Philadelphia Chapter

There will be a Traditional Latin Mass celebrated at Holy Saviour Church, 407 East Main Street, Norristown, PA 19401, on Tuesday, November 1, All Saints Day, at 10:00AM and on Wednesday, November 2, All Souls day, at 9:00AM. Ample parking in the Parish Parking Lit on Main Street.

Thank you, Will, and God bless you and your work.

Monsignor Sangermano

Posted by Jeffrey A. Tucker of the Chant Cafe

A conference exploring Charles Tournemire’s landmark L’Orgue Mystique on February 1-3, 2012 takes place on the campus of Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale and at the Church of the Epiphany in South Miami. The conference seeks to explore the aesthetic, liturgical, and compositional principles of L’Orgue Mystique, the implications of the work for modern compositions inspired by Gregorian chant, and the role of modern compositions and the organ in the Catholic liturgy.

Conference highlights include:

– Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, celebrated by His Excellency, Thomas G. Wenski, Archbishop of Miami. Musical highlights include Tournemire’s office from L’Orgue Mystique for the day (Purificatio B. Mariæ Virginis), a Missa Brevis by Zachary Wadsworth, and a commissioned motet by Dr. Paul Weber.

– Opening and Closing Recitals by Rudy de Vos (Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland, CA) and TBA

– An entire day of recitals featuring repertoire ranging from Naji Hakim and original compositions and improvisations by conference artists to the works of Tournemire, Franck and Langlais.

– The keynote lecture entitled “The Composer as Textual Commentator: Music and Language in Tournemire‘s Symbolist Method” will be given by Dr. Stephen Schloesser, S.J. Schloesser is an Associate Professor of History at Loyola University in Chicago and the author of Jazz Age Catholicism with its noted chapter on Tournemire. He is currently working on a book about Messiaen.

– Conference sessions will explore the shape of the Catholic liturgy and of L’Orgue Mystique, harmonic, improvisation and performance practice as it relates to L’Orgue Mystique, as well as teacher and student relationships to Tournemire.

All conference events at the Church of the Epiphany are free and open to the public, though a free-will donation will be accepted at the door. However, in order to attend all of the conference events, including the events at NSU, registration is required. The deadline for conference registration and payment ($75) is Monday, January 3, 2012. The registration fee is non-refundable. Only complete registrations will be available; no 1-day or partial registrations are available. Advance registration is required; no on-site registration is available.

From The New Liturgical Movement by Shawn Tribe

The Ealing Abbey Choir of Men and Boys, one of the U.K.’s premiere Catholic choirs, is giving their first performance in New York City as part of their inaugural concert tour of the United States at the Church of Saint Agnes (143 East 43rd Street, Manhattan) on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 6:15 PM. Their repertoire for this hour-long concert is drawn from the Catholic liturgical repertoire spanning four centuries, from Tudor England through Twentieth century works.

Ealing Abbey Choir was founded in 1908 by Dom Cyril Rylance (1880-1958), a monk of the monastery, coming into existence as the Catholic Church in England was rediscovering its musical heritage through the works of Renaissance composers and Gregorian chant. The choir’s repertoire of Gregorian chant and Latin polyphony is now enhanced by the inclusion of many works by twentieth century composers such as Howells, Duruflé, Messiaen, Taverner, and Jonathan Dove.

The Abbey Choir consists of treble boy choristers and six professional lay clerks. The choristers are all pupils of Saint Benedict’s School, Ealing, where they are musically active, and each receives scholarships for singing and instrumental lessons.

The choir’s principal commitment revolves around the liturgy in the Abbey Church each week and especially during Christmas and Easter. Outside of the liturgy the choir is extremely active. Recently the choir has recorded Bruckner’s motets with ‘Herald’, and Personent Hodie, a CD of music for Christmas, toured Barcelona, Switzerland, Rome, and Strasbourg to great acclaim, and given concert performances of Bach’s Saint John Passion, Handel’s Messiah, and Orff’s Carmina Burana at Cadogan Hall.

From The New Liturgical Movement by Shawn Tribe

by Fr. Benedict Croell, O.P.

On October 19th and 20th, Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, O.P., offered several training sessions for the celebration of the Dominican rite at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. The training sessions included demonstrations of the words and gestures of the priest and server for the private form of the Dominican rite, known as the Low Mass. During the presentations, Fr. Pius emphasized the pastoral dimension of learning to say the Dominican rite in order to respond to the legitimate requests of the faithful for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. In addition to the formal training sessions, the friars had the opportunity to participate in the Low Mass.

