Search found 254 matches

by dmu3tem
Mon Nov 17, 2008 4:03 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Reviving our music
Replies: 25
Views: 9221

Re: Reviving our music

The translations don't have anything to do with the conferences of bishops requesting permission to use them I am probably being very dim, but I do not understand this. For me - and any other composer/arranger - the key question is who holds the copyright. My understanding is that the same situatio...
by dmu3tem
Fri Nov 14, 2008 12:28 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Reviving our music
Replies: 25
Views: 9221

Re: Reviving our music

Here are some further remarks: Styles of music: I notice that some advocate the abandonment of 'popular' 'folk' styles - sometimes in favour of plainchant. I personally feel it is a case of 'horses for courses'. What may work in one parish might not succeed in another. Overrall, it may not be a case...
by dmu3tem
Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:49 am
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Reviving our music
Replies: 25
Views: 9221

Re: Reviving our music

Your problem certainly is not unique, and therefore I am sure you do yourself an injustice when you suggest it might be your fault. I myself face similar difficulties and I have seen the same phenomena elsewhere in different parts of the country. As you rightly say, there seem to be plenty of musici...
by dmu3tem
Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:47 am
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Antiphons and hymns
Replies: 15
Views: 7926

Re: Antiphons and hymns

Like others I have certainly experimented with substituting Entrance and Communion Antiphons for hymns. Whenever I have done so I have encountered two sets of problems. (1) Antiphon texts are very short. If you compose/arrange a direct setting of the text just as it stands the music is 'over before ...
by dmu3tem
Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:31 pm
Forum: Core Repertoire
Topic: Antiphons
Replies: 30
Views: 70107

Re: Antiphons

I have occasionally written Communion Antiphons and recently I have begun doing so again. The reasons for my doing so might be instructive, even if they go against current thinking. The key decider for me was the fact that the task of getting my choir to learn a new psalm every week was a real grind...
by dmu3tem
Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:25 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Vidi Aquam
Replies: 17
Views: 8383

Re: Vidi Aquam

Sorry, I only answered half the original question. There is a copy of Vidi Aquam in the collection held at the Talbot Library in Preston, along with other compositions by Joseph Smith. I have seen editions of his work in a number of old Northern Catholic collections ( e.g. St Augustine's, Preston; S...
by dmu3tem
Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:13 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Vidi Aquam
Replies: 17
Views: 8383

Re: Vidi Aquam

Joseph Smith was an Cecilian composer working in Ireland during the late C19th-early C20th. As a Cecilian he was influenced by plainchant (The Mechlin/Pustet variety - not Solesmes) and Renaissance Polyphony (Palestrina especially); but like some other Cecilian composers (His rival Joseph Seymour or...
by dmu3tem
Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:13 am
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: trying to make sense of GIRM
Replies: 14
Views: 4634

Re: trying to make sense of GIRM

Just an attempt to answer the first question: My understanding (and it may be flawed) is that eventually Responsorial Psalms should either be sung to plainchant or from an approved series of settings produced under the auspices of the Bishops. I heard at the Panel of Monastic Musicians (PMM) summer ...
by dmu3tem
Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:27 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Pipes versus digital
Replies: 94
Views: 31309

Re: Pipes versus digital

Here is something rather basic that I only recently worked out for myself. No doubt others have thought of it; but it does not seem to have been mentioned here so far. With a Pipe Organ you have no 'echo' control. All you can do is adjust your choice of registration and music to suit the acoustic of...
by dmu3tem
Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:49 am
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Not sure about all this 'traditionalism'.
Replies: 50
Views: 18619

Re: Not sure about all this 'traditionalism'.

I hope people will not mind if I just focus on the music associated with Latin and English texts of the Mass. I think it is a great pity that the English Catholic music world is in danger of splitting into two intransigent camps which are far two crudely presented as the 'Happy Clappy Folk Mass crow...
by dmu3tem
Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:06 am
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Damian Thompson is my friend
Replies: 12
Views: 5120

Re: Damian Thompson is my friend

Damian himself asked if SSG composers could write a fugue Yes, I have written at least 6 - four for organ, one for Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon, and one as extension from an incomplete movement of Mozart's requiem while I was at university about 9 years ago. Can anyone give me advice on how to inform...
by dmu3tem
Tue Sep 16, 2008 2:51 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Pipes versus digital
Replies: 94
Views: 31309

Re: Pipes versus digital

Responding to the claim that a digital Organ is not suitable for liturgical use, it is worth observing that their technology organs has (presumably) developed considerably over the 40 years since Vatican II. So would the same people today necessarily take the same line?


Thomas Muir
by dmu3tem
Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:55 pm
Forum: Sounds Off
Topic: Arranging Music for Music Group
Replies: 6
Views: 21722

Re: Arranging Music for Music Group

Have a look at the article I wrote in an earlier issue of Music and Liturgy (the one before last) about writing descants and obbligatos. Look also in the threads under 'Sounds Off', including my 'tips for composing and arranging' (or a title of similar nature) Come along to SSG composers group meeti...
by dmu3tem
Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:44 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: O faithful catholic, is this you?
Replies: 23
Views: 13339

Re: O faithful catholic, is this you?

'I am a faithful Catholic' appeared earlier in the Crown of Jesus Music. Hemy, the editor, supplied tunes by Mozart and Haydn to accompany it.

Thomas (Muir)
by dmu3tem
Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:46 pm
Forum: Liturgy Matters
Topic: Pipes versus digital
Replies: 94
Views: 31309

Re: Pipes versus digital

Picking up on the following quote: 'dmus3tem seems to be more concerned about the actual use of the instrument rather than the tonal qualities produced' All sounds, in themselves, are neutral. Once this proposition is recognised then various things follow: (1) Whether, in spite of this truism, we en...