Society of Saint Gregory

... in the real world, using any musical instrument to lead a body of people singing praise to God is a great gift and we are all blessed. And providing that the music and instrument are liturgically and aesthetically appropriate, the actual instrument used is a secondary consideration. But all the ...

Point has been well made - the amplification is at least as important as the instrument itself. As for the instruments, the difference between a very good analogue electronic and the most basic sampled instruments is bigger than any other. I can understand the concerns about the original Hammonds, w...

At prep school, I am told we all solemnly repeated the response introduced by the reader:

"His dysentry shall last for ever".

Fair enough. Just checking.

Not cringe making, but a fantastic opening rhetorical question for a hymn ("She" being the church):

Who is she that stands triumphant rock in strength upon the rock, like some city crowned with turrets braving storm and earthquake shock?

We sing the hymn "Holy Spirit Lord of Life" as the Pentecost sequence.

As for the item suggested above, it appears to still be in copyright - does the site where it's available from have permission to post it?

So we were practising the reproaches last night, the Christopher Walker version. Now, previously we have sung this unaccompanied, and once again we were dropping about a semitone per verse. How off limits would it be to use the achingly beautiful accompaniment? Is singing unaccompanied on Good Frida...

Similarly, I drop the incidental music. We sing the Mass parts in Latin. I do use the 4' and 2', but abstain from the mixtures.

At any second coming people in my parish will complain that they don't like change, and they want it the same as last year, even if they can't remember what happened last year. Am I the only one who misread that as "At the second coming people in my parish will complain that they don't like ch...

Am I alone in thinking that Christmas *starts* at the beginning of Midnight Mass? OK, so we are a small parish, and have no vigil mass, but I have no pressure for carol singing *before* midnight mass (at 8pm). I'll start the first carol when the bell rings (a change this year, I think, to "It c...

On Wilcox, they also published a 50 Carol version called "Carols for All" which has simpler arrangements, and is designed for assembly singing rather than choirs. I use my copy a lot. On balancing thick books, the ones I find a pain are the big Kevin Mayhew instrumental selections. I end u...

I've got it in one lump, but wouldn't recommend it - the two volume set stays open on the stand better.

The two together is called "100 Carols for Choirs" IIRC

I've been lurking in this thread since it started, but am going to chip in now. 1. The ad hominem attack in the original article is not only spiteful, it undermines the author's credibility. 2. The discussion of traditional versus contemporary liturgy has been wrongly correlated with bad versus good...

Can anyone recognise the translation? Have they retranslated it themselves?

We've got first communions, and the ordained uncle of one of the candidates is visiting and has chosen:

E: I the Lord ... here I am Lord
O: In Bread we Bring you Lord
C: to be decided
R: Gods Spirit is in my heart