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Question for parents, especially those who insist that Gregorian chant should be done in Masses instead of “contemporary hymns” --how many of YOU would commit to a weekly rehearsal with a choir master who would teach your sons how to sing Gregorian chant? Not sure if this would be open to your daughters–the chant schola in our city is for boys only.

Would you do it? What if your boys hated it–would you still force them to go? What if the rehearsal was on a night that the boys had some kind of sports practice? Would you still do it?

And what would you be willing to pay the choir master for his teaching, and how much would you be willing to pay a facility (probably a church) for rental (unless they were kind enough to give you the facility rent-free?) And if an organist was needed to help the choirmaster, how much would be willing to pay him or her? (My teacher asks for $150/hour for accompanying.)

OR–let’s say that the choirmaster invited adults to learn Gregorian chant–would YOU join his group and attend his classes faithfully, and pay his dues?

I’m only asking because we have such a group in our city, and the choir director is wonderful and gifted at working with children and teens, and the facility has an organ and he plays (so no need to hire an accompanist)–and his numbers are so small that there is question as to whether it will continue.

So where are YOU during his rehearsals? Why aren’t YOUR children there? Why aren’t YOU there?

It’s so easy to wish we had something. But it’s not so easy to make it happen. If we want something, we have to be willing to do stuff and make commitments.

It took me many years of practicing several hours a day to get to a place where I can now play piano with more ease than I cook or write or even type on this forum.
 
I am not there because I would not enjoy Gregorian chant. I would not have forced my children to go either. If they chose to, I would have supported it.
 
I have been singing Gregorian chant in a schola for 16 years. We rotate around parishes in the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Usually we sing one Mass a month, Vespers in Advent and Lent, Holy Saturday Lauds, various other parish events, and funerals and a wedding. “A wedding” because we’ve only every sung at one. And it sort of doesn’t count, it was one of our chorister’s daughter getting married.

We also do recitals outside of a liturgical context, to make chant known to folks who wouldn’t otherwise come to Mass.

I agree with the OP’s premise: if people want to have Gregorian chant at Mass, then they have to pony up and participate. It isn’t going to happen by itself. There is a learning curve, though as Semper says, it isn’t all that hard, I had zero musical notions when I started. So some commitment and effort is required if one is to sound decent.

To put not too fine a point on it, if people want Gregorian chant, but aren’t prepared to participate, Gregorian chant won’t be happening… The Vatican does not have this magical pool of trained and talented Gregorian choristers crisscrossing the world in a C130 ready to parachute into every parish that wants Gregorian chant.
 
And I think not.

Otherwise, there wouldn’t be scholas (or is the proper plural “scholae?”).

So do YOU sing Gregorian chant and did you start chanting with no training at all? No learning the proper pronunciation of the Latin? No training in the proper voice techniques, breathing, etc.? No study to read neumes?

How does Gregorian chant happen at your parish? Do the lay people in the pews ever join in?

Finally, do you live in the Midwest which is ruled by the Underlord of the Diphthong, the Enemy of All Classical Singing. We chew up words (and song lyrics) like a pup chews up a shoe. It takes a long time and lots of stern looks and exasperated moans and grimaces from a choir director or voice coach for us to stop ruining songs, any songs, with our beloved diphthongs. Chants are not safe from us–we can really wreck up perfectly innocent Latin.
 
Why the harsh and accusatory tone?

My parish has a wonderful organist in addition to a men’s schola and a separate women’s schola.

If I could carry a tune in a bucket I would absolutely join.

If any of my children show interest I will have no problem whatsoever taking them to rehearsal, etc. I’d much rather them do church activities than school activities. My Baptist mother raised me to be very involved in church. I was an usher, choir member (despite my iffy ability), a youth leader, etc. I consider it an honor and a privilege to be able to take part in parish ministries.
 
On occaision, I join with tre local schola, of which my father is a member. They sing Vespers on Sundays, and currently they do the music for an Ordinariate mass in town. I have gone with my father on and off to vespers/practice on Sundays nights for the last few years.

I learned proper Latin pronunciation from listening to them and following along. Gradually (no pun intended), I learned how to chant it with them. There was no formal training of any kind. I’m certainly not an expert, but I can do it.

My parish does not have Gregorian Chant. They already have a choir which does more contemporary music, and I can’t get involved with that since I’m already involved with serving.

