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Views from the Choir Loft

Square Note App

Fr. David Friel · April 9, 2017

ELL PHONES and other mobile devices these days serve manifold purposes. For some, they double and triple as cameras and internet browsers. For others, they also function as gaming devices, tip calculators, searchable Rolodexes, stereo systems, navigation systems, and portable televisions. But, have you ever used your mobile device as a Graduale Romanum?

Now you can, if you would like.

Recently, I stumbled upon an app called Square Note, which markets itself to church musicians and those who wish to learn more about chant. The app allows users to see a wide array of chants, with their texts and square notation. The chants are grouped in four major sections.

First, the Mass propers for the Ordinary Form encompass the whole temporal cycle and part of the sanctoral. Secondly, Mass propers are also available for the temporal cycle of the Extraordinary Form. Also included is a Kyriale section complete with all eighteen chant Masses and six chant creeds. Finally, the app offers a collection of “Other Chants,” which includes multiple versions of the Marian antiphons, certain Eucharistic chants, and several tones for the Te Deum.

One of the most useful features of the app is its capability of searching the texts of all the chants. Searches can be limited to the titles, or incipits, of the chants, or searches may be opened to include the full text of all the chants. For students of the liturgy, this tool is especially valuable.

Another feature that can be useful is the playback mode offered for each piece. Although this would unsettle purists, I can imagine the playback being useful for beginners. The tone quality of the playback is, of course, choppy and mechanistic, so its overuse ought to be avoided. I’ve known many schola directors who will not use a piano to find pitches or sound out passages, and there is real wisdom in their approach. For some, though, the playback mode offered in Square Note could be the help they need to get off the ground. Square Note even allows the user to adjust the pitch and tempo of the playback tool.

This app is the handiwork of Fr. Matthew Spencer, O.S.J. and Bro. Stephen Spencer, O.S.J., both members of the Holy Spouses Province of the Oblates of St. Joseph in the United States of America. It is a developing product, too, as more chants continue to be added to the collections.

The app is available for $2.99 in the Apple App Store or on Google Play. Click here to explore more fully the riches of this “Rituale in your pocket.”

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Graduale Romanum Roman Gradual Propers, Gregorian Chant, Propers, Resources for training in Church music Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Fr. David Friel

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at St. Anselm Parish in Northeast Philly. He is currently a doctoral candidate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America.—(Read full biography).

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20 January 2021 • REMINDER

We have no savings, no endowment, and no major donors. You can help us (please) by subscribing to our mailing list. It’s incredibly easy; just scroll to the bottom of any blog article and enter your email address. Thank you!

—Jeff Ostrowski
19 January 2021 • Confusion over feasts

For several months, we have discussed the complicated history of the various Christmas feasts: the Baptism of the Lord, the feast of the Holy Family, the Epiphany, and so forth. During a discussion, someone questioned my assertion that in some places Christmas had been part of the Epiphany. As time went on, of course, the Epiphany came to represent only three “manifestations” (Magi, Cana, Baptism), but this is not something rigid. For example, if you look at this “Capital E” from the feast of the Epiphany circa 1350AD, you can see it portrays not three mysteries but four—including PHAGIPHANIA when Our Lord fed the 5,000. In any event, anyone who wants proof the Epiphany used to include Christmas can read this passage from Dom Prosper Guéranger.

—Jeff Ostrowski
6 January 2021 • Anglicans on Plainsong

A book published by Anglicans in 1965 has this to say about Abbat Pothier’s Editio Vaticana, the musical edition reproduced by books such as the LIBER USUALIS (Solesmes Abbey): “No performing edition of the music of the Eucharistic Psalmody can afford to ignore the evidence of the current official edition of the Latin Graduale, which is no mere reproduction of a local or partial tradition, but a CENTO resulting from an extended study and comparison of a host of manuscripts gathered from many places. Thus the musical text of the Graduale possesses a measure of authority which cannot lightly be disregarded.” They are absolutely correct.

—Jeff Ostrowski

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— John Henry Cardinal Newman (1848)

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