What makes a good choir?

[chrystl]

I just thought of this:

The thing of having a good choir is practice. You can’t praise God in music when you don’t know what the intent of the music is.

And choirs need not be big. The choir I sing in, depending on the time of year when members go on vacation, will have as many as 9 and as few as three.

It also helps to have a good Music Ministry director who is knowledgable in the music aspect of Mass.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Jack–

I could be wrong, but replacing the choir with “well done CDs”?
I THINK that would not be allowed under the GIRM.
Silence is golden, if the only other choice would be “noise”.

Speaking of silence, we were told back in March when the GIRM went into effect in the parish that there was to be a “period of silence” between the 1st reading and the responsorial psalm, and between the second reading and the Gospel Acclamation. For the first couple of weeks, all went well. Then that “period of silence” became 10 seconds (I timed it with a stop watch) and now it’s right back to the IMMEDIATE jump in right after the readings with the singing. So much for silence. . . sigh.

As for the Gospel acclamation, you might be interested to know that in OUR parish, it means that the keyboardist, with or without the choir, plays the CHORUS once, then AGAIN. NOTHING in between. The actual “acclamation” is missing. When I asked my priest WHY the keyboardist / choir never sang it, though the substitute (an elderly man who is there FAR TOO SELDOM, IMO) always does it correctly, Father told me, “Well, I guess the choir isn’t capable of it.”

HELLO? Not capable of intoning ONE LINE OF MUSIC??
Or not WILLING to “upstage” Mr. Keyboard and his back-up group by asking someone–anyone!!–to sing one line that can’t be turned into a lounge-lizard number?

Sigh. Rant over.