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Views from the Choir Loft

Easy Organ Hymns for Catholics

Veronica Brandt · January 3, 2015

St Cecilia with portative organ Master of the Saint Bartholomew – Saint Cecilia playing the organ HERE ARE LOTS OF REASONS you might like to try playing the organ. It is a brilliant instrument, indeed it is called the King of Instruments. It is handy for accompanying singing. It is the best instrument for playing the beginning of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

On a more serious note, Vatican II (Sacrosanctum Concilium) says:

120. In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man’s mind to God and to higher things.

So, you want to play the organ. If you are lucky, you may find a mentor and teacher to help guide you. You may have an instrument to practise on at home. Your guide may have much experience in teaching as well as playing really great organ music.

Or maybe you’re in a bit of a rut, with less than ideal conditions, but you really want to hear better music at Mass. If you’re not going to give it a go, who else will?

How to get better at playing the organ.

Practice.

Yup, practice.

I bet you didn’t want that answer.

But there is good news. If you can read music, there are some great books out there.

For accompanying Gregorian Chant you can’t go past Nova Organi Harmonia. Seriously, this is a fantastic collection. Even for a beginner. If you know pieces like Ave Verum and Veni Creator, go download Volume 8 – the Vesperale. The left hand part moves slowly and you can start with just the melody with the right hand.

When I was first digging into the Nova Organi Harmonia, I made some transcriptions here. Yes, I like everything in the key of C.

For accompanying hymns there is a new work A Catholic Organist’s Book of Hymns by Noel Jones – for learning to accompany hymns on the organ. This book provides simple 3 part arrangements of hundreds of popular hymn tunes. Sample pages available on the website include the first 17 pages of the book. There you can find the introductory sage advice and five hymns, each in two arrangements, one for accompanying singing and a Choral Prelude with more esoteric harmonies for playing in a more meditative vein.

One recommendation from A Catholic Organist’s Book of Hymns is to play through a whole verse before the singing begins. He recommends using the Choral Prelude version for this purpose. This gives people time to pick up the hymnbooks and open them – one of the great drawbacks of starting off a hymn by voice alone. Taking the time to play through a hymn seems to go against some instinct – maybe some sort of embarrassment, or need to hide under cover of other voices. The organist is meant to lead the singing. There is nowhere to hide – this could be a springboard for an argument for placing an organ up the back – an organist who can hide in the visible sense may have more confidence to lead in the audial sense.

UPDATE: Noel Jones also has A Catholic Book of Hymns – CHORDS which combines the three part organ arrangements with chord names. Very handy!

There is a built in tendency for nervous musicians to rush things – I think as your heart beats faster, your perception of time is dilated. As you build more confidence your sense of timing improves too.

I should add some sort of caveat here – I am not an organist, only someone who occasionally gets the nerve to play at Mass, in a very small church, with very accommodating parishioners. I offer these ideas from the perspective of someone very experienced in being inexperienced – if there is such a thing. I hope someone finds them useful.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: congregational singing, Gregorian Chant Accompaniments, Pipe Organ, Sheet Music Last Updated: May 14, 2023

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About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. She lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband and six children.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
    EVIN ALLEN was commissioned by Sacred Music Symposium 2025 to compose a polyphonic ‘middle section’ for the GLORIA from Mass III, often denoted by its trope name: Missa Kyrie Deus sempiterne. This year, I’m traveling from Singapore to serve on the symposium faculty. I will be conducting Palestrina’s ‘Ave Maria’ as well as teaching plainsong to the men. A few days ago, I was asked to record rehearsal videos for this beautiful polyphonic extension. (See below.) This polyphonic composition fits ‘inside’ GLORIA III. That is, the congregation sings for the beginning and end, but the choir alone adds polyphony to the middle. The easiest way to understand how everything fits together is by examining this congregational insert. You may download the score, generously made available to the whole world—free of charge—by CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED:
    *  PDF Download • Gloria III ‘Middle Section’ (Kevin Allen)
    Free rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #24366. Related News • My colleague, Jeff Ostrowski, composed an organ accompaniment for this same GLORIA a few months ago. Obviously, the organist should drop out when the polyphony is being sung.
    —Corrinne May
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“Worse, composers are now setting the introits of the missal [instead of the Graduale] to music, even to chant, though these texts were explicitly for spoken recitation only.”

— ‘Dr. William Mahrt (Fall, 2015)’

Recent Posts

  • PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday

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