The Power of Music

[Peeps]

Seriously, even in LA, why does a choir director need more than $50,000/year?

I agree with much of your excellent post, but not this.

My daughter works in the entertainment industry and lived in San Diego and did a lot of work in LA. A$50,000 salary is a drop in the bucket in that expensive area.

Her tiny little apartment rent was over twice as much as our mortgage for our ranch home in Northern Illinois! And getting around is expensive–gas is more costly, and the traffic means that you have to plan lots of extra time to drive anywhere–that’s time that you cannot teach music lessons or play for weddings and funerals.

I’m assuming that the person you call “choir director” is actually the parish music director, who selects the hymns for Masses and oversees the entire liturgy throughout the year in the parish (which is probably large and has several Masses on Saturday and Sunday).

I think that a $50,000 salary sounds appropriate for a parish music director if they are also able to supplement that income by teaching private lessons, teaching in the parish school, playing secular gigs, playing weddings and funerals, and perhaps writing/arranging music.

Also, their salary had BETTER be separate from the parish music budget! The music director should not have to pay to have the piano tuned, the organ serviced, and buy their own choir repertoire!

Also, it would be nice if the parish paid for the music director to attend liturgical music conferences, and gave him/her a budget for purchasing music for his/her preludes, postludes, etc. These books are expensive! Also, textbooks and other material for his/her continuing education in the field of liturgical music. These expenditures, IMO, should not come out of the music director’s salary.

A music director does not take a vow of celibacy or poverty! If they have a family to support, the salary should probably be higher than $50,000 in L.A.!

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

The music at your Mass sounds truly awful. I think that a lot of people posting here don’t realize how bad things can be in other dioceses.

 

[pnewton]

So it’s not the hymns are written too high–it’s that we don’t know how to sing properly to hit the notes.

But that is kind of a chicken or the egg problem. I don’t train anyone, so I accommodate them by lowering keys.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

I attended Mass last Sunday at a small parish. Normally there is a dear lady who plays organ there, and has, as a volunteer for many many years. She doesn’t have extensive musical training. She had to be out of town this week, so there was a substitute. This young man is not a professional musician, but I know he subs in other parishes. He sat down, played the organ very creditably, and chanted the Pentecost chant sequence (in English). Was it at a virtuouso level? No. Does it have to be? No. But it was awesome, and wonderful, and amazing, to hear the music that the Church gives us for this special feast. I am so thankful that this young man showed up – and for all anyone knows, there are “no organists” around here! Who knows how many other skilled people are hidden away in plain sight?

 

[OraLabora]

The Pentecost sequence is fairly easy. I think it’s reasonable to expect things like that, and the simpler settings of the ordinary, as Gregorian chant in a parish setting.

There is also the Graduale Simplex that was designed for less experienced choirs. The antiphons are more like those in the Divine Office (and I believe some are taken from there).

But the biggies from the Graduale, like the one in the link, will sound terrible if not done with some competence, and that’s just not something we find on every street corner.

There is a project called “Simple English Propers” that is promising.

 

[graciew]

OraLabora:
Happy birthday, Ora!

 

[OraLabora]

Thanks!

Ten characters.

 

[snarflemike]

There is a project called “Simple English Propers” that is promising.

My wife (who studied chant in Rome and Solesmes) uses Fr. Weber’s “The Proper of the Mass” (in English). There are either 4 or 5 versions of each proper antiphon, ranging from complex to a simple psalm tone. She much prefers it to the Simple English Propers.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Job: The Now Testament

I prefer some older Oratorios, but they’re usually in Italian and German. The singing is a bit technical but I enjoy it, really it is only propriate as a concert, but it has an edifying nature to it.

 

[EmmaSowl]

I prefer some older Oratorios, but they’re usually in Italian and German. The singing is a bit technical but I enjoy it, really it is only propriate as a concert, but it has an edifying nature to it.

I don’t know anything about Oratorios (although I might be glad if I learned).

However, my big question is why should any concert be performed in the sanctuary if the church has a perfectly good auditorium with a proper stage?

 

[EmmaSowl]

If somebody is thinking of leaving the Church, I doubt the music is the deciding factor, in either direction.

In that case, obedience in music will not drive anyone away.

