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Pope Saint Paul VI (3 April 1969): “Although the text of the Roman Gradual—at least that which concerns the singing—has not been changed, the Entrance antiphons and Communions antiphons have been revised for Masses without singing.”

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Views from the Choir Loft

Basic Steps To Improve Music At Your Parish — Part 5

Fr. David Friel · July 20, 2014

EING THE FIFTH contributor to this series is no easy task, as so many excellent ideas have been proffered by the bloggers who have preceded me. I do not envy the task of Jeff & Aurelio, whose thoughts are still to come tomorrow & the next day. For my part, today, I will add two small ideas to the many more important thoughts already shared.

IRST, an important early step toward promoting good music at your parish would be to promote silence in your liturgies. Silence is one of the most important sounds of the liturgy. Anyone who lives in a home with other people knows that silence is an asset that must be fostered if it is not to be forgotten. There is a beauty to silence that cannot be ignored; it possesses its own noble role, a sort of a priori legitimacy that deserves a fair hearing.

How might one bolster silence in a parish setting? Working with your pastor—always a delicate task—move towards lengthening the moments of silence already built into the Mass. For instance:

•  End your prelude a minute or two early, so that the Mass is immediately preceded by an atmosphere of silence.

•  Train your lectors & psalmists to pause between readings. A solid, 20-second pause sends a message to the congregation that invites them to enter into meditation on the Word of God.

•  Talk with your priest about observing the silent pauses called for during the Act of Penitence and after each Oremus.

•  Encourage your priest to sit down briefly after his homily, rather than bursting right into the Creed.

•  Once the tabernacle door closes after Communion, consider forgoing your usual organ instrumental in favor of complete silence.

There are other potential moments for silence, too, but inserting or expanding the silence in these places would go a long way toward reclaiming the sacredness of both silence and sound.

ECOND, encourage your priest to do his part. (Okay, this point has already been made within this series by my fellow bloggers, but I hope to bring something extra to the point as a priest, myself.) Even if you must continue for a time with the four-hymn sandwich (an undesirable, but sometimes inexorable state of affairs), simply having the priest chant the dialogues can still give the liturgy a distinctly sacral tone. A Mass in which all the dialogues are chanted and four hymns are sung would be a vast improvement over the status quo in many places. Once the dialogues are in place, it will be easier to start stripping away the hymns, because they will start to appear as extraneous as they are.

Is your priest scared to start? Does he feel ill-equipped? Chanting the dialogues is really very easy, and there are many resources available to help priests get started. Even starting out recto tono would bring a tremendous increase in beauty to the liturgy. If your priest needs assistance, direct him to one or more of the following:

Practice videos from CCW

Tutorial videos from CMAA

Scores from ICEL

Article from NPM’s Pastoral Musician

Discussion thread from the CMAA Forum

Cultivating silence and singing the dialogues are two simple, practical, and essential steps towards improving music at your parish.


7-part series:   “Basic Steps To Improve Music At Your Parish”

FIRST PART • Andrew Motyka

SECOND PART • Peter Kwasniewski

THIRD PART • Richard Clark

FOURTH PART • Veronica Brandt

FIFTH PART • Fr. David Friel

SIXTH PART • Jeff Ostrowski

SEVENTH PART • Aurelio Porfiri

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Basic Steps To Improve Parish Music, ICEL Chants, Singing the Mass Last Updated: March 1, 2025

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and serves as Director of Liturgy at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. —(Read full biography).

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President’s Corner

    New Bulletin Article • “12 October 2025”
    My pastor requested that I write short articles each week for our parish bulletin. Those responsible for preparing similar write-ups may find a bit of inspiration in these brief columns. The latest article (dated 12 October 2025) talks about an ‘irony’ or ‘paradox’ with regard to 1960s switch to vernacular in the liturgy.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Reminder” — Month of October (2025)
    Those who don’t sign up for our free EMAIL NEWSLETTER miss important notifications. Last week, for example, I sent a message about this job opening for a music director paying $65,000 per year plus benefits (plus weddings & funerals). Notice the job description says: “our vision for sacred music is to move from singing at Mass to truly singing the Mass wherein … especially the propers, ordinaries, and dialogues are given their proper place.” Signing up couldn’t be easier: simply scroll to the bottom of any blog article and enter your email address.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • 27th in Ordinary Time (Year C)
    Readers have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I’ve prepared for 5 October 2025, which is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. As always, the Responsorial Psalm, Gospel Acclamation, and Mass Propers for this Sunday are conveniently stored at the spectacular feasts website alongside the official texts in Latin. Readers will want to check out the ENTRANCE CHANT posted there, which has a haunting melody (in the DEUTERUS MODE) and extremely powerful text.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    “American Catholic Hymnal” (1991)
    The American Catholic Hymnal, with IMPRIMATUR granted (25 April 1991) by the Archdiocese of Chicago, is like a compendium of every horrible idea from the 1980s. Imagine being forced to stand all through Communion (even afterwards) when those self-same ‘enlightened’ liturgists moved the SEQUENCE before the Alleluia to make sure congregations wouldn’t have to stand during it. (Even worse, everything about the SEQUENCE—including its name—means it should follow the Alleluia.) And imagine endlessly repeating “Alleluia” during Holy Communion at every single Mass. It was all part of an effort to convince people that Holy Communion was historically a procession (which it wasn’t).
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Canonic” • Ralph Vaughan Williams
    Fifty years ago, Dr. Theodore Marier made available this clever arrangement (PDF) of “Come down, O love divine” by P. R. Dietterich. The melody was composed in 1906 by Ralph Vaughan Williams (d. 1958) and named in honor of of his birthplace: DOWN AMPNEY. The arrangement isn’t a strict canon, but it does remind one of a canon since the pipe organ employs “points of imitation.” The melody and text are #709 in the Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Did they simplify these hymn harmonies?
    Choirs love to sing the famous & splendid tune called “INNSBRUCK.” Looking through a (Roman Catholic) German hymnal printed in 1952, I discovered what appears to be a simplified version of that hymn. In other words, their harmonization is much less complex than the version found in the Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal (which is suitable for singing by SATB choir). Please download their 1952 harmonization (PDF) and let me know your thoughts. I really like the groovy Germanic INTRODUCTION they added.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

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“It is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

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