To learn more about the Dominican rite, you may view a Dominican Rite Online Tutorial, which presents videos and texts which explain the celebration of the Dominican Rite, or read a Q&A on Universae Ecclesiae and the Dominican Rite, or sample the other postings at Dominican Liturgy.

Our member Lucy Carroll has just completed work on her Monastery Hymnal.

by Lucy Carroll (unedited)

The Monastery Hymnal is done, but the nuns have only advertised it to monasteries! It is 420 pages, contains over 200 hymns, in original texts, in close 4-part harmony; many Latin chants and hymns, and many Latin Masses transcribed (into notation). The cost is about $25 for a hard-bound book, and $18 for a larger 8 1/2 x 11 spiral. We are only taking orders until the end of the month! If anyone in the LLA is truly interested, please have them contact me ASAP and I will get information to them. The entire liturgical year is covered, including hymns for the Holy Souls, one of which I wrote myself to a text by Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman. Again, ORIGINAL texts! Took a lot of research. All seven verses to Holy God! Original verses to Faith of Our Fathers, etc.

Lucy Carroll

monasterymouse@verizon.net

by Michael J. Ernst

Liturgical Law & Liturgical Resources

Liturgical law is that part of Canon Law which deals with the sacred liturgy (i.e. the Mass and the Divine Office). Until recently there was much debate about whether the 1917 Code of Canon Law was in force for the traditional Latin Mass. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei’s recent instruction (April 30, 2011) stated that “with regard to the disciplinary norms connected to celebration, the ecclesiastical discipline contained in the Code of Canon Law of 1983 applies.” And “furthermore, by virtue of its character of special law, within its own area, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum derogates from those provisions of law, connected with the sacred Rites, promulgated from 1962 onwards and incompatible with the rubrics of the liturgical books in effect in 1962.” Thus it is unclear whether the Code of Canon Law of 1917 may still be in effect with regard to areas where the current code is in conflict with the 1960 Code of Rubrics. I have included them in any case. Thus, the four sources of liturgical law are as follows:

1.) The Codes of Canon Law of 1917 and of 1983:
http://www.jgray.org/codes/cic17lat.html
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM

2.) The rubrics of the liturgical books (below are links to a copy of the New Roman Missal of 1962, and an English translation of the 1960 Code of Rubrics as used in the 1962 Missal and Breviary):
http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/resources/books-1962/missale-romanum-1962.pdf
http://maternalheart.org/library/1962rubrics.pdf

3.) Decisions of the former Congregation of Sacred Rites (S.R.C.) as well as current decisions by the current Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which may be printed in the future (I have included links to a multi-volume set of the decisions of the S.R.C. The last edition was published in the 1920s and was due for a reprint in the 1960s, but that obviously never happened. The most recent edition available on-line is from the late 1800s, though this includes about 90% of all their decisions, which are organized by date and listed by diocese.) Decreta authentica congregationis sacrorum rituum:

S.R.C. Decrees Vol. 1:
http://books.google.com/books?id=5tlLAAAAYAAJ&dq=decreta%20sacrorum%20rituum&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false

S.R.C. Decrees Vol. 2:
http://books.google.com/books?id=IaaVdsXIl2QC&dq=decreta%20sacrorum%20rituum&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false

S.R.C. Decrees Vol. 3:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2dpLAAAAYAAJ&dq=decreta%20authentica%20congregationis&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false

4.) Legitimate custom (defined as a custom that has been in use for at least 100 years and that has not been proscribed.)

