www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Choir walk-out

Cizinec,

You need the approval and support of the priest/pastor. He is the one responsible for the spiritual life of the community and its liturgies, not the choir director or cantor (or choir).

The choir director should meet with the pastor to discuss these issues.

Joe

As Far As I Know

Joe,

The problem is private support, publicly silent or disapproving.

Prayers to the Houston community.

Joe

Both these choices assume division and discord. I still believe the Christian response would be to seek unity and concord.

Johan,

Happy SS. Peter & Paul Day!

Why would the priest give her these instructions and then not support her publicly? Why would he not educate the parish as to the changes? Why would he put a person in this position to begin with? I say if he doesn't have the guts to support his decision publicly then she should go back to doing whatever they did last week.

Why do we get so hung up on these petty things that we would actually not sing during a Liturgy where the focus is praising our Creator?

Sam

I am surprised that a choir director continues without congregational or clerical support. I used to attend an OCA parish under Bishop Tikhon. When congregational singing versus choir-led singing became an issue, the choir director eventually resigned for health reasons. The choir has chosen not to support congregational singing at a cantor's stand, and just worships in the pews instead. The congregational singing faction has struggled for a year now, to no avail, but will not give in. Doubtful progress has been made as a result, and pledges are also down.

There is a humorous saying: "There they go! I must hurry after them, for I am their leader." In the case under discussion on this thread, humility, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness are in order on all sides. The Holy Spirit will help the parish find a way out of this mess. All parties need to acknowledge the problem, and ask God for the Grace to discern a solution. Just my opinion.

On the surface, this appears like it might be a simple case of changing things too quickly. Over the past 25 years I have had the privilege of assisting many parishes in restoring both more traditional liturgical customs but also in restoring more of the �changeable� melodies. I have found that one must introduce such changes on a fairly slow basis and educate the congregation prior to introducing each change.

The reference by Cizinec about the verses to the Prokimny and the Alleluia offered above is a prime example. I have always recommended that this restoration be done over the course of several years. If a parish has not been taking the verses at all and has been singing only one Alleluia I usually recommend that they do the following:

-Year 1: Add the verses and change nothing else (keep singing the Prokimny and Alleluias according to the tones the parish has always known).

-Year 2: Introduce a second tone for the Alleluia for �ordinary� Sundays. Continue to sing the standard Alleluia on all feasts (this is usually Tone 4 Alleluia).

-Years 3-5: Continue to introduce additional tones for the Alleluia, but only after the congregation has fully learned the others and sing it well.

I normally recommend the introduction of the Alleluias in the following order (Tone 4 being the �default� and the one known in almost all of our parishes): Tone 8, Tone 6, Tone 1, Tone 5, Tone 7, Tone 3, Tone 2.

There are still a few parishes who sing all the proper texts but do not sing them according the proper tones (that is, they sing all texts to Troparion Tone 4 and no other tone). In these cases I recommend a process similar to the above.

For the few parishes that do not sing the Magnification & Irmos proper to the feast day I recommend introducing it first on the feast itself and then, after the people are accustomed to it and know the melodies well, adding it in on Sundays. Taking the Communion Hymns with the appropriate psalm verses is also implemented easier if they are introduced gradually over a year or two on feasts and slowly moving to Sundays.

Having said all this, it is very difficult to introduce new music if it is not printed and distributed to the people. I publish �Byzantine Worship Guides� for each Sunday and Feast Day that contain the music for the changeable texts in an easy to follow format. They are used in most of our parishes.

Cizinec, I would be most happy to work with your cantor/choir director. If there is interest on her part please have her contact me (or send me a private message and I will provide my phone number).

Admin,

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - the liturgical resources you publish are the single factor most responsible for improving the quality of congregational singing in our parishes. If you give people music, by golly they will try to sing it.

Sharon

Administrator,

I think you hit the nail on its head. I get goose bumps when I hear that any such massive changes will be "mandated." I hope this is not true. It will only get tossed aside in many cases like many other good programs filled with good intentions. Like restoring our temples to proper Byzantine worship, it takes education and time. Vatican II mandated a return to our venerable traditions and many of our parishes have not budged. It's only been forty year! (Which makes it hard to believe that Pittsburgh will serve as a leader).

But if it is true that our liturgy and music will be mandated during this coming Otpust, then we can only pray. The Otpust is no place to mandate such a thing. Are you aware of such a possible mandate?

