I want to be a cantor. Any advice? (Thanks)

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Here is a recording I made the other day
I really love singing and I wanted to be more active in my parish and thought maybe I could be a cantor for them but I don’t know where to start any advice would be great! Thanks 🙂
 
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Are you having singing lessons at all? Why not join the choir and start there.
Are Choirs allowed at Mass in your country at the moment re covid.?
 
Unfortunely I don’t think I can afford voice lessons. Mass starts again at my parish Oct 1st and sounds like there will be a choir. I sent that link to my confirmation director and she asked if i would sing solo for them on Oct 1st. I told her i would join the choir but i would be too nervous to sing solo. I interpreted what she said as her wanting me to be a cantor for the parish which I would do once I felt like I knew what I was doing. So thought I would ask on here to see if anyone who is already doing it could help.
 
My advice would be join the choir and get comfortable with it. If they think then that you could make a good contribution as a cantor, they will let you know.

On singing lessons, there are some good apps that help learn to sing. They might help with your pitch on some notes and phrasing on the more complex songs. Can you read music?
 
I can read music because I took band class playing trombone up to grade 12 but I can’t sight sing. So I guess learning to sight sing would be a good place to start. I will look into singing apps also I hadn’t thought of that thanks! I have a guidebook for cantors that I could read and if I still have any questions I could come back here and ask.
 
She may have meant sing solo for them as an audition. From what I can gather, sight reading is very important. In my parish, cantors seem to come from the choir. Check out the choir first.
 
She asked me to consider sharing my voice at mass once it starts up again and said “my voice was way better than any choir member”. I will definitely join choir first and yeah it doesn’t make sense to do any solo singing considering I’m not even in the choir yet or confirmed. Also I thought I read somewhere you can’t participate in the liturgy unless you’re confirmed anyway.
 
Oh, there are lots of non-catholic musicians at Mass, in various places. I used to be one myself.
 
No I don’t but I will take a look thanks! I’ve listened Gregorian chant before but never tried singing it.
 
Even if your parish doesn’t program a lot of chant, it is similar in style to the responsorial psalm, and sometimes there is a special “sequence” that might be chanted.
 
I guess I misread. Maybe it meant some of the other roles or something.
 
OK.

First of all, does your parish and/or the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yartmouth have any requirements to be a cantor? If so, what training would you require?

Here in the Archeparchy of Philadelphia it’s generally not required but there are workshops one can attend to learn or improve one’s ability to sing the Divine Services.

Last year SingCon 2019 was in the Eparchy of Stamford:


As you can see this year’s was to be in Philadelphia but was cancelled :cry:.
 
I couldn’t find anything about requirements for cantors on the archdiocese website but that does sound like a good idea some kind of class explaining how to do it properly.
 
I would also add even though your confirmation director suggests it, the Choir is under the guidance of the musical liturgy team and its really a good idea to go through the Choir on this stuff. Politics and all that in church. Join the Choir and get a sense of everyone and what type of music is the norm there.
 
That makes alot of sense thank you. I don’t want to make anyone upset by doing something before I should. Patience is virtue after all.
 
You will learn a lot being in the Choir too, and get to know everyone.
 
“my voice was way better than any choir member”: I would be careful about people who say things like that. It may not have been (I don’t know her motives), but it sounds like flattery to me; and there is no situation where a statement like that would be wise coming from a person in a position of leadership.

Whether or not you need to be confirmed to participate in a leadership position in the liturgy depends on your age and the pastor’s policies.
 
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