Society of Saint Gregory

My congregation and choir are even smaller than Nick's and the instrumental resources vary from time to time anyway. So each week I have to take resources into account when planning the music. If it happens there are no musicians then hymns and parts of the Mass are sung unaccompanied and if there i...

Yes, Thomas' proposal is a good one but it should not discourage budding composers from attending meetings of the Composers' Group, where (as Dot pointed out) all styles and abilities* are welcomed and given equal status. It would also give them the opportunity to make contact with other composers w...

Our former PP used to write the intentions himself and include them in the printed service sheet given out to the congregation. At one time it was suggested it was better not to include them but give them to the reader only, but when we tried this there were protests from people who found them usefu...

... what happens during the last hymn when the priest and servers start to leave the sanctuary? Yep, down go the hymn books and the faithful start to follow. This may be an issue which could be taken up with clergy. My PP leaves as soon as the closing hymn starts, so that he's at the door ready to ...

... the original post brings back memories of how things were before Vatican II when the only real place for laity (in my opinion, I was only a child so could be wrong) was kneeling in the pews, sitting whilst the detached choir sang and putting money in the collection tray. We turned up for all th...

A few years ago, before the vigil Mass, the guitarist and I were running through a new Gloria that we were introducing that evening. The guitarist was playing (an acoustic instrument) and I was singing, in an otherwise empty church apart from two early arrivals for Mass, who were sitting in the body...

In view of Gwyn's stated reason for his request, I hope it's not OT to point out that hymns 372 (optional inserted verse for 29 June), 379 and 380 all feature both saints in equal measure.

This is another contender for the thread Hymn book BearTraps - maybe it should be moved there? To complicate matters, whereas Laudate 610 and CFE 678 both have the rest in the middle of the verse and an odd 2/4 bar at the beginning of the verse to compensate, HON 511 has a minim rest at the start of...

I've never been sure what relevance "Morning has broken like the first morning, blackbird has spoken like the first bird" has to anything. (I'm not all that keen on the tune either, but as the thread title is "Words we don't quite get" perhaps that's off-topic!)

Much of what you've listed there Oops is not covered by Calamus so I hope that whoever has prepared the sheet is merely refering to a number in a hymnbook. ... or that your church has a Church Copyright Licence (CCL) from Christian Copyright Licensing Europe (CCLE), which covers quite a lot (I have...

On another thread... This is off topic.. send for the Moderator(s). I have misgivings about the whole, participation for children is doing the readings, which our primary school and others seem to think is the way to go. It puts a lot of pressure on children, sometimes very little children and is a ...

How many more CG works are being breathed into liturgical life? It would be nice to know. This is something I've often thought as well: though it's good to get feedback at a CG meeting it would also be good to hear whether pieces are being used elsewhere and if so how well they work. I'll offer a c...

There are several instances where the drive to get to the chanting note on the second syllable makes word stresses, well, different. Page 5 for instance, the preface will start "It IS truly..." rather than a more natural (to me) "It is TRU ly" Similarly in the sign of the cross,...

Christian Copyright Licensing International offer a licence to record music - in fact their Church Copyright Licence (CCL) may be sufficient for what you want, provided you use the repertoire it covers, typically Kevin Mayhew, Graham Kendrick and John Glynn as well as more traditional hymns owned by...

I am on dangerous ground here as I wasn't at Summer School and haven't really thought about this, but I find it difficult to take large numbers of 'one song to the tune of another' type stuff, as with the version of HON I saw in one parish that has a hymn for every Sunday, all by the same writer, a...