Me thinks that some have not taken into consideration how some places of our church are light-years ahead of other places of our our Metropolia and that what needs to be mandaated for one group of folks (or Arch/eparchy) may already be old news for others elsewhere. Change based on the lowest common denominator may prove to be quite disturbing for those who have tackled these issues long ago and have moved on since. One only has to study the Metropolia's 75th Anniversay book to see what I mean. A picture is worth a thousan words on how mandates, instructions, and promulgations work.

Changes to our Paschal season in our eparchy were issued (at the last minute with no date stamp, cover letter with explanation or who it was from) a few years back and the mandate approved by the bishop was quickly tossed aside. No matter if it was correct or not, it was not properly sold to the people, especially to the cantors who had to use it and the pastors who had to implement it.

I agree with Sharon about your music handouts. They have been a 'primer' in the restoration of our chant. Now, people expect them. But it takes time, patience and instruction ... and an open mind and heart.

Joe Thur

Our cantor did develop a plan similar to the one discussed.

One of the parshioner/choir members met with our priest when he heard the choir was going to be opened to everyone and the music was going to be distributed to the congregation. Behind closed doors, the priest agreed to keep the music out of the hands of the people. The cantor found out when she showed up for church and the information wasn't in the bulletin.

This week was the feastday of Sts. Peter and Paul. I believe that is why she sang the Psalm. She printed the text (at least that hadn't been forbidden) and put it in the front. Only a few parishioners picked it up. Only one or two of us sang the alleluia response.

Cizinec,

How many years ago did your parish start to implement these changes? The introduction of the verses to the Prokimeny and the Alleluia would be enough for a single year. I would never have attempted to accomplish that and singing the Alleluia in the 8 tones all at the same time (that should be a five year project). As I noted above, if these were both done at the same time the response of the choir and congregation should not be unexpected. If these were introduced at the same time as the verses to the communion hymns were added then such a response is almost guaranteed.

There are probably other factors at work here. I find it odd that any priest would actively work to keep music from the people. I recommend that the cantor/choir director meet with the priest to discuss the situation. If the pastor does not support the reintroduction of the verses for the Prokimny and the Alleluia, the verses for the Communion Hymns and etc., then the cantor/choir director must accede to his wishes.

Again, if I can help in any way please contact me (or have your pastor and/or cantor/choir director contact me).

Admin

We have a wonderful old world cantor in our parish who does not read music. For quite a while the Guides from our Administrator were only used partially, depending on what the cantor knew by heart. I offered to assist the cantor under condition that we implement full use of the Guide. He agreed. When he is unfamiliar with a given tropar, etc. we review it prior to the service, then use the leaflet as printed.

Prior to implementation we did only one Prokeimenon, one Alleluia, and no substitutes for "It is Truly Proper" except during Pascha season. Now we do them all, because we have copies available for the congregation to follow, and sometimes rehearse new items prior to Liturgy, depending on how complicated the service is to be.

There are also hymns in the back of the Liturgy book which hadn't been used, because there weren't musical settings available, or the cantor didn't know them. That, too, is changing. I located most of the settings thanks to local cradle Byzantines, and we are slowly introducing these as well. We have decided to introduce only 1 new entrance hymn per month where we don't have music printed for everyone. The cantors do several new communion hymns, but they are numbered in our weekly parish bulletin.

The changes can only go so far, of course. Rote learning takes a while, but when we have printed music we can try more new things more easily. So far, we have not had to drop back to the old method as a result of resistance. Everyone, young and old, seems to be happy with the progress.

I pray to St. Romanus the Melodist to ask Grace for this ministry to continue to grow unabated. Thank you, Administrator, for making most of it possible by publishing your Guides.

The best complaint I got from the congregation was "Why don't we get more music?" These started to increase in number after spending a few years using the Administrator's music handouts for the propers and the introduction of the Presanctified Liturgy book with all the music in it.

People DO want to sing. They don't want to sing the same-old same-old all the time. Those who developed our chant system had a cure for monotony. My only guess why anyone would want to sing only the same-old same-old is not only fear of change, but the comfort one gets when one has things under their control. It has nothing to do with the overall benefit of the community, but the box people put themselves in not to be disturbed. People are creatures of habit, and some habits are very small in scope.

The Administrator (and others who have cantored in the trenches) would postulate that massive changes enacted in a short period of time can prove to be destructive, not instructive. We took forty years to forget most of our liturgical tradition and chant; it will take a few more to get it back to proper working order.

I wonder: What was the response when all these liturgical services and chant was taken away from us? Any comments?

Joe