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repo_man
Guest
… can this only be performed by a choir of seminarians or brothers, etc? or can lay people be in a gregorian choir for a tridentine mass? just curious.
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Caesar
Guest
Most choirs are made of lay people.
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repo_man
Guest
really? i’ve still not had the pleasure of going to a tridentine mass (sigh some bishops …) and all the videos i’ve seen have nuns, brothers or seminarians doing the singing. i thought it would be cool if someday i was able to be in a gregorian choir at a tridentine mass (or who knows, with the way benedict is rolling, a latin novus ordo mass).
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A.Pelliccio
Guest
The choir at my Parish for the TLM is made up entirely of lay people. I guess when there used to be an abundance of Priests and Nuns, the Church could afford for them to run their liturgical music programs. No religious people involved shows were the common state of religious music is.
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brotherhrolf
Guest
I sing in a NO cathedral parish choir. I would differentiate between plainsong and Gregorian chant. We sing a lot of what I would call plainsong. Formal Gregorian chant ( in the strictest sense) is left for high feast days.
Here’s a shock…I learned to sing chant and plainsong when I was a kid back in the late 50s and early 60s. It’s not rocket science, folks.
Here’s a shock…I learned to sing chant and plainsong when I was a kid back in the late 50s and early 60s. It’s not rocket science, folks.
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Windmill
Guest
I helped start a men’s Gregorian chant group 5 years ago. We started with 3 guys, now we are up to 13. We are all laymen. Don’t daydream about starting a group, DO IT. Now is the time, especisally with Pope Benedict at the helm of the barque of Peter. He’s only just getting started.
Here’s our website…
www.brazoschant.org
Here’s our website…
www.brazoschant.org
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Caesar
Guest
A proper schola cantorum (a choir which chants the prayers of the Mass) is composed of men. In older churches you will often see choir stalls in the sanctuary where the schola will sit, each member vested in the cassock and surplice, like the Altar servers, to show that they serve a liturgical function (they will also take part in the processions). In monasteries you will find the term ‘choir monk’, reffering to those who sing the Mass and the Offices.
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drafdog
Guest
Brothers (friars, monks) and nuns are all members of the laity.
I trust that this answers your question.
Matthew
I trust that this answers your question.
Matthew
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Windmill
Guest
Caesar,
My understanding of current liturgical law is that choir members (even if a schola?) are not to process in as their function is to lead the congregation. This is only permissible if they are priests, canons, or seminarians.
Zenit article on choir processing in
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SemperFidelis
Guest
I thought Friars were ordained. Example: The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (C.F.R.)
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bpbasilphx
Guest
or can lay people be in a gregorian choir for a tridentine mass? just curious.
And just who do you think is singing in an ordinary parish church?
And just who do you think is singing in an ordinary parish church?
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repo_man
Guest
like i said, i don’t know. i live in a backwards part of the country where even the catholics are protestants. that was the point of me asking the question. the only tridentine masses i’ve ever seen had seminarians, nuns, and brothers singing. i know that the tridentine mass doesn’t eff around with lax structure so i think it was a warranted question. excuse me for not knowing something.
secondly: yeah, sorry. what i was trying to say by lay people was like your average joe shmo, i.e. no one dedicated to the vocation of religious life or priesthood. apologies on the incorrect usage of the word.
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brotherhrolf
Guest
Our choir wears uncinctured white albs. Before the choir loft was restored in 1992 and we were facing the congregation and singing from one side of the sanctuary, we did not process. Now, we process behind the crucifer and when we reach the foot of the sanctuary we bow and proceed down the side aisles to the choir loft. Likewise we line the side aisles and process out after Mass.
Cathedral choir. Does this apply to the NO and the TLM?
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Dempsey1919
Guest
I attend a Missa Cantata every week and our choir is composed mainly of lay men and women.
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brotherhrolf
Guest
Please don’t get upset at the responses you can sometimes get. Ofttimes, innoucuous coments are made that sound condescending.