I have learned certain voice/breathing techniques from reading things and watching videos online, separate from Chant. I also follow along with certain chants on YouTube, which Infind helpful.

Overall, I’m not where I would like to be with my Chant competencies, but I think I’m getting there.
 
I’d certainly like to! But the nearest schola I know of that ladies can participate in is a over an hour away, in a bad neighborhood at night, and conflicts with the young adults group I attend every other week.
 
$150 an hour is pretty steep. I know I certainly couldn’t afford it. And at one of the churches we attend (27 km away) they haven’t even had an alter server since my Fiance was a young boy. ( I would say it averages on 20 people per mass) mostly elderly. The other church we attend 600 meters down the road is usually pretty full although I hardly see any of the kids who go to the catholic school across the road there.

I think instead of getting kids into Gregorian choir we need to be getting younger people into the church and whilst a commitment to Gregorian choir could get kids into the church alot of parents would not be in a financial position to be able to afford it. As for if kids had sports practice the same night would they still go, when you make a commitment to anything you have to commit if you have a commitment to a sports team you have a commitment You cannot let the team down on game day by not turning up to practise.( I use to coach my daughter’s netball team and this is exactly what happens)
It’s the same with other clubs and activities if you make a commitment You must go you can’t just stop turning up beacuse something new clashes with your schedule.
 
Presumably, the $150 would be divided between the members of the group, so it wouldn’t be as much. I’m not sure why an accompanist would be needed for plain chant though. Presumably, the director could play parts, if that was needed, though trying to teach by copying a piano is the least effective way to teach parts. I have to agree that learning chant really isn’t that difficult. At least, no more difficult than learning music in standard notation. It’s just different. Our choir incorporates chant and other Latin pieces frequently.
 
I actually find square note much easier; the wider spacing of the 4-bar staff is much easier on the ol’ eyes than the 5-bar staff.

As for accompaniment by an organist… chant is meant to be a cappella indeed. We got rid of our organist some years ago after he quit. Our chant improved immeasurably: we now had to concentrate, we didn’t have the organ to back us up.

We have a chorister who is an organist. He will often play preludes, the offertories and postludes when we’re chanting, but otherwise we are a cappella. Where he does come in handy is during rehearsals, where he can give us the starting 3 or 4 notes, or help us dissect complex melodies by playing the parts that give us grief. It is a pretty handy resource to have!

In a monastery, all sing to the best of their abilities, but the “schola” is a small group of men who are expert singers, and who sing the more difficult parts, for example the complex verses of the gradual or some offertories.
 
Same compared to French; and the accentuation is all wrong to apply Gregorian modes to French accentuation.
 
Yes, I know that the organist is not needed during the chanting, but if the choir director can’t play, it’s nice to have someone to play the parts for those who just can’t get reading notes or neumes. (I know that most directors play well enough to play parts.)

I’ve known people who learn their entire part for Handel’s Messiah by ear rather than by reading notes–it’s not what I would be able to do, but more power to them! I find it fascinating that some people have such good ears for music!
 
Apologies–I don’t mean to sound harsh or accusatory.

I’m just curious how people who love chant get it going in the parishes. We’ve had such wretched luck in our city, even though we have a Latin Mass parish.

Actually, we’ve had wretched luck getting children and teens, as well as adults, interesting in ANY vocal group other than our local chamber choir, which is run by the local symphony orchestra, and singers are admitted after getting through a rather tough audition. (In other words, not a community chorus.)

As I’ve said on many other posts about music here on CAF, I blame the state of our public school music education, which was cut out entirely for several years, and then restored, but greatly hobbled by the demand for “ethnic” music rather than learning to read music, sing folk songs (which help children learn the concept of “melody” and hear tones, and learning a basic history of music literature and a basic ethnomusicology survey. I think that the schools have pretty much killed any interest in traditional music.

However, we have massive homeschool population involving several thousand children, so I still don’t understand why they aren’t interested in the local schola, which is run by a wonderfully-qualified director.
 
At my parish we the younger choir (ages 15 - mid 20s) sings some Gregorian chant. Their almost-completely-untrained choir director (a young woman with no college experience of any kind, and only minimal private music instruction) would just have them practice some of the Latin chants in the hymnal – parts of the mass, sequences for solemnities, Marian antiphons, and the like.

