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Music Ministry Newsletter
A resource for all serving in parish music ministry

February 2014
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Greetings!

What better thing to think about when the snow piles higher than your head than the month of July? In addition to the (eventual) disappearance of said snow piles, July brings the annual National Convention. This year's NPM National Convention will be held July 14-18 in St. Louis, MO.

The local committee in St. Louis has been hard at work putting together a time for learning and fellowship that focuses on our call to proclaim Good News to all and will feature addresses by Jerry Galipeau, Paul Westermeyer, Ann Garrido, Honora Werner, and Msg Ray East.

If you're planning on attending the Convention, please let us know. Just reply to this email. In future issues, we'll provide a place for those who may be looking to share a ride or a hotel room to make attending more feasible.

In the meantime, stay warm! (And make plans to attend next week's Christopher Walker event -- it promises to be a great time of reflection and learning!)

Mary Harwood
Editor
St. Paul the Apostle, Grand Rapids
From Our Chapter Director...           

 

What to do?

 

I am writing on a Monday morning. Yesterday, we had four basses, six tenors, five altos, and NO sopranos! We had appropriately scheduled the choir to sing Sr. Suzanne Toolan's The Call, "Two fishermen who lived along the Sea of Galilee." So we improvised. We gave the melody to the tenors while the altos and basses sang their own parts. It worked!

 

My point is that this weather has been playing havoc with our choir schedules. We've cancelled two rehearsals so far this season, and I couldn't get out of my driveway two Sundays ago.

 

Don't ever accept defeat. It's a time to become creative. Don't allow frustration to rule the day. When the situation makes it impossible to sing the scheduled music, improvise. Explore the hymnal to find a nice and appropriate hymn that is unfamiliar to the assembly, and sing it as a unison choir anthem. Most of the folks don't know musical complexity, they only know beauty -- it either sounds good or it doesn't.

 

Be creative. Sing individual stanzas as solo, men only, women only, (or left side, right side) then all -- follow the character of the text. Music theory tells us that the melody and bass define the structure of a piece, and often these lines are enough to produce a satisfying two-part texture (you can even add altos to the bass part, in their own range, of course.)

 

Finally, chant is beautiful. It is the only music in the history of western civilization that uniquely belongs to the church. Learn some of the classic chant hymns found in most hymnals, and render a worthy rendition with whatever collection of voices assembles on a particular day. Perhaps at your next rehearsal it would be a good idea to prepare a couple of easily performable pieces for just this situation. 

 

Bob Batastini
Chapter Director
ChrisChristopher Walker Event

The Catholic Information Center, St. Luke's University Parish and the Cathedral of St. Andrew are bringing Chris Walker to town February 13-15.

Chris will offer a variety of events over his three day stay including a night for cantors, a morning event for catechists and musicians who work with children, an afternoon "senior ministers" mini-retreat, and a daylong music minister retreat.

Click here for complete details.

To pre-register, call (616) 895-7267 or (616) 895-2247 or email [email protected]
Need to renew your membership?

 

Good news! Our membership year has just changed from its July through June fiscal year, to a rotating system. In whatever month you join the chapter, your membership will renew in that same month each year. Join in February 2014, your renewal is due in February 2015. And, we'll send you a reminder. So get on board the 100% parish train today!

 

If you are a 100% parish, you don't need to fill out new forms each year. Simply send us updates as they occur -- any time of the year.

Mentoring Program

Your NPM Chapter is proud to announce the implementation of a

 

One-on-One

Mentoring Program

 

Parish musicians...

  • Are you new at your job?
  • Are you trained in another area of music, but have no church music experience?
  • Are you an experienced church musician who has never before served in a     Catholic parish?
  • Are you simply struggling with certain issues related to your job?

Friendly, competent, help is at hand. Read more

Beyond Songs: Singing the Liturgy

By Paul Ford

 

Don't just sing at Mass; sing the Mass! This is one of the hallmarks of the reform of the liturgy. To sing a new song to the Lord, we need to relearn the basic language of the liturgy-the psalms and the canticles. We need to relearn the basic style of the liturgy, which is call and response. And the basic sound of the liturgy: It's essentially vocal, essentially modal, basically syllabic sound.

  

But I thought it might be helpful for us to review for a minute why we sing at all. We sing because God sings (Zephaniah 3:17). We sing because Christ sings (Mark 14:26; Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 83)-he's singing right now, and he introduced into this silent planet the song of heaven, which we join every time we raise our voices to sing "Holy, holy, holy." We sing because the stars sing. You remember God's voice in Job, describing creation "when the morning stars sang together and all the divine beings shouted for joy" (Job 38:7). (And if you do-since you do-all seven readings at the Easter Vigil, you are very familiar with Baruch, with all the stars "shining and rejoicing" together.) We sing because the angels and the saints sing: The Book of Revelation is full of their songs. We sing because lovers sing.

