Improving the Music – Part 1

How can you turn your excitement for authentic sacred music into a workable plan for your parish?

by Mary Jane Ballou

This article is reprinted from Sacred Music Journal, Volume 146, Number 3 [Fall 2019] page 38, with the permission of Managing Editor, Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka. Membership informtaion here.

Part One:
Music Director and Pastor

Inspiration has struck! Perhaps you went to the Summer Colloquium or another of the excellent summer conferences on sacred music. You are the director of a medium-sized choir in a medium-sized church where the Masses are celebrated in the Ordinary Form. And now you're on fire with plans for "real sacred music" and "true liturgical expression." You have visions of sung propers and the congregation chanting their parts of the Ordinary of the Mass. You can still smell the incense, and the magnificent organ improvisations still echo in your memory.

In fact, your pastor sent you to the conference after murmuring something about "improving the music." You are ready! Indeed, you may be ready, but is anyone else? The pastor, the choir, the congregation? It is time for some reality checking before you rush forward.

First, evaluate the current state of music in your parish.

1. Where are you on the spectrum of Catholic hymnody? All new ballad or bouncy hymns? A mix of ballad style with some traditional hymns, such as "Shepherd of Souls" and "Come, Holy Ghost"? Dignified with an occasional accompanied chant hymn?


2. Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei? Are these ever chanted in English or Latin? How about during Advent or Lent? ICEL chants? Is your Gloria through-sung or does it have a repeated refrain? Are you still troping the "Lamb of God"?


3. What is your parish's style for the responsorial psalm? Psalmist at the ambo? Choral verses by the choir?


4. Does your choir sing any anthems or motets on Sundays? During the offertory or distribution of Holy Communion? The pre-Midnight Mass carol singing is a separate issue.


5. Do you use hymnals? If so, which and what edition? What's available in your hymnal for Mass settings, breadth of choice? The same questions apply if your parish uses a subscription missal.


6. What type of music is in the filing cabinet? Elderly unused photocopies of single octavos? Anything useful?


7. Are you adhering to copyright laws? Do you have a budget for the music program other than your remuneration?


8. Do you have an organ, a keyboard, a piano? What condition are the instruments in and who plays them? When are they used? Are there preludes and postludes?


9. Other instruments? Is there a folk Mass in your parish? If there's a rain stick, please put it away.


10. Do the celebrants ever intone any part of the Mass? The closing of the canon doesn't count, since every priest seems able to sing that.


11. Lastly, do your own musical skills need improving? How knowledgeable are you about chant in English or Latin? Can you teach inexperienced singers the basics of neumatic notation? Are you able to explain the history of the propers and hymnody?

Doing this evaluation will let you see where you are right now. Consider this to be the start of a journey. Assessing your current resources, repertoire, and skill levels is your base for mapping a strategy of improvement. You will go nowhere without a strategy. While plans may need to be amended as you progress, you must think this through now and write it down. Here are some basic suggestions.

Adopt the system of priorities used by debt-repayment counselors: pick something small and start there. Perhaps you could begin to shift the choice of hymns. If your parish is used to four hymns per Mass, make the change at the point with the least participation. Narrow down to a set of only four or five reverent hymns at Communion time. Slow and steady wins the race. Again, write your plan down.

What about the propers? Start with the introit sung before the entrance hymn or the communion antiphon before the hymn at that point in the liturgy. In most circumstances, it is better to start in the vernacular than Latin. There are now numerous English chant settings that range from very simple to complex. Do not attempt to toss hymns out the window unless you want a very stern talking-to from the pastor. His voicemail will have filled with outraged calls from choir members and parishioners. Just add a simple proper prior to the hymn. It won't add much time to the liturgy or set off too many alarms with the self-appointed liturgists in the parish.

Again, have a strategy that is thought through in terms of timing and allies. Are you going to attempt change at all the weekend Masses or just one of them? What about Christmas and Easter? How are you going to introduce your new ideas. Assessing your current resources, repertoire, and skill levels is your base for mapping a strategy of improvement to the choir. Are there singers who would be allies without setting off a civil war in the choir loft? Are there churches in your vicinity that are working in a similar direction? The questions can go on and on. In fact, doing a thoughtful analysis of the current condition of music in your parish and a serious plan for future development could take you several months. Considering all these questions can be discouraging. Let it be challenging instead.