Of these four sources, the Code of Rubrics is the subject to the most interpretations. Because of this the Congregation of Sacred Rites was established in 1588 to be an arbitrating body and its decisions carried the full force of law. The rubrics are generally divided into three categories: preceptive, directive, and facultative. The rubrical scholar Canon J.B. O’Connell defines them thus: “Preceptive rubrics are those which bind in conscience and are real laws; directive rubrics are those that do not per se bind in conscience, but set forth–by way of counsel or direction–the approved way of carrying out a liturgical act; facultative rubrics are those which permit of a choice between two courses, or between doing something or omitting something, or which allow liberty to follow existing usage.” There has been great debate among liturgical scholars for centuries as to whether accidental rubrics are all preceptive or not. As well, each liturgical author who has written a manual or work on liturgical law draws upon the legitimate local customs of his country. In the English language we have access to four major liturgical works:

1.) A translation of Papal Master of Ceremonies, Msgr. Giuseppe Baldeschi’s Ceremonial According to the Roman Rite. This is the Roman customary at its best.
http://books.google.com/books?id=b8cCAAAAQAAJ&dq=baldeschi&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

2.) The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore’s Ceremonial for the Use of the Catholic churches in the United States of America (a.k.a. The Baltimore Ceremonial). This is the earlier (and better) American customary.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0qY_AAAAYAAJ&dq=ceremonial%20for%20use%20catholic&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

3.) Fr. Adrian Fortescue’s Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described (available in re-prin by St. Michael’s Abbey Press, revised and updated by Dom Alcuin Reid—though many I know take issue with his interpretations.) This work gives the perspective of the widely-used English customary.

4.) Canon John Berthram O’Connell’s The Celebration of Mass (in reprint by Preserving Christian publications). O’Connell’s work mostly avoids local usages and customaries, but there are one or two nods to Irish customary.

Of these only O’Connell’s work was written and updated at the time of the 1960/62 liturgical changes, though Dom Alcuin updated Fortescue’s work to include them as well. And only these two works mention Missa Cantata with incense (a usage that, previously, was only allowed by indult). O’Connell’s work, however, is the most thorough.

Finally, here are a few other liturgical manuals that can be of help:

The Compendium Sacræ Liturgiæ juxta Ritum Romanum by Fr. P. Innocentius Wapelhorst, O.F.M. This work, completely in Latin, is a liturgical manual following the German customary.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0qQRwvfV5EQC&dq=Wapelhorst%20Compendium%20Sacrae%20Liturgiae&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Rites of Holy Week by Fr. Frederick McManus. This is a liturgical manual for the 1955 Holy Week rites.
http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/resources/rubrical-guides/documents/the-rites-of-holy-week.pdf

by Rev. Fr. Christopher Smith

If you want to make some people’s blood pressure go through the roof, it seems all you have to do is show them a picture of Raymond Cardinal Burke in a cappa magna. For those of you who are not familiar with this rather large and cumbersome piece of ecclesiastical haberdashery, it is a very ample choir cape with a long train. The train part, which is usually carried by a cleric, was fifteen feet long, until Pius XII shortened it to a more manageable seven feet. Interestingly enough, Blessed John XXIII, the same Pope the soi-disant progressives invoke as the prophet who sang a new church into being, lengthened it back to fifteen meters. The 1969 Pauline reforms of the rather complex hierarchical dress code made it optional.

As with most things made optional, many bishops and cardinals dispensed with the use of the cappa magna entirely. So when it is seen now and again, there are howls of protests against the wearers, who are invariably accused of taking the Church back to a mythical dark age which was not as bright as the accusers convince themselves it could be if everyone just listened to them. Such an article of clothing is derided as extravagant, aristocratic, too far out of touch with modern democratic sensibilities, and a flagrant proof of narcissism on behalf of the wearer.

These same criticisms are made against a whole host of other things which have dropped out of use, such as the papal tiara or the sedia gestatoria, the throne upon which the Pope was carried into papal ceremonies. What is ironic is that the detractors do not seem to notice that Paul VI, who can hardly be accused of being one not intent on modernization, sold the tiara, not abolishing it, and used the sedia. John Paul I, during his brief reign as Pope, also used the sedia, and no one seems to want to dig him up and put him on trial for crimes against modern humanity. Benedict XVI has removed the papal tiara from his personal coat of arms, but now he is being accused of anti-ecumenical sentiments by British journalists for wearing a stole with a papal tiara on it, even though no one seemed to notice for the other six years he has worn the same stole.

The rage with which some very angry people fault the Church for not being simple and poor is uneven: it is a stick brandished at figures of the administration of Pope Benedict who do not heel to the Zeitgeist, conveniently glossing over the fact that some of the same people they virtually canonize as the heralds of the new, simple and poor church used the same things and did not ever proscribe them.

But the question does remain: what is the point of fifteen meters of red silk? Does it not send a message that the Church does not identify with the simplicity of the Gospel? And of so, is it not positively a scandal which should be excised from the Church’s actuality and memory?

