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Views from the Choir Loft

“Imagine You’re Out of Rehearsal Time but Desperately Need a Hymn for Advent…”

Corrinne May · November 19, 2024

NE OF THE FIRST JOBS I took on after graduating from the Berklee College of Music in Boston and moving out west to Los Angeles involved teaching children at a music school. On that very first lesson, I sang them the ‘Alphabet Song’ and then sang them ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’. Then I just played the melody on the piano and asked them to guess which song I was playing. Some shouted ‘Twinkle Twinkle!’ others yelled ‘Alphabet Song’. After a couple of rounds of ‘Guess which song?’ I asked them if they realized they were singing the same melody and that the only difference in those two songs was that the lyrics had changed. Their little eyes gleamed and their jaws dropped in that childlike way when kids realise that they just level-upped without any effort.1

Practical Crossover • That’s what it is like to sing with a common melody approach. This approach has helped me many times with my volunteer ensemble, the IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY CHOIR in Singapore. It means that we can learn one melody—with all the harmonies for SATB—and as the liturgical year continues I can use that same melody but choose a different hymn lyric to fit the liturgical season.

How This Works: “First Example”

The following hymn (‘Solemn Hymn To The Son Of God’) is in 77 77 metre and was written by Father Dominic Popplewell, FSSP. It’s an excellent hymn that can be used throughout the year:

To access this hymn’s media in the Brébeuf Portal, click here.

Crisis Averted! • Now imagine you’ve run out of rehearsal time but desperately need a hymn for the upcoming 1st Sunday of Advent: a hymn that your choir can sing with familiarity and with harmonies in SATB. Voila! Check out this hymn that is perfect for Advent.

To access this hymn’s media in the Brébeuf Portal, click here.

News From Michigan • I see that my colleague, Jeff Ostrowski, has started a volunteer choir at his new position in Michigan. Yesterday, he posted a ‘live’ recording with lyrics—different from either of those mentioned above—using the same ‘shared tune’ I’ve been focusing on. It’s an English translation of Die Parente Temporum, and it looks like he’s made good progress in just a few months:

To access this hymn’s media in the Brébeuf Portal, click here.

How This Works: “More Examples”

Or perhaps you need a hymn to commemorate the Holy Name of Jesus. Here is one you can turn to. All you need to do is just to change its lyrics to the melody I spoke of (see above). You can cut down on rehearsal time because your choir already knows this hymn and all the harmonies that go along with it. Besides, your choir members will love being able to learn their individual voice part with the free rehearsal videos that accompany this hymn, and you can save the time that you would have taken to rehearse those voice parts. Use that extra time to read a wonderful book like ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’ by Pope Benedict XVI. The Brébeuf Hymnal also makes it easy for me to look up countless other options for hymn melodies. If I didn’t want this particular melody for the lyrics that I chose, I can always turn to the Brébeuf metrical index. Look for 77 77 and go through many other options for other tunes: ORIENTIS PARTIBUS; LLANFAIR; CULBACH; and so forth. (If the common melody approach is new to you, it’s best to initially begin with options written out in the Brébeuf Hymnal.) Here’s one for Easter with English translation by Robert Campbell of Skerrington, the same man who translated from Latin CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM (the hymn that we first looked at #194). With all these choices, it’s often hard to know which hymn to choose. Thank goodness there’s always the next liturgical season!

Personal Note • I should probably mention that I had such fun recording the vocals for the rehearsal videos of Hymn #194. I sang Soprano and Alto for the individual rehearsal videos.

1 Speaking of the ALPHABET SONG, did you know the Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal features a very special hymn wherein the author of the lyric wrote each new stanza beginning with a new alphabet? Every verse of the ABECEDARIUS by Sedulius (who lived in the 5th century) starts with a successive letter of the alphabet.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Common Hymn Melodies Last Updated: November 19, 2024

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About Corrinne May

Corrinne May is one of Singapore’s most celebrated singer-songwriters. She is also a wife and homeschooling mother.—(Read full biography).

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President’s Corner

    “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
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —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

“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.”

— Vatican II Council

Recent Posts

  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension
  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)

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