Now you are ready to talk to the pastor. His understanding and cooperation are essential. Bluntly stated, the pastor is the king of the parish. Without his support, you can do nothing. Perhaps he seems indifferent to the music. That indifference will end when he must deal with disgruntled parishioners or choir members.

Consequently, it is your responsibility as the music director to do everything possible to obtain not only the pastor's consent to any changes, but his positive support. This is where your analysis and your clearly written strategy come into play. Do not hand the pastor a twenty-page document; he is a busy man and he will not have time to read it. Did the pastor say he wanted "to improve the music"? What exactly did he mean by that? Better congregational singing? More members in the choir? Different choices of music? A children's choir? A nine-foot grand piano? You need to clarify his meaning of "improvement" before you jump in with your ideas and plans. Otherwise you might find yourselves talking at cross-purposes. If you and he are on the same page, as they say, you can then explain your plans and a timeline for implementing them. You need to do this without musical or liturgical jargon. You must never sound condescending or a smart "know-it-all."

Let the pastor know that this is a long-term project and that you will do everything possible to make the changes easy for the cantors, choir, and congregation. Pastors, like all bosses, have a great deal to cope with. Liturgy is a vital part of it. However, there are also staff issues, building maintenance, directives flowing from the chancery, fundraising and accounting, and so on. Many large parishes are virtually the equivalent of small nonprofit organizations. Do not overwhelm the more tentative pastor with all your ideas.

Does the pastor speak, intone, or a mixture of both for his parts of the liturgy? What about the deacon? In some churches I have attended you never know what you will hear next or when. Chanting by the clergy is a delicate subject. Many priests and deacons are very insecure about their voices. Add to that natural insecurity a confusion about what is sung, and you have a recipe for "No thanks, you and the choir and the congregation sing. I have more than enough to worry about in the sanctuary." If that's where the matter stands, leave it alone for the time being. What you want and need at the beginning is support. Making the clergy feel pressured about their own vocal role in the liturgy is a very bad idea. Many priests had minimal training in liturgy at the seminary. They may resent the implication that their celebration of the Mass is inferior. If the pastor is interested, there are resources and training available and you can offer to help.

Always remember that the pastor is the individual ultimately responsible for the celebration of the liturgy in his parish. Be careful not to overstep your position.

If the pastor is amenable to some of your ideas, then you should map out a timeline. Advent or Lent is the best time to implement changes. Congregations expect things to shift at that time of the year. If you are going to implement a new Ordinary of the Mass, a brief announcement by the pastor during his homily the week before, as well as mention in his bulletin column, can smooth your way. This is his job. No one wants to listen to the music director talk at the end of Mass; they want to leave.

As time goes on, you can add to your changes. Mostly importantly, nothing you do should lengthen the ceremony. Singing the introit as a prelude before the entrance hymn works. Similarly, the communion antiphon before the hymn at Communion time can fit in painlessly. What if people complain? That is a subject for Part Two of this article, so stay tuned.

Let us now suppose that the pastor is resistant and states that he likes things just the way they are now. Do you go away sorrowing? If the situation is unbearable, freshen up your resumé and begin the search for a new position. However, why not think of some workarounds?

Firstly, review your meeting with the pastor. Maybe you cannot do everything you want, but you can still do something. Start with the hymns at Mass and begin slowly to phase in better hymns and eliminate some of the over-bouncy or ballad-style works of the 1980's and 1990's. The key word in the preceding sentence is "slowly" or as we say in Latin, festina lente — make haste slowly. A better Gloria is also possible. Most people do not sing this, relying on the choir to handle it. Again Part Two will consider your work with the choir and congregation to facilitate musical improvement while minimizing ruffled feathers.

What about your hymnals and missalettes? Find out what the parish spends on disposable materials each year, number of copies, daily or weekly readings. Then do some low-key research on replacement with better options. Your research should be cautious because the pastor will not be interested in a call from a publisher's representative, alleging your interest in new books. You will appear to have overstepped your position. Not good.

The last three paragraphs sound like "Debbie Downer." However, this author has seen too many broken hearts in the church music world. With the pastor, the rule is "do what you can, when you can." Sometimes you can do more than you thought you could. While "fortune favors the brave," just remember that "the better part of discretion is valor."

Article date: Fall 2019

Mary Jane Ballou is Music Director at an Ordinariate parish in formation in Jacksonville, Florida.

Copyright © 2019 by Church Music Association of America
Reprinted by permission of copyright owner.