There are several things which we might want to keep in consideration here.

1. The Sacred Liturgy is a public rite by which certain participants perform certain functions at certain times, functions which are signified visually and externally by actions, gestures, and vesture.

The rigid egalitarianism of our contemporary public life discerns, in the Orders part of her divinely constituted essence and liturgical roles as developed through her history, exclusivity and discrimination. At its root, the critique of certain vesture is an attack on the fact that the Church recognizes those who wear that vesture as different, set apart, and even, in the case of the ministerial priest, ontologically changed as a result of a sacrament. A view of the Church which refuses the distinction between lay and ordained will level out any physical manifestation of those distinctions. The greater the distinction is highlighted, the greater the critique.

2. The Sacred Liturgy is an action of the whole Church, but one in which the role of the hierarchal order is visible, and not merely present.

Many people reject certain forms of vesture because they feel it somehow denigrates those who are not so attired, as if it makes them second class in the Church. But the liturgy is an action of the whole Church. Nonetheless, there remain elements of that same liturgy which are not, and cannot, be celebrated by all members of the Church indistinctly. The hierarchical nature of the Church is made visible by certain actions, gestures and vesture, which indicate not only the rank of the wearer (dalmatics for deacons and mitres for bishops, for example) but also the sacred character of objects associated with divine worship (kissing hands, rings, and cruets) as well as the solemnity due to an event (the cappa magna or ferraiolo for particularly festive occasions).

Rejection of the visible signs of the hierarchy is often justified because of the lack of those signs in previous ages. But although the visible signs have changed, they have always been there. The need for the Church to assert its independence in the face of the State in some places in the Middle Ages led to the adoption of certain elements which were taken from secular court etiquette, precisely to demonstrate that the Church was its own sphere. In our own day, when the distinction between the ministerial and common priesthood has been denied, it is necessary that these distinctions continue to be visible. In an age which had other concerns, these distinctions were not as important, which explains their lack in earlier periods.

3. The Sacred Liturgy is governed by an ethos which is symbolic and not amenable to manipulation by political concerns.

The grammar of the liturgy, the structure by which ecclesiastical ceremonial is intelligible, is highly symbolic, allegorical and is part of a highly developed received tradition throughout the ages. The liturgy has a grammar which is not easily understood by many today, who seek an impoverishment of the liturgy by making it flat, univocal, immediately accessible, and literal. The liturgical pauperist does not understand or appreciate this grammar and does not conceive how the believer can live at one and the same time in a liturgical world with its own language and narrative, symbolic, allegorical and hierarchical, and the everyday world with another language, with no unifying narrative, literal, flat and egalitarian. The liturgical pauperist opts for the everyday world to the exclusion of any other world and demands that the ethos of the liturgy be conformed to that standard, and not the standard natural to it. Because the grammar of the everyday world is frequently political, the way in which the Church confronts the world, whether it be in the liturgy or in life, must be brought into conformity with is viewed as acceptable in the polis. What is acceptable in the naos is no longer a criterion to be considered.

The idea that the liturgy has its own internal grammar unrelated to the world is crucial. When it is denied, interesting things happen. Take, for example, the virtual disappearance of the amice (a symbol of the protection of the wearer from the Evil One), the maniple (of suffering, a sign of the ascetical walk of the Christian life) and the cincture (of chastity) and the frequent placement of the stole (sign of priestly authority) over or instead of the chasuble (sign of charity which covers all things). According to the grammar of the liturgy, the omission or the re-placement of these vestments has serious symbolic import. To a politicized grammar of the liturgy, they are all merely unrelated symbolic anachronisms which can be used or not according to the whim of the wearer. In contrast, the grammar of the liturgy, declined as it is according to the hierarchical nature of the Church, places all of these things in a proper order, established under the authority of the Church, and respected by everyone in communion with the Church for their role in the liturgy.

Interestingly enough, the politicization of the grammar of the liturgy has not led to an iconoclasm against symbolism in the Church. The realization that the means is the message leads many liturgical pauperists to craft a parallel language of symbolism or determine readings of symbols within the Church tradition in a key so as to invest them with political meaning and force. For example, in many places during Lent sand replaces holy water in the font to create a symbol which is alien to the Church’s rites. In other places, the traditional symbolical usages of the Church are derided, such as the adoption of the cassock by clerics, as anti-modern, anti-ecumenism, and anti-woman, when it is understand by a proper liturgical grammar, independent of political manipulations, as death to the world.