  

We sing because exiles and prisoners sing. Many of us have had the experience of the opera Dialogues of the Carmelites by Fran�ois Poulenc. In its extraordinary last act, when the nuns of Compi�gne are taken up to the scaffold, as they ascend the stairs, they sing the Salve Regina. And then comes the plunging sound of the guillotine, as each one is beheaded, until there is no one left to sing the song . . . until a young veiled novice, Blanche, from the crowd completes the Salve and walks up the scaffold to die with her sisters. And we all know the story of the scrawny priest Maximilian Kolbe in Auschwitz, who gave his life for another prisoner by going into the hunger bunker. There he reminded the other prisoners to sing once more the songs that they learned in Kindergarten, that had been with them all their lives. He had to be finished off with an injection of carbolic acid.


We sing ultimately because everything sings (Psalm 150:6; Daniel 3:52-90). But what does music do? My dear friend Paul Inwood reminds us that music makes texts special. It unifies (more or less) as to pitch and pace. It heightens the meaning of a text (or it may obscure it). It slows us down, ever so slightly. And its most important function is to create the conditions in which God can speak to us, and we can listen. Because it's not the music that's important but what follows the final note. 


Click here to read more.

This article � 2011 National Association of Pastoral Musicians. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

From the Office of Liturgical Music 
 

Beginning in October 2014, the Diocese of Grand Rapids will adopt Misa Luna, written by Peter Kolar, as a new setting of the Ordinary of the Mass to be used at Diocesan celebrations such as Confirmations, Chrism Mass and Ordinations. Misa Luna will be added to the core Mass setting list, in addition to Mass of the Resurrection, which has served us since the implementation of the Roman Missal, third edition in 2011.

 

Misa Luna has been adopted by many dioceses throughout the United States who, like us, seek to enable all members of the assembly to full, active and conscious participation in the liturgy, regardless of language. With its accessible melodies easily learned by English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, or bilingual assemblies, this Mass setting enables communities to worship together with dignity. Misa Luna is rooted in classical music, with lively Baroque-style counterpoint, but spoken in a modern musical language appropriate for multicultural worship. It is a highly versatile setting, which will allows for cantor and/or choir and a variety of accompaniments including piano, guitar, organ and brass. Finally, Misa Luna can be sung in all English, all Spanish or bilingually, depending on the needs of your community.

 

The title of the Mass setting is a homage to Spanish priest and composer Alfonso Luna-Sanchez, who was the inspiration behind the work.

 

Misa Luna is published by World Library Publications. It is available in a guitar/vocal score and a  keyboard/vocal edition. Mass assembly cards are also available from the publisher. Lastly, instrumental parts for woodwinds and brass and cds are also available. (Selections can be shipped or are available for print-on-demand.) To order, call World Library Publications at 1-800-566-6150 or click here to order online.

  
Dennis Rybicki
Director of Liturgical Music
StL: Participation

 

13. The quality of our participation in...sung praise comes less from our vocal ability than from the desire of our hearts to sing together of our love for God. Participation in the Sacred Liturgy both expresses and strengthens the faith that is in us.

14. Our participation in the liturgy is challenging. Sometimes, our voices do not correspond to the convictions of our hearts. At other times, we are distracted or preoccupied by the cares of the world. Christ always invites us, however, to enter into song, to rise above our own preoccupations, and to give our entire selves to the hymn of his Paschal Sacrifice.

 

*This is part of an ongoing series addressing specific topics by drawing excerpts from Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship, approved and issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2007. The full text of the document can be found here.
Prayer List

Karen Smith, Cathedral of St. Andrew

Is there someone in your music ministry who we should lift in prayer?  Please send the person's name and parish to Mary Harwood.  Names will be listed for one month unless otherwise specified.
Upcoming Events
  • February 10: Prayer of Peace
    • Ecumenical sung prayer in the style of Taize
    • 7:30 p.m. | second Monday of each month
    • St. Mary's Church, Grand Rapids                          [map]
    • Singers and instrumentalists are welcome to participate, please contact Larry Barton for info                 
Save the Date! 
  • April 4: Dr. Steve Janco and General Chapter Meeting
    • General Chapter Meeting (all voting members encouraged to attend)
    • Soup and bread supper
    • Stimulating talk by Dr. Steve Janco
    • Lenten Night Prayer
  • April 23: Annual Chapter Banquet
    • Holiday Inn, Downtown Grand Rapids
    • Socializing, food, drink and entertainment!
  • May 15 : Hymn Festival
    • Cathedral of St. Andrew
    • Nicholas Palmer, organist

It's never too soon to mark your calendar for the NPM National Convention in Grand Rapids MI -- July 6-10, 2015!

Community Concert Calendar
  • February 23 @ 3 p.m.
    • A Winter Experience -- Aquinas College performing ensembles
    • Kretschmer Auditorium, Aquinas College
  • March 2 @ 3 p.m.
    • Aquinas College Chorus, Women's Chorus and Hope College Chapel Choir
    • Trinity Lutheran Church, Grand Rapids
Coda: Quote of the Month

"For a stalk to grow or a flower to open there must be time that cannot be forced; nine months must go by for the birth of a human child; to write a book or compose music often years must be dedicated to patient research. To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence, waiting"

You are receiving this email as a benefit of your membership in your parish music ministry. 
 The Grand Rapids Chapter of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians exists to support all music ministers as they seek to utilize their art to enhance worship and prayer throughout the Diocese of Grand Rapids.  Questions, comments, concerns?  Let us know!
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Copyright � February 2014. All Rights Reserved.