• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

  • Our Team
  • Pew Resources
    • Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal
    • Jogues Illuminated Missal
    • Campion Missal, 3rd Edition
  • MUSICAL WEBSITES
    • René Goupil Gregorian Chant
    • Noël Chabanel Psalms
    • Nova Organi Harmonia (2,279 pages)
    • Lalemant Polyphonic
    • Saint Antoine Daniel KYRIALE
    • Roman Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Emporium Kevin Allen
  • Miscellaneous
    • Site Map
    • Saint Jean de Lalande Library
    • Sacred Music Symposium 2023
  • Donate
Views from the Choir Loft

The Vulnerability of Choral Singing

Richard J. Clark · January 29, 2016

HE HUMAN voice is unique in that it is the only musical instrument housed within our God given body. The connection between physical, emotional, mental health, and musical performance is direct. Get sick and the instrument is diminished. Lose mental focus, and like any instrument, performance will suffer. The human voice is vulnerable. But this also what makes it incredibly powerful.

The essence of singing—professional or amateur, in front of a large audience or alone in the shower—is the expression of emotion. Because the voice is one with the body, it is an instrument capable of instant results with regard to emotional and spiritual expression. And it leaves all those who sing before others utterly exposed. Singing is a risk.

HERE IS A HEALING element to singing in a choir. Having directed for many years in parish settings and elsewhere, I am always pleasantly shocked when I’m told, “choir rehearsal is the highlight of my week.” Singers work hard at inconvenient hours and they have to put up with me. Furthermore, members of church choirs likely volunteer on average far more time year round than other volunteers within a community.

Why do singers come back time and again? The reasons are innumerable; the willingness to be vulnerable is a risk well worth taking. This is what makes choral singing so powerful emotionally and spiritually.

But there is another element of surprise: everyone has a story. Choirs spend a lot of time with each other. Making music with anyone on a regular basis is a very intimate relationship—as is praying with those very people. We know the musical and sometimes personal strengths and weaknesses of others. Yet, just when we think we have sized up someone we spend time with each week, sometimes a new surprise hits when we learn something new about that person’s story.

Everyone comes to the Eucharist, to prayer, and to music with his or her own burdens, weaknesses, failures, and suffering. Some of the suffering and challenges we may not know about are extremely significant. Everyone is vulnerable. That is humanity. But overcoming that vulnerability makes for incredible strength. As such, I am often in awe of those under my direction given the challenges they face and have overcome.

VERONE IS IMPORTANT. I have the privilege of working with singers with amazing careers and singers who are just trying to learn the basics. But we come together in unity to pray through music. Those who are not professional singers always bring something else to the table that is very valuable to the choir. Sometimes it is the least talented who have the most to offer the group. Everyone is important.

Through a generation of experience, I can attest to many singers who fortify the choir and all our prayer through the very imperfect person that they are. Musically, a director’s challenge is to make it all work. But everyone who comes to sing is healing others perhaps as they are healing themselves. They often don’t know it. Sometimes directors need to remind everyone of that.

INALLY, THERE IS A VULNERABILITY in keeping institutions and programs alive—even highly successful ones. Those who work for the Church as musicians are deeply vulnerable—although we don’t like to show it. But, I have learned that even the best musicians and even those who appear to have high profile positions experience grave professional difficulties at one time or another in their career. We share this struggle for art, prayer, and beauty in common. A byproduct of this reality is that I am that much more grateful for my singers—who are beautiful people—without whom I would be nothing.

Therefore, as choir directors, we too have struggles and must be mindful of the struggles of those under our leadership. We all share in the common frailty of humankind. But with God, al things are possible. With God, a collection of individuals who sing in a choir have the power to heal others and create music that is greater than the individual parts, talented and less talented. We are unified in the love of Christ.

Thank God for church choirs. I don’t know where I would be today without them, because those who sing for me have saved my life and have helped heal me every single week.

More importantly, choirs elevate prayer directing our hearts and minds toward God. This is truly the healing and saving power of music.

Soli Deo Gloria

HERE ARE A FEW OF MY CHORAL/LITURGICAL WORKS for Lent and Easter. You can listen to recordings of each or these:

• Communion Antiphons for Lent | SATB, Organ, Assembly • World Library Publications

• Christe qui lux es et dies | Based on Compline Hymn for Lent, SATB • RJC Cecilia Music

• Lumen Christi | Paschal Candle Procession | Deacon/Priest, Assembly, SATB • CanticaNOVA Publications

• O Sacrum Convivium | TTB or SSA • includes optional text for tempore quadragesimæ • RJC Cecilia Music

• I Am Risen, Resurrexi | Introit for Easter Sunday, SATB, organ • RJC Cecilia Music

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

Subscribe

It greatly helps us if you subscribe to our mailing list!

* indicates required

About Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark is the Director of Music of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.—(Read full biography).

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    Vespers Booklet (4th Sunday of Lent)
    The organ accompaniment booklet (24 pages) which I created for the 4th Sunday of Lent (“Lætare Sunday”) may now be downloaded, for those who desire such a thing.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Vespers Booklet, 3rd Sunday of Lent
    The organ accompaniment I created for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (“Extraordinary Form”) may now be downloaded, if anyone is interested in this.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Weeping For Joy! (We Hope!)
    Listening to this Easter Alleluia—an SATB arrangement I made twenty years ago based on the work of Monsignor Jules Van Nuffel—one of our readers left this comment: “I get tears in my eyes each time I sing to this hymn.” I hope this person is weeping for joy!
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Church officials frequently asked Tomás Luis de Victoria for his opinion on cathedral appointments because of his fame and knowledge. He was faithful to his position as convent organist even after his professional debut as an organist, and never accepted any extra pay for being a chapelmaster. Held in great esteem, his contract allowed him frequent travel away from the convent, and he attended Palestrina’s funeral (in Rome) in 1594.”

— ‘Dr. Robert Stevenson, 1961 (mod.)’

Recent Posts

  • Vespers for Easter Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
  • Hidden Gem: Ave Regina Caelorum (Steven Talley)
  • Four (4) Shimmery Hymns for Lent & Passiontide
  • “Go!” • The Word That Changed My Life Forever
  • Vespers Booklet (4th Sunday of Lent)

Subscribe

Subscribe

* indicates required

Copyright © 2023 Corpus Christi Watershed · Isaac Jogues on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.