The Sacred Music Coach » colloquium

Gearing up for a great year!

Carl — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:59:09 +0000

This past week I’ve been preparing for our new chant year – practices begin on August 22nd, and our first Mass is September 19th. As before, I was able to have a 1-on-1 discussion with almost every member of our schola, and got some great feedback and ideas about what challenges we should take on as a group.

But I’m definitely stretching in some new directions. Based on some wonderful experiences of singing falsobordone psalms at the Colloquium in June, I decided to give it a shot. The problem is that we need to start off simple, with three part STB harmonies adjusted to the capabilities of this group.

Which means I’d have to compose something. Not exactly my strong suit – to this point I’ve merely done Alleluia verses and the occasional Responsorial Psalm.

So I started off with Tu Mandasti, the appointed Communio for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time. First task was to simplify the antiphon a bit, because we still struggle with long melismatic passages. Now to tackle the verses.

Understand that my musical background consists of about 10 years of piano when I was a kid (my mother was a piano teacher), playing French Horn through High School, and singing for about the last 12 years or so. This means that my ability to put together harmonies is a lot more based on what sounds good to me than of any kind of real education. I can sing decent harmonies, mind you, but it’s a different matter to try to write it down. It doesn’t help that my ability to play more than one note on the piano is, well, limited. You might say pitiful.

But harder still was to do chant harmonies. I’m a relative newbie to this chant business, and we’ve done everything unison and a capella. I haven’t had to worry about harmony, and am in great awe of people at the Colloquium who can just devise it on the fly.

What I’ve ended up with is the simplest possible melody, mode V, with straightforward harmony. I haven’t yet made the practice recordings, so there’s going to be some chance that I’ll have to rework it. And of course recording a 3-part harmony will be a challenge with just my own baritone voice, but I think I worked out a reasonable compromise when we did a 2-part Adoramus Te Christe a couple of years ago.

Wish me luck. This is new territory for us.

Video from the Pittsburgh Colloquium!

Carl — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:11:17 +0000

CMAA Colloquium XX 2010 from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

In addition, the audio recordings are all available on http://music.dierschow.com/2010Colloquium.

Our music is a tabernacle

Carl — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 21:30:41 +0000

At the Colloquium last week, one of the priests mentioned the relationship between sacred music and worship in his homily. He said something which was quite interesting, that I’ll attempt to paraphrase as best I can:

“Our music is the tabernacle, the means of delivery of the Word to the faithful.”

This is a fascinating idea, that the word of God is conveyed through readings, through ritual, and especially through sacred music because it reaches so deeply. And when people hear the word, they receive the Word.

It’s hard to get my mind around, but it strikes me as truth. Our music isn’t about feeling good about ourselves and how “well” we are worshiping. It’s about giving another means for each of us to receive the blessed Word, the ultimate gift, from our maker.

I’d be interested to hear what thoughts this sparks for you!

Revitalize!

Carl — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:04:22 +0000

I’m really enjoying God’s gift of yearly cycles. During the summer, especially, is my time to refresh, re-energize, and re-commit. This is possible because so many things slow down during this season as people focus on vacations and family.

Sometimes the summer “break” feels a little weird because our kids are grown up and I’m running my own business, but that’s a topic for another day.

For the last three years, I’ve gone to the Sacred Music Colloquium. It’s totally consuming and draining, but my spirit is renewed for the coming year. I’ve been able to work with so many deeply talented and spiritual people, and have ideas I can take back to my parish.

It’s also a time to connect with each member of our Schola one on one, to see how things are going for them. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to call this week, though, as most people were out in connection with the upcoming holiday. That’s OK – we’ll connect over the course of the coming month.

I’ll be looking at doing another parish chant workshop this year, as that was so well received last summer and helped double the size of our schola. I’ve got some wonderful ideas to work with that came from the instructors and attendees at the Colloquium.

It’s also a time of reflection and planning for our upcoming RCIA year. I’m excited that we’re going to take a day to focus on this next week, to see what needs to be adjusted. We’ve been doing this during the summer for many years, and it’s always a great exercise to get the RCIA team aligned and focused on the most important thing: Bringing people to God.

What could be more important?

3:00 AM?

Carl — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:59:58 +0000

Yesterday was a challenge!

Up at 3:00AM, to drive to Denver, grab a flight. Then hang around in Milwaukee for 4 hours, and finally on to Pittsburgh. OK, that’s enough whining.

Meeting up with all my great Colloquium buddies was wonderful, as expected. I started out tired, but when we got to singing … heaven! It’s just such a wonderful experience to be immersed with a bunch of great people who are all passionate about bringing back this heritage of music.

Today we did the simplest Mass, English Ordinary Form. That’s mostly just for practical reasons – there’s not enough time to practice anything very hard. We did the Richard Rice ordinaries, which is the first time I’ve heard them done for real. Quite excellent, in my opinion.

I don’t know that I’ll be able to put up as many posts this week as I’d like, since I don’t have network access on my own PC. But rest assured that the recordings are coming! For a teaser of the program, go to http://music.dierschow.com/2010Colloquium.

Refresh and renew

Carl — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:18:31 +0000

Colorado's state flower

Summer is my time to reflect and renew my commitments for the coming year. I talked about this some last June, when I was struggling with whether our schola would achieve critical mass. Looking back on the progress, we now have grown to a dozen loyal and talented members, now including women as well as men.

