Views from the Choir Loft

Andrew Motyka • Article Archive

Andrew Motyka is the Archdiocesan Director of Liturgical Music and Cathedral Music for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.—Read full biography (with photographs).

Andrew R. Motyka · May 8, 2013

Not-So-Ordinary Time

Ordinary Time doesn’t mean what you think it means, and even if it does, you’re probably wrong.

Andrew R. Motyka · May 1, 2013

Live for the Moment

The temporal reality of the liturgy that cannot be bound by recordings.

Andrew R. Motyka · April 24, 2013

Following the Leader

The choir director as a model for singing.

Andrew R. Motyka · April 17, 2013

Just Pick Up a Pencil and Do It.

Short and sweet regarding composing.

Andrew R. Motyka · April 10, 2013

Participating Actively despite all of that Active Participation

Isn’t this what is meant by the “active participation” that is one of the liturgical goals of the Second Vatican Council?

Andrew R. Motyka · April 3, 2013

The Choir Director as Catechist

How to feed your choir in non-musical ways.

Andrew R. Motyka · March 27, 2013

Free Communion Antiphons!

Free responsorial-style Communion antiphons for Ordinary Form Mass use.

Andrew R. Motyka · March 20, 2013

Cub Scouts, Abel, and Liturgical Music

The Cub Scout motto and how we should always render our best work to God.

Andrew R. Motyka · March 13, 2013

How Do I Get Them to Sing? Part 2 of 2

Part 2 of the congregational singing series.

Andrew R. Motyka · March 6, 2013

How Do I Get Them to Sing? Part 1 of 2

The perennial problem of congregational singing.

Andrew R. Motyka · February 27, 2013

The Church Music Director: Job or Vocation?

Is music your whole life? Should it be?

Andrew R. Motyka · February 20, 2013

Are You to Wash My Feet?

Presenting a choir piece for the Washing of Feet on Holy Thursday

Andrew R. Motyka · February 13, 2013

Lord, Have Mercy?

In which I make Prince references to describe the Ash Wednesday Kyrie.

Andrew R. Motyka · February 6, 2013

Every moment is a teachable moment

For the record, I double-checked the Missal, and learned something about the rubrics myself . . .

Andrew R. Motyka · January 30, 2013

I am not worthy

In which I forget parts of the Mass Ordinary and try to get through it anyway.

“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

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