From a reader:
Looking through our parish hymnal for music for Sunday for the Transfiguration, I came across this gem. It has 10 time signature changes in one verse (that’s 40 time signature changes if you sing all the verses!) We won’t talk about the 6 bar rest that the congregation is expected to count that hopefully is still in 4/4 time. I sing in a professional chorus that performs along side a professional orchestra. We do major works with fewer time signature changes!
We can sing this, but chant and Latin are “too hard”.
Here’s the dreck she was writing about.
Since it is the Ides of March, I’ll just say, “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” in lieu of less refined exclamations.
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In spite of the time signature changes, that hymn isn’t at all difficult to sing. It was entirely new to me, and I caught on before the end of the first verse. The composer of the tune is Father Ricky Manalo, CSP. Some people might not like it for Holy Mass and prefer that it be kept for praise and worship services. It can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJec8-pfVQk
More than one musician has told me that modern hymns are typically too difficult for congregations to sing. One is an organist for a Protestant church in the Atlanta area ( who goes to an FSSP low mass before going to her paid gig). She also told me most clergy don’t have any idea of how singable any given hymn is (unless it is an old standard).
How about this one?
‘Tis Good LORD to be here!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wNCM8Gw-8o
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When someone says that chant is too hard, I am reminded of this from Pride and Prejudice:
“My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault–because I will not take the trouble of practising.
I’m a church musician at a NO parish that has, in the last several years, undergone a complete musical overhaul. Whenever anyone complains to me — forgive me, but it’s almost exclusively Boomers — that the hymns are “too hard,” I struggle not to laugh because the traditional music (even the chant) is much, much easier to sing than the modernist garbage they’re pining for. They seemed to take it as a personal challenge in the 60s and 70s to write hymns with as many wide vocal ranges (sometimes pushing two full octaves!), time changes, key changes, and heretical lyrics as humanly possible.