We really are quite blessed. Despite challenges and frustrations, it’s wonderful to be bringing this traditional music back to our parish.

As I head to the 2010 Sacred Music Colloquium, it’s a great opportunity to build my own energy and bring new ideas back to the schola. As in past years, I’ll meet with each member individually when I return. The purpose of this is to help give voice to people’s celebrations and concerns in a confidential setting, which helps me to lead us in a direction that most people can get excited about. It also helps each individual to test and rebuild their own personal commitment.

I’m thinking that I might repeat the workshop I gave last August, since that was so successful in bringing in new members. It sure changed the energy of the group, and has been a real gift to me as well.

But first – first! – off to Pittsburg for a week of joyful learning and singing!

Anybody want Colloquium recordings?

Carl — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:30:32 +0000

If you want the audio recordings from the 2008 or 2009 Sacred Music Colloquiums in Chicago, drop me an email. They’re available on the website at music.dierschow.com/2008Colloquium and music.dierschow.com/2009Colloquium, but the recordings are pretty huge if you want to download ALL of them.

I’ll also be making recordings next week of Colloquium XX in Pittsburg, so let me know if you would like to get a copy of that.

I’ve made a number of data CDs of these recently, including a couple that I’m taking to Pittsburg. These are DATA CDs – just a number of ZIP files – because the audio CD versions would take at least a dozen discs.

So drop me an e-mail if you’re interested!

And the new chant year begins!

Carl — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:44:36 +0000

It’s exciting, we’re starting up our new year of chant for the parish.

First, our practice is on Sunday morning. I’m following much the same pattern that we did last year: Ordinaries out of Breaking Bread, a couple of English hymns, a couple of Latin hymns, and the schola doing a piece before Mass. I created the Alleluia based on the words out of the Gregorian Missal, and I took the Responsorial Psalm from Chabanel (it didn’t mention who composed the piece). This is for the Mass we’re doing on September 20th.

Second, I have the parish-wide Introduction to Gregorian Chant workshop set up for next Thursday, and started to think through how to organize the 2 hours. I want to keep it light and fun, so I’m not going to delve too much into fine points and theory. Who knows – maybe we’ll get some additional schola members out of this – maybe even some women! That would be fantastic.

I have no clue how many people might show up for this. Could be 5, could be 50. Yikes!

Third, we’re still progressing on the discussions around the 3-parish combination of choirs. I have another meeting about that next Wednesday. It looks like we might be doing a Mass in November, and Immaculate Conception on December 8th. More news to come!

Oh, and it was wonderful to see the CMAA Forum discussion around next year’s Colloquium XX, also known as “Colloquium Dos Equis”. I’d better start saving my pennies, and hope I have a job to pay for this! (For more on the saga of my job situation)

Colloquium audio recordings are final

Carl — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:05:53 +0000

Just a quck update to let you all know that the audio recordings that I captured from the Sacred Music Colloquium are all up and online – whew! This is truly wonderful and uplifting music, it’s hard to know where to start.

Here’s the link to the list of recordings.

Oh, how amazing!

Carl — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:39:52 +0000

The Colloquium came to a magnificent and emotional close today with a Mass of almost two hours. Everybody sang, and it was truly wonderful.

If you’re interested, follow along in the music packet distributed online starting on PDF page 181 (ignore the page numbers printed on the page itself) or in the paper copy starting on page 195. This was a Mass in the Ordinary Form, in Latin. Father Scott Haynes of St John Cantius parish in Chicago was the presider – he did a number of Masses during the week.

We started with the Introit of the thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Omnes Gentes Plaudite. The Kyrie and Gloria were polyphony pieces from William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, along with the rest of the Ordinary. After the Old Testament Reading was the day’s Gradual, Exaltabo te, Domine. The Alleluia chant was the same text as the Introit, Omnes gentes plaudite, meaning “All nations, clap your hands; shout unto God with a voice of joy.”

The Offertory chant was Sicut in holocausto from Daniel: “As a holocaust … let our sacrifice be in your sight on this day.” Then came a lively two-choir SATB piece, Duo Seraphim, which had a challenging Bass 1 part because only two of us were singing it – trying to balance with about 35 other singers.

The Communion chant came from Psalm 30, Inclina aurem tuam: “Bow down thy ear, make haste to deliver us.” Also at communion was a beautiful Byrd Ave Verum Corpus, followed by a Victoria Laetatus Sum. Before the final Benediction the entire Colloquium – some 240 people – sang that wonderful Ave Maris Stella, and it was as stunning as I expected. I’ll be working this afternoon on processing all these recordings and getting them posted on the website.

After Mass we had a brunch, and I handed out the remainder of the CDs I made of the Thursday Holy Hour service. It was great to surprise people with copies fresh off my computer. And of course it was sad to say goodbye to everyone, especially Jeffrey, the directors I worked with this year, and the other singers I was with. And my roommate as well.

I finally made it to Arizona and had a nice dinner with my wife and daughter, it’s wonderful to kick back and relax. 110 degrees, but air conditioning fixes all.

Tomorrow after sleeping in, I hope to spend time getting the recordings processed and posted on the server. But no energy for that tonight, my brain’s fried.

Way too much to think about. I had some real interesting thoughts about my future career in combining coaching with sacred music … more to come later, I hope!