 

[EmmaSowl]

Like what? Our parish doesn’t have a hymnal so I’m not to sure about the pitches.

Your parish doesn’t have hymnals?!!! Just said a prayer for your parish.

I’m a jack-of-a-decent-amount-of-trades-and-master-of none, so I can’t speak with authority to pitch. My point is about range. A two-octave range is about all the faithful can manage. Where the starting and ending notes should fall, I couldn’t say - but I’ll give my opinion:

My personal experience is that (in the key of C), no note should fall below the B underneath the C that’s under the staff notes, and no note should rise above the D in Every Good Boy Does Fine - at least not for the melody. Obviously, choir harmony can go lower and higher.

 

[PetraG]

My personal experience is that (in the key of C), no note should fall below the B underneath the C that’s under the staff notes, and no note should rise above the D in Every Good Boy Does Fine - at least not for the melody. Obviously, choir harmony can go lower and higher.

Yes–this. As much as possible, the melody should be conjunct or at least jump on the notes of the triad. There should be few or no huge leaps in pitch.

(My husband, not a Catholic, grew up with hymns that had disjunct melodies–that is, they had frequent big jumps up or down in pitch–so he refers to this as “Presbyterian music,” even though neither of us know if the Presbyterians are more afflicted with this kind of melody than any other mainline denomination…)

 

[Babaganoush]

It’s been said, if the devil made it into church, he came through the choir… In your case, it would probably be better for you to spend more time reading the words until you understand them before singing any further - because it is apparently making you too judgmental of appearances, not judging justly…

I dont know (or care) what your skill level is at all, or even if you have any… But I’ve spent years with some pretty talented music teachers, Catholic or not, who - with kindness, charity, joy and happiness are willing to sit patiently enduring horrible performances, mistakes and the most hideous caterwauling one can imagine… so they can help a student get a few strains right… I admire them, and I would myself do the same, for they play and sound awesome - but it was love that pulled them through… not arrogance…

I would agree if this were only about the performance of the choir or those singing the hymns,; but the reality is that the majority of the hymns sung at mass anymore have the theological depth of a puddle and sound like a bad Peter, Paul, and Mary song.

 

[Peeps]

My personal experience is that (in the key of C), no note should fall below the B underneath the C that’s under the staff notes, and no note should rise above the D in Every Good Boy Does Fine - at least not for the melody. Obviously, choir harmony can go lower and higher.

I can certainly go along with this range for congregational hymns. I do think that if children were educated in correct singing techniques, they would find it easier to sing in this range when they get older. So many people in the congregation sing the hymns an octave lower than they were written, and this has a “muting” effect on the congregational singing; the lower tones are harder to hear and sound a little “growly.” It’s no wonder that people tend to drop out of the hymn when this happens. .

I truly believe, based on experience accompanying several choirs in the last 20 years, that adults CAN and probably should try to learn how to sing better and read music.

They say it can’t be done, can’t teach an old dog new tricks, etc. etc. Excuses!

I’ve SEEN it done! I’ve seen adults who have no clue what those little notes are or any of the other notation, and can’t even match a pitch when it is sung or played for them. But as they work with a good teacher/director and a good accompanist, they truly (honest now!) learn these things and find themselves reading a simple line of music. It’s always such a joy for me to sit at the piano and hear these amateur choirs singing in two and sometimes even three parts, and to see the wonder in their faces when they finish their anthem and realize that they have just sung a beautiful song beautifully!

I know that apologetics and Bible study and missions and prayer are so important, and I would not like to see these valuable teaching times replaced with “Music Class.”

But I wish that at least once a year, parishes could offer a “Music Camp” for a couple of of hours to teach adults the rudiments of singing, and then offer a follow up “Praise Club” (a more “Christian” name than the old-fashioned “Glee Club”) for several weeks to give interested adults more opportunities to gain more singing skills and note-reading ability. I think it would make a difference in Catholic corporate (congregational) singing.

 

[EmmaSowl]

Be careful–I did a study several years ago in which I compared the “modern” hymns/songs in Mass with the traditional hymns. None of the modern hymns had a range above D above the C above middle C. The alto range is low G to high D, and the bass range is even higher–up to the E above middle C. So this higher D should not be out of most of our singing ranges.