She would choose one and they would practice it, and when she thought they were ready, they’d sing it at mass. After years of this (the choir director has since moved on), the young women can now sing chant quite beautifully.

And the choir members didn’t have to pay anyone anything. :roll_eyes:

I was the organist for years, but I always sang when we did the chants, because as others have pointed out, you don’t use the organ for Gregorian chant.

The congregation absolutely would sing along on some things – parts of the mass, the Marian antiphons especially.

My son was invited to sing in a schola but opted not to. And of course I’m not going to force him. Nothing pushes teenagers away from the Church like their moms insisting they be part of some ministry they don’t want to be part of, especially a ministry that is time-consuming.

Just my two cents. And personally, I rarely give two figs about what music is sung at mass.
 
Peeps said:
As I’ve said on many other posts about music here on CAF, I blame the state of our public school music education, which was cut out entirely for several years, and then restored, but greatly hobbled by the demand for “ethnic” music rather than learning to read music, sing folk songs (which help children learn the concept of “melody” and hear tones, and learning a basic history of music literature and a basic ethnomusicology survey. I think that the schools have pretty much killed any interest in traditional music.
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Seriously? :roll_eyes:

I’m going to bed now. I have to get some rest so I can get back into my classroom tomorrow and continue destroying the musical heritage of our nation and assuring that all future generations hate traditional music.
 
We don’t pay musicians in Australia for liturgical music. Sometimes there are donations. Even our beautiful Christmas music, with amazing professional talent, all voluntary.
 
Seriously. I attended a public meeting about our public schools, and one of their presentations was a hip hop number, which was introduced by a teacher who said, “We are so proud of our hip hop program.”

We have a lot of racial unrest in our city, so it’s likely that the hip hip program was implemented to try to ease the tensions.

In my position as the Chair of a long-running (58 years) youth scholarship music competition, over the last ten years, I have seen less than a dozen public school students enter.

Several years ago, I talked to students at one of the big high schools, and theytold me that for several months, they didn’t have a music teacher, so they would sit and listen to old tapes of songs and try to sing along.Meanwhile at the private school my kids attended, the students learn how to read music by the time they are out of 5th grade (that’s the norm at most of the private and home schools in our city).

And I’m glad that in your school system, you’re allowed to teach music, not just sing along with pop icons. Keep it up! You’re vital to the continuance of good church music.
 
Here’s how it’s done in the the U.S.

Churches of all denominations (Catholic and Protestant–don’t know about Orthodox) hire a music minister, who is usually the organist (or pianist in the non-denominational churches). Usually this person has a degree, often an advanced degree (Masters or Doctorate) in music, liturgical music, conducting, or some other music-related field.

In the big cities, these people must be paid enough to make a living. Usually, they also perform professionally throughout their area, and many of them teach private lessons, or are hired to conduct local singing or instrumental groups (e.g., one of our most beloved local music ministers, in a Congregational Church, was the conductor of the Pops Orchestra during the summer in the park concerts He has passed away RIP.).

In smaller cities and towns, music ministers don’t generally receive a high enough salary to support themselves, but they often have another job or business, or if they are good teachers, they can find all kinds of students and do reasonably well. Or they just live simply–it’s possible to do that in some of our fly-over states.

Lay musicians don’t generally get paid in the parishes, but if we play outside our parish, we will be paid. Out of solidarity with other musicians who earn a living from their music, I wouldn’t play without some kind of payment. If I worked for free, I would be blacklisted and probably would face some ostracism from many local musicians. That can’t happen, as I chair a music scholarship competition that involves many of our local musicians’ students. Besides, I really do believe that music ministers/organists should be able to make a living from doing music, and I don’t want to work for free and undermine their positions.

I do a bit of volunteer work for organizations and schools that don’t have the funds to pay me. I’m able to do this because I work a non-music job (hospital). Other musicians would not accept the work anyway because there’s no pay and they could not afford to donate so much time.

Choirs, cantors, and other church musicians don’t generally get paid unless they are hired to present a concert (outside of Mass). Sometimes, really big churches in the Big Cities will have choirs whose members receive a stipend, and often even in small cities, choirs from really huge churches will pay their section leaders a small stipend. Secular choirs will often pay their section leaders, who have quite a few responsibilities.
 
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