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Corpus Christi Watershed

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Views from the Choir Loft

New Resource! • Chant Videos for Treble Voices

Fr. David Friel · February 23, 2019

OUNTLESS schola directors and choristers make regular use of the thousands of practice videos published freely here at Corpus Christi Watershed. Among the practice videos are recordings of the complete Kyriale (all 18 Gregorian Masses), the Ordinary of ICEL’s 2011 translation of the Roman Missal, the Simple English Propers, as well as an astonishing collection of polyphonic pieces. The wealth of assistance now available to parish musicians is truly remarkable.

Thanks to the contributions of a start-up website that went live in early 2019, those resources continue to grow.

Entitled Chant for Trebles, this new site is the work of Mrs. Sipkje Price, a Catholic convert, music educator, and director of a women’s chant schola in Jackson, MI. Working with her singers, Sipkje found that many of them expressed difficulty matching pitch with practice videos featuring a male voice a full octave below their own. Thus was born the concept of Chant for Trebles.

The goal of the project is ambitious: to create practice videos for the full Gregorian chant Propers for each Sunday (and select feasts) of the liturgical year, based on the 1962 calendar. The videos will feature sound recordings paired with the printed version of each chant.

Sipkje has begun with the pre-Lenten season. The chants for Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima are presently available on the site, and the plan is to add each week’s videos in time for local singers to rehearse with them. To see an example video, check out the communion chant for next Sunday (Quinquagesima) on YouTube:


The approach Sipkje takes to the musicality of these videos is closely considered. The recordings are being made with high quality equipment in a real acoustic, with no added reverberation and minimal editing. With respect to interpretation, she intends to take a relatively conservative approach, aiming for solid pitches and straightforward rhythmic readings, in order to allow schola directors to shape the chant phrases as they wish.

OT TERRIBLY LONG ago, resources to assist parish musicians in singing the treasury of Catholic sacred music were often crude, sometimes expensive, rarely accessible, and otherwise non-existent. So much has changed in the last decade or two. The Internet, alone, boasts a richness of resources that are free, easily available, and often of exceptional quality, for both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite.

Chant for Trebles fills a need and expands these resources. We look forward to the completion of the full year of videos!

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Catholic Youth Choirs, Extraordinary Form 1962 Missal, Gregorian Chant, Liturgy For Children, Resources for training in Church music Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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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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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

It is clear the Church is facing a grave crisis. Under the name of “the new Church” and “the post-conciliar Church,” a different Church from that of Jesus Christ is now trying to establish itself: an anthropocentric society threatened with imminent apostasy which is allowing itself to be swept along in a movement of general abdication under the pretext of renewal, ecumenicism, or adaptation.

— Cardinal Henri de Lubac (29 August 1967)

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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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.

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