Sacred Music Coach » schola

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.

The servant leader

Carl — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:45:03 +0000

You might have heard the notion of leader as servant. I imagine that it might be based in the model of Christ as servant of His people, I’m not sure. But I have some experience with the idea that I might like to share.

Here’s the core of the idea:

The group is the ones who deliver the value of the organization, much more than the leader personally.
The leader can have the most impact by helping his people to deliver that value, removing obstacles and facilitating action.
Therefore, the leader can be most valuable by thinking of himself as servant of the group.

But this is just the starting point, there’s more to the story.

Let’s look at Jesus Christ as humble servant.

Interested in this idea? I wrote more about it from a secular point of view on my business blog.

It’s important to note that Jesus didn’t take this idea of service to mean that nobody is providing leadership, or that everybody leads in their own direction. Instead, He provided incredibly strong direction, even when that contained messages which were hard for people to accept.

He also didn’t shy away from distinguishing between good and bad behavior, from articulating right and wrong. But He always kept this in the context of the big goal, the salvation of His people.

So as a leader and servant of your volunteer group, of your workteam, of your family … what does this mean? What are we to learn?

For me, it comes down to some key shifts in your mindset:

As leader, you have some specific jobs you need to do, the same as anyone else in the group. That includes leading the charge on promoting a common purpose and direction, stepping up for the tough decisions and tradeoffs, and letting people know how well they’re doing.
As servant, you should always be asking yourself: “What am I doing today to help this group be the best they can possibly be?”
This should all be done with an attitude of loving support, clarity of purpose, and the inherent value of each person.

Your group will see a big difference when it’s more about getting useful things done together than about your own ego.

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?

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!

A test of faith

Carl — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:02:22 +0000

For the third time now, we pulled together all the chant choirs from the parishes in Fort Collins to do a single Mass. Or in this case, two: one at my home parish, and one next Sunday at the most traditional church building in town.

I’m glad that this one wasn’t the first time we got together, because it was just crazy. Just to give you a feel for it, the planning was again done by three directors, and we never actually got together and met. On top of that, we had four practices, and never had more than one of the directors at each.

I felt particularly bad, because I didn’t attend any of the practices myself, having been waylaid in London last week due to the volcano.

But with God’s grace, it came together this morning. Not perfect by any means, but God doesn’t demand perfection. He just wants to give all for His worship and glory.

My deep thanks go out to all the singers this morning, who especially showed grace and enthusiasm despite some big-time chaos. And I know we’re all looking forward to next week, when we have the chance to sing in a wonderfully resonant space. I think that will blow a lot of people away who haven’t had the chance to sing that way before.

Teaching using the Ward Method

Carl — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:02:32 +0000

There was an interesting piece on a local news channel about a teacher at the University of Northern Colorado who uses the Ward Method to successfully teach music. I haven’t met her yet, although I’ve been interested to attend one of her workshops.

The reason for mentioning it here is that our chant schola is featured – OK, for maybe ten seconds – in reference to the Ward Method growing out of Gregorian Chant in the Catholic Church.

Check it out on the 9News website.

Christus resurrexit!

Carl — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 02:46:11 +0000

I absolutely love this time of year. Easter is a chance for a deep spiritual renewal – in so many ways.

I’m heavily involved with the RCIA program in our parish, which builds toward the Night of All Nights that we just experienced yesterday. A three hour Mass brings into clear focus how we are to act as believers, and to help others on their paths toward redemption.

Tuesday night the RCIA class will have a reflection on this weekend’s mysteries, which is undoubtedly the best class of the entire year. Usually we can’t stop people from pouring their hearts out, which strengthens others and reinforces within themselves.

Our chant schola sang for the Good Friday Veneration, and I was very pleased with the result. We did almost the same music we did last year for Good Friday, so most people were pretty comfortable with the music. As an added bonus, we had a local TV station film our practice, to be combined into a segment about a professor at Colorado State University who helps tone deaf singers by teaching them Gregorian Chant with the Ward Method. They’re saying that the segment should air on Denver Channel 9 (KUSA) this Friday, but of course things can always change. If you want to be specifically notified, drop me an e-mail at carl@dierschow.com.

A very blessed Easter season to all of you: Use the upcoming weeks to build your new spiritual life! Christus resurrexit!

Trust is the word, again

Carl — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:43:44 +0000

Back in November we got people from all the parishes in Fort Collins together to sing sacred music for Mass. That was so wonderful, we’re going to do it again! We’re looking at the end of February, at my home parish.

One of the challenges is to make the offer to our pastor, and to the person who normally leads music for that Mass, in such a way that they’re likely to be excited about this opportunity. I’ll be focusing on how this can help make the Mass a special liturgical experience, build relationships with the other parishes, and give an opportunity to promote truly sacred music.

When we got together to make plans, it was interesting to see how hard it was for the three of us to make decisions. Each of us has radically different expertise, and nobody is the clear decision maker. We’re each trying to bring our gifts, contribute ideas and observations, and support each other in achieving our various goals. Goals which aren’t always clearly articulated, of course.

But it works! We focused on what would be the best fit for the second Sunday of Lent, for the skill of the singers, for the pastor and the congregation, and for the limited amount of practice time that we’ll have.

Again, it comes down to trusting in the Holy Spirit.

Trusting the Holy Spirit

Carl — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:43:45 +0000

In my last post, I talked about the first city-wide chant scholae Mass that we put together. Well, the Mass was last night, and…

It was amazing.

Not perfect, mind you – that might be a bit much to expect for how little time we had to practice together – but there’s no question that the Holy Spirit was with us as we helped to bring the congregation to prayer.

We had 24 of us there, representing four parishes in town. Trying to reconcile the different skill levels and styles was, well, interesting, but also a wonderful learning experience for all of us.

I captured the recordings and a couple of photos on my website, click here.

I have to say that I’m humbled by the power of the Holy Spirit here in our presence. It was an incredibly powerful, and holy, experience for me.

Trusting the Holy Spirit, big time!

Carl — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:36:53 +0000

Last time I talked about the upcoming big chant gathering we have next Sunday. Well, we had our practice yesterday, and finally got a chance to meet and find out what we’ve learned, and whether it was the same thing.

I wasn’t surprised to find a lot of little details which we had different – a couple words here, a dotted punctum there – but it was quite a few. You’d like to think that the basic chants are exactly the same from one book to another, but they’re not.

I was really glad that everyone had such a sense of humor and an extra dose of patience. There’s still some details yet to be resolved (one of the schola directors was out with swine flu yesterday) but we’ll get there.

And it will be glorious, because this is about God, not us. This takes deep trust.

That’s what we’re praying for.