Views from the Choir Loft

Jeff Ostrowski • Article Archive

A theorist, organist, and conductor, Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He completed studies in Education and Musicology at the graduate level. Having worked as a church musician in Los Angeles for ten years, in 2024 he accepted a position as choirmaster for Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Michigan, where he resides with his wife and children. —Read full biography (with photographs).

Jeff Ostrowski · April 11, 2016

Sacrament of Confirmation (EF) • “Fully Notated Confirmation Prayers”

You Will Want To Download These! • Written-out (“notated”) sheets for the Rite of Confirmation in the Extraordinary Form.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 10, 2016

Ven. Pope Pius XII Singing The Preface

We normally sing the way we heard the priest singing as a child…

Jeff Ostrowski · April 8, 2016

“Tantum Ergo” • Eleven (11) Harmonizations

Do you know what the “Tantum Ergo” means, word for word?

Jeff Ostrowski · April 7, 2016

“Et Cum Spiritu Tuo” in the 1961 Fulton Sheen Missal

What Fr. Philip Caraman does may surprise you…

Jeff Ostrowski · April 6, 2016

“I confess that I was a liturgical nut” says Bishop consecrated by Pope Paul VI

“The liturgy is not only worship of God; it is the way we are formed in our faith.” —Bishop Gracida

Jeff Ostrowski · April 5, 2016

Mass Propers • Fascinating Articles From 1924

Editors of “The Tablet” felt these essays were horrendous!

Jeff Ostrowski · April 5, 2016

We Need Assistance! Please Help Watershed Survive!

My 5-part series requesting donations seems to have failed miserably—with a few notable exceptions.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 4, 2016

“Hymn To The Blessed Virgin Mary” • Caswall & Parry

Choirs not yet ready for SATB hymn singing will love this version for two voices!

Jeff Ostrowski · April 4, 2016

Ward Method Studies • Space Available!

The chant must be sung lightly, and not too slowly.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 3, 2016

Musical Resources • Low Sunday (1962 Missal)

“In the day of My resurrection, saith the Lord, I will go before you into Galilee…”

Jeff Ostrowski · March 31, 2016

Mother Angelica • “60 Minutes” (1984)

This video shows Mother Angelica playing the drums at Mass! (Not kidding!)

Jeff Ostrowski · March 31, 2016

Bishop Doerfler’s Stunning Church Music Letter

“All parishes and schools are to have implemented the following directives by December 31, 2020.” —Bishop Doerfler.

Jeff Ostrowski · March 30, 2016

“Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above” • Nine Organ Accompaniments

Why do we love descants so much?

Jeff Ostrowski · March 29, 2016

Mother Angelica, How Bad Was It?

“To preside, a person must live from the rich ambiguity of symbolic reality.”

Jeff Ostrowski · March 28, 2016

PDF Download • Monsignor Ronald A. Knox “The Trials Of A Translator” (1949)

Your Easter present has arrived!

“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

Proof Which All Can Immediately See!

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” as the famous maxim goes. Over the years, I’ve observed malicious attacks on the Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal. Rather than scoring a ‘hit’ on the Brébeuf Hymnal, its attackers often reveal profound ignorance. I’ve been advised never to reply … but I break that rule today. Certain voices online assert that the Brébeuf Hymnal is “untraditional” because it includes both the Urbanite and pre-Urbanite versions of the hymns. But if only they would glance at a copy of the 1913 VESPERALE (printed by order of Pope Saint Pius X) they would see how mistaken such statements are.

—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