Most of the TLMs you see today are labors of love and represent the very best that that congregation has to offer. The brutally simple fact is that most parishes before 1965 never came anywhere close to what you can see today. The choirs were composed of adults and we children sang with the adults (in Latin) as the occasion warranted. There WERE children’s choirs in my day and we did sing in Latin. The good sisters worked with us.
My cathedral choir today - yes, we have four paid section leaders who keep the rest of us on track and in tune. But all the rest of us are simply parishoners. My ability to read music is abysmal - I mean, yeah, I know what the notes are etc. The bottom line is that I memorize my part. Practice, practice, practice…We practice three hours a week and we work.
When we sing plainsong and Gregorian Chant, I draw upon the wellsprings of my memory as a child before Vatican II. I grew up thinking that Latin and chant were perfectly normal and nothing out of the ordinary.
I am a bald, overweight, average Joe-schmo state employee like so many in my choir (well not everyone is bald or overweight
)I don’t have a degree in music. I am not capable of being anything but what I am - much to our choir director’s chagrin. I’m human and I make mistakes.
But I am equally convinced that chant is not beyond the average parish. It requires elbow grease.
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otjm
Guest
Chant is not beyond the capability of a congregation, any more than any of the hymns currently available in any given hymnal.
And by and large, they will sing along, having absolutely no clue as to the inflections and dynamics of Gregorian Chant - or Plainsong, for that matter; in other words, musically they will be abysmal. Some will sing off key; some will drag, some will hurry ahead, as most people have little or no training in singing, and relatively few who have training have it in chant.
Once upon a time, the monks at Guadalupe Abbey (Trappist) were quite good at Gregorian Chant and Plainsong. They still sing the Office in one or the other or both, but they are now 30 to 40 years older, most of them over 60 (and from the looks of them, over 70) and they have more than lost their edge in terms of musical ability.
Does God care? I kind of doubt it.
Having at one time in my life been in a choir of seminarians who cut a record of Gregorian Chant, I have heard good chant. I shudder to hear it poorly done; it would be like listening to a piece by Palistrina done without 4 part harmony by a group that could not hide the individual who sang either flat or sharp. And if the choir director doesn’t have enough training in chant form to know how it is supposed to be sung, it would be akin to the blind leading the deaf.
But everybody could slaughter it. I mean, sing it…
And by and large, they will sing along, having absolutely no clue as to the inflections and dynamics of Gregorian Chant - or Plainsong, for that matter; in other words, musically they will be abysmal. Some will sing off key; some will drag, some will hurry ahead, as most people have little or no training in singing, and relatively few who have training have it in chant.
Once upon a time, the monks at Guadalupe Abbey (Trappist) were quite good at Gregorian Chant and Plainsong. They still sing the Office in one or the other or both, but they are now 30 to 40 years older, most of them over 60 (and from the looks of them, over 70) and they have more than lost their edge in terms of musical ability.
Does God care? I kind of doubt it.
Having at one time in my life been in a choir of seminarians who cut a record of Gregorian Chant, I have heard good chant. I shudder to hear it poorly done; it would be like listening to a piece by Palistrina done without 4 part harmony by a group that could not hide the individual who sang either flat or sharp. And if the choir director doesn’t have enough training in chant form to know how it is supposed to be sung, it would be akin to the blind leading the deaf.
But everybody could slaughter it. I mean, sing it…
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Silver_Thread
Guest
The Propers of the Mass are sung, chanted by men. Credo, Gloria, responses sung by men and women.
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bkovacs
Guest
It would be nice if seminarians would be required to learn how to properly sing the Gregorian Chant, like Orthodox priests and monks learn the Byzantine Chant. Since Pope Benedict has said that pride of place should be made of the Gregorian Chant for liturgical music. I listen the XM Vox, and they have a show, over an hour, that is entirely about the various forms of chant like, Gregorian, Gallican, etc… Hosted by Father Jerome Webber, a Roman Catholic priest. Here is the website he is part of.
liturgica.com/
Man what the Catholic Church has lost musically. Sad!.
Replaced by Guitars!.
liturgica.com/
Man what the Catholic Church has lost musically. Sad!.
Replaced by Guitars!.
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