4. The Sacred Liturgy develops the visible livery of its rites in an organic development, never returning to the archaic for the sake of antiquarianism, nor proscribing the actual for the sake of relevance.

Pius XII warned against “antiquarianism” in those who sought to re-propose the externals of the liturgy in a way reminiscent of the ancient Church, with a view to, in so doing, renew the Church to a supposed purer internal form of the Church putatively existing at the time. Ironically, many use Pius XII’s argument against those who would now use vestments which they see as being uniquely post-Tridentine, charging them of antiquarianism. The adoption of Baroque chasubles, lace albs and cappas is rejected as antiquarian just as the adoption of conical chasubles, Gothic architecture, and appareled amices was rejected in the nineteenth century. The liturgy realizes that such externals grow up organically with the Church’s lived experience, and as such, are part of the common patrimony of the Church’s worship. They are always actual and never in danger of being archaic, because the liturgy is always ever ancient, ever new. It is for that reason that those externals which exist, even when they have transformed their external form and function throughout the ages (ombrellini for the Blessed Sacrament, candles on the altar to provide light, raincoat to ornately decorated cope) or cease to be common (the 15 branch candlestick for Tenebrae, the straw for reception of the Precious Blood) need not be proscribed. They certainly need not be proscribed, or prescribed, because of any presence or lack of relevance, which is not a category meaningful for the liturgy. When arguments are advanced for the prohibition of rites, vesture and music (as opposed to their legitimate reform), that indicates a politicization of the proper grammar of the liturgy.

5. The Sacred Liturgy is a place in which the arts can embellish everything in which the sacred touches the human, and such is not a transgression of evangelical simplicity but a translation of the inner wealth of Revelation to the Church which celebrates that Revelation.

There is a current which demands that, for the Church to be a credible witness to divine truth, she must model her externals as much as possible on the primitive Church gathered around Christ. Anything else is criticized as a damnable excrescence. Yet, the fount of reform is when Christians model their interior life on the virtues of Christ as experienced by the primitive Church, not on the externals. Yet because the Church exists in time, the development of her externals testifies to the way she unfolds the riches of Revelation in a visible way. She does so in many ways: principally through the witness of the saints, but secondarily through the artistic patrimony of the Church. Men and women have been inspired throughout the ages to create works of art for the service of the Church, from grand basilicas and precious chalices to simple lace handtowels and Offertory motets. In doing so, artists provide an invaluable treasure to humanity. They take the invisible content of Revelation, the encounter with Christ, and translate it through the analogy of art to something visible, beautiful, and human. The interior riches of Revelation become in some way vehicles for divine teaching. As such, the Church is the patron of the arts. And the common human patrimony which is the art used in the service of the Church is not something which can be liquidated on the demands of pressure groups who seek to bring into being a pure Church by condemning the visible manifestations of that faith.

In the beginning of this article, we asked the question: High fashion in the Church? It is very clear that the Church has inspired great art. That art is put to use in many ways, not least of which is in the adornment of her sacred ministers. For some, this is permissible because such art is a truly human work and the Church as such is the patron of such art. High fashion, then, is to be prized as part of the Church’s heritage.

But the concept of high fashion is a distinctly modern invention. To the extent that it had any genesis at all, Coco Chanel can be perhaps proposed as the woman who made possible an entire world of art through clothes. The art which accompanies sacred ministers, whether it be an Ecce Sacerdos magnus as the Ordinary is greeted at the door of a church or the graceful pleats of a monk’s cuculla may seem to some like high fashion in the Church. For some, this is permissible inasmuch as art is part of the Church’s life. For others, it is to be rejected as contrary to the purity of the Gospel.

When I was a younger man, I found what I thought was high fashion in the Church to be arrestingly beautiful. I became quite an expert on it, at least in my own mind. For me, it was a way in which tradition, art, beauty, the human and the sacred could all blend to make the Church in her dizzying complexity come across as an ordered whole. It still is. But now that I actually have to wear some of those clothes, now that I speak day in and day out conversant with the liturgy, on its own terms, my stance has changed.

