Views from the Choir Loft

How To Properly Train Young Voices To Sing At Mass

Lucas Tappan · February 2, 2015 ·

STILL REMEMBER THE DAY I walked into Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic School on the first day of my sixth grade year. Our family had recently relocated from southern Oklahoma to Illinois. I had never attended a Catholic school before then, and while my family took the Faith very seriously, attending Mass during the week was a new experience for me.

Within the first month of school, our pastor, Fr. James Flach, called all of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th graders together and made it known that the parish was in need of new organists and that he would personally pay for organ lessons for any student who wished to play—in the hopes that one would become an organist. Well… I am that one.

I played the organ during Mass for the first time on the Feast of the Guardian Angels and have been at it ever since. Today I am the one teaching children and hoping that at least of few will follow in the footsteps of a sacred musician. ¹

SOMETIMES I FEEL we forget about the formation of our children in the grand tradition of sacred music. At the same time, I wonder if some of our many wonderful musicians aren’t a little afraid to stand in front of a room full of children for the first time and raise the baton. I can’t claim to be Olivier Latry at the organ or Sir Richard Terry leading a smart group of choristers through Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, but there are few people who love working and training choristers more than I do. I am honored to begin blogging at Views from the Choir Loft and desire to pass on the little I have learned to those toiling away in their work with young children.

I will be contributing each week on the subject of “HOW TO PROPERLY TRAIN YOUNG VOICES TO SING AT MASS.”

To learn about Dr. Lucas Tappan, our newest contributor, visit his biography page.

NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1 That sounds a little grand. Perhaps it would be better to say a musician in the field of sacred music!

About Lucas Tappan

Dr. Lucas Tappan is a conductor and organist whose specialty is working with children. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children.

Could Pope St. Pius X Sing?

“On 12 March 1908, the complete publication of the Roman Gradual was issued by the Vatican Press. On that very day, Dom Pothier solemnly presented the first copy to the Holy Father. A witness of the audience says that Pius X wished to be the first to see the new book; he opened it at random, at page 128 of the supplement pro aliquibus locis—it was the Introit of the new Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Pope sang it with perfect taste to the last note.” (Catholic Choirmaster, February 1915)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Julius Bas Accompaniment

A very prolific harmonizer of Gregorian chant in the early 20th century was Mr. Julius Bas. He often uses a very strange technique, wherein he employs rests to eliminate the Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Consider what he did with “Lumen ad revelationem” here:

* JPEG • Lumen ad revelationem

It seems quite lazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else use such a technique, although Dr. Peter Wagner often switched to parallel octaves when he ran out of ideas… (Yuck!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Hitting wrong notes

Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, used to say: “The organist can play 1,000 correct notes and one wrong note—and the only thing people will care about is the wrong note.” Last Sunday I hit some wrong notes, and felt bad. Then I remembered a story about Rudolf Serkin and started to chuckle. Charles Rosen (or was it Leon Fleisher?) told the story of Serkin playing a Beethoven Sonata in front of a large audience. The theme is all in octaves; but Serkin hit some wrong notes, and played parallel 7ths instead. This so unnerved him that every time the theme returned, he played the entire thing in parallel 7ths! We must remember that even the greatest hit wrong notes. Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Sviatoslav Richter, Egon Petri—they all hit wrong notes, which we can hear on recordings. (Josef Hofmann was an exception, but he was super-human so he doesn’t count!)

—Jeff Ostrowski