But the traditional hymns often had high Es and even high Fs and high Gs, which are generally notes for the sopranos and tenors (although trained altos and basses should be able to hit these notes in a head voice).

Lol, I also did a study in the last few years (mine simply compared our hymnal to our youth song book), and I found the opposite! Of course, my study was just me comparing song notes from a standard hymnal and a youth praise book and putting them in an Excel file for comparison and giving up about a third of the way through because I got so depressed.

(My study also counted the use of the word “I” compared to references to God - that’s where the big depression set in: the youth praise books are the most self-centered songs I’ve encountered).

But I do believe that, for music designed to be sung by all the faithful, a small range of notes and a consistent melody are the most compassionate and practical gifts that can be given to the faithful - whether that music is chant, hymns, folk songs, or “youth” praise.

Itotally agree! THIS is so irritating!!! The problem is that a lot of P and W songs have a very complex rhythm and melody line (typical rock/pop) because they are meant to be sung with improvisation, which is beyond most of us.

Amen!

 

[Babaganoush]

Beauty is very important in evangelization and in the transmission of the faith. Many saints have equated beauty with God and seen that as the better way to approach God (st Maximus the confessor for example). There is something to beauty and the work it takes to make something beautiful. We may be satisfied with what is ugly, but if we looked deeper we could make it beautiful and it would be a better act of worship. As Dimitri Karamazov said, beauty is what God and the devil do battle over, and their battleground is the heart of man.

 

[EmmaSowl]

A music director does not take a vow of celibacy or poverty! If they have a family to support, the salary should probably be higher than $50,000 in L.A.!

But almost no households in LA are one-income families. I know, because I live in LA.

My husband works for the USDA Forest Service as a fireman (pardon me, “forestry technician”) and usually only hits the $60,000/year mark (depending on the number of fires in a given summer). I have a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa B.A. from UCLA and have never made more than $40,000 in a year. Neither of us have the time, energy, or opportunity to supplement our income with extra gigs.

(And during my decade of illness, we lived off $60K).

I’ve been told that our Director of Liturgy makes 6 figures. Perhaps I was lied to. I googled LA choir director salaries and one source said the average was $40K while another said it was $78K. I do not know if weddings and funerals were included in the figures.

But whatever our Director of Liturgy is paid, it is clear that he does not see his parish job as his main priority. During the months I was in his choir, half the rehearsals were spent listening to him reminiscing about his Hollywood days or talking about the musical he was writing. His outside interests clearly took precedence because he often gave us (illegally) copied music he’d re-arranged and printed out so badly that we had to spend rehearsal time writing in the lyrics which were cut off at the bottom of the pages he was unconcerned about printing clearly.

I do not think our DL has to pay for any supplies or extra salaries. I could be wrong. I tried to find out such things after last year’s financial report, but got such chilly non-responses that I gave up pressing the issue. Maybe I’ll try again next year.

I’m okay with a DL making $80K in LA if he devotes his time to the parish and not his dreams. But it still bothers me that such a cushy job brings in more than that of a firefighter who risks his life, breaks his body, loses co-workers to fire deaths, and has to sleep on mountain sides where he has to dig holes in which to defecate and cover up according to federal guidelines.

 

[EmmaSowl]

People who ask for “Gregorian chant” in a parish usually have very little idea on what’s involved.

I am impressed with your vast knowledge of chant. I’m a complete idiot compared to you.

However, I know from experience that there is a lot of easy chant. I hear it sung at daily Mass and in the penitential seasons. It is the only time one can hear the faithful over the miked-up choir.

I think I should mention that I would not want to see anyone’s usual Mass music ripped out from under them. Any change toward obedience (besides being fully explained) should be gentle and easy.

Simple hymns. Simple chants. Even folk songs would work in the period of adjustment. As much as I hate folk songs (picture John Belushi’s smashing of a guitar in Animal House), they are at least calm and easy. And, depending on the theology of the lyrics, they might even be inspiring.

Once the faithful experience true milk, they might become ready for true meat.

 

[snarflemike]

Vatican II called for an edition of simpler chants intended to be learned and sung by all Catholics, even in “smaller churches”. I’m guessing they had a good idea of what would be involved. And Fr. Weber’s English Propers give 4 or 5 different levels of difficulty for every Proper antiphon, with the simpler ones being easily learned by any group that sings.