All of these things make up part of the grammar of the liturgy. Not all of them have the same importance, and none of them are divinely revealed. When seen within the context of a liturgy which speaks its own language, they take their proper proportions. They do not risk the eclipse of the truth of the faith by mere externalism. In fact, I realize that no man in his right mind, not even the most effete fashionista in the hierarchy, is going to continue for long to be obsessed with the externals of the Christian religion, especially when confronted with the real needs of the people in his pastoral care. The externals are accepted, they are used as they are meant to be used, they are done well, and all in their place. When I am wearing the heaviest cloth of gold chasuble in Christendom, my thought is not, “Don’t I look good?” but “When can I get this thing off?” But I do not reject it. It has its place, and I use it as it is meant to be used, as a small part of a whole grammar of the liturgy.

But when the many-faceted language of the liturgy decays into a flat dialect of political extraction, no proportions can be seen. Even when the hierarchy employ the fullness of the externals of the faith in consonance with the tradition of the homeland, all the foreigner can understand is, “it’s all about you, isn’t it?”

I am in no position to divine Cardinal Burke’s thoughts on the cappa magna. But the fact of his wearing it points to the great humility it takes to enter into the totality of the liturgy, and to listen to its inner voice, a multi-layered harmony in which there are many parts, not all as important as the others, but which, together, tune the music of the spheres. When we reduce the grammar of the liturgy to mere high fashion or when we cut and paste from it according to our own criteria, the result is cacophony.

by Jeffrey Tucker

On the 19th of February 1593, at the eve of death, Pope Julius II signed the papal bull IN ALTISSIMO MILITANTIS ECCLESIÆ by order of which the Cappella Giulia was constituted. The pontifical document was intended to provide more solemnity to the liturgical functions of the Vatican Basilica with musical executions of the highest artistic value.

With loyal faithfulness to the original task assigned, the Cappella still abides to this duty and today is preparing celebrations for its Fifth Centennial. The celebrations will be inaugurated on the 22nd of February 2013, day of the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, with a solemn concelebration presided by the Cardinal Archpriest of the Basilica and will be concluded on the 18th of November 2013, Solemnity of the Dedication of the Vatican Basilica.

On the occasion of this important anniversary, the Cappella Giulia is happy to welcome other choirs who are dedicated to the ministry of beauty at service of the Church Liturgy and may desire to participate to one or the other celebrations taking place in 2013.
The Institutional Program provides a guided visit of the Vatican Basilica, a conference on the history of the Cappella and on the ministry of liturgical music in the Church today, participation in the Holy Chapter Mass (High Mass) and if desired, also the celebration of solemn Vespers.

In addition to this, a complementary program has also been carefullyprepared, for both the historical and cultural aspects of the journey, which includes among others a public concert that each choir can give in a Church of Rome historically bound with the Cappella Giulia.
During Spring 2012, a collection of musical transcriptions from the manuscripts of the archives of the Cappella shall be available upon request.
For further information and participation, please Email: info@cappellagiulia.org

by Jeffrey Tucker

The Beautiful Freedom of Chant

I was presenting a seminar on chant last evening for some Catholic musicians and, near the end, a hand went up and said something like this following.

All evening long you have been singing various parts of chant. I don’t understand how it is that chant people just start singing on any note. There’s no piano, no pitchpipe, no keyboard or recording. You just start singing and then the music comes out. How do you do that? Is it perfect pitch? How do you know where to begin?

This is the sort of question only a trained musician would ask. For anyone else, the question probably doesn’t make any sense. I mean, if you are going to sing “Happy Birthday” you just start singing, right? Well, the trained musician is puzzled at how you can pick up a piece of music and just start singing it without knowing what note to start on.

The answer speaks to the remarkable flexibility of chant notation. It actually doesn’t matter where you start. All that matters is that you keep the relationship between the notes correct. There are only two possible ways that one note can be related to another note: whole step or half step. All music consists of combinations of those two things. The starting place doesn’t matter at all so long as you preserve those relationships.

This is not obvious at all from the way we conceive of music today: this is a C, this is a B, this is an Eb and so on. This is not the case with chant. It can start on a pitch that is best for the human voice. To sing a chant you only need to start singing.

As with many aspects of chant, the truth is much simpler than the perception. This is why sometimes people with no training in modern music make better chanters than people with years of training. Without training, you have nothing to unlearn, which is a huge advantage.