Views from the Choir Loft

Keven Smith • Article Archive

Keven Smith is the music director at St. Stephen the First Martyr Catholic Church, an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) in Sacramento, California. He trains and directs a mixed choir that sings full Gregorian propers, ordinaries, and sacred polyphony at more than 100 traditional Latin Masses per year. Keven lives in Sacramento with his wife and five musical children.—Read full biography (with photographs).

Keven Smith · December 28, 2020

Start the New Year Right with a Spectacular Alleluia

If you attend the Extraordinary Form, the Alleluia for the Octave of the Nativity will enable you to start the New Year with a bang.

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Keven Smith · December 21, 2020

Hidden Gem: Alma Redemptoris Mater (Salazar)

Here’s a Spanish Baroque motet that will gradually, gently win your heart while giving your choir another good option for the entire Christmas cycle.

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Keven Smith · December 14, 2020

How to Help Children Match Pitch (part III)

Three more tips on what to do and how to act with your young music students. Learn the secret ingredient of success!

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Keven Smith · December 7, 2020

How to Help Children Match Pitch (part II)

Got your kids singing in head tone? Good. Next, try these two tips to eliminate obstacles to their success.

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Keven Smith · November 30, 2020

How to Help Children Match Pitch (part I)

It all starts with teaching your kids to sing in head tone. Here are some ideas on how to do it.

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Keven Smith · November 23, 2020

St. Matthew, St. Jane, and the End of a Liturgical Year

St. Jane de Chantal’s Prayer of Abandonment can help you make peace with a liturgical year that was not what any of us expected.

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Keven Smith · November 16, 2020

Let’s Bring Back the Thank-You Note

I’m a little early for Thanksgiving, but I think any church musician will appreciate this story of gratitude.

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Keven Smith · November 9, 2020

Veterans Day: Remembering Those Who Made Our Music Possible

My grandparents served in World War II and helped defeat fascism. The service, faith, and prayers of people like them made it possible for us all to be church musicians today.

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Keven Smith · November 2, 2020

Place Me Among the Sheep, Not the Goats

The Dies Irae is part of why my choir prefers singing Requiems to Nuptial Masses. Here’s why you should spend a few minutes with this Sequence on All Souls Day.

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Keven Smith · October 26, 2020

Quick Vocal Tip: The Yawn Breath

Looking for a speedy way to help your choir get into good placement for singing? The yawn breath encourages healthy phonation.

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Keven Smith · October 20, 2020

Helping “Tone-Deaf” Men Match Pitch

(Keven Smith) • Ever had a man express interest in your choir, only to discover that he has trouble matching pitch? You may just need to unlock his high range. Here’s how I’d approach the situation • James C. McKinney is mentioned+

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Keven Smith · October 13, 2020

How to Stay Prayerful as a Church Musician

It all boils down to recollection. This 39-page book will help. (And so will one weird trick with your computer, as the clickbaiters would say.)

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Keven Smith · October 6, 2020

The Real Reason Why Some People Don’t Match Pitch

(Keven Smith) • I’ve come to realize that the vast majority of “tone-deaf” people aren’t really tone-deaf at all. They just haven’t been trained to coordinate their voices with their audiation+

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Keven Smith · September 28, 2020

Outdoor Music Classes? Only in 2020!

One hundred participants? Either sacred music is alive and well or families are getting stir-crazy from the lockdown.

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Keven Smith · September 14, 2020

Graduale Renovatum: New Resource Brings Chant Rhythm to Life

These intuitive manuscripts give singers the information they need to bring out the oft-ignored nuances of chant rhythm.

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PDF Download • “Our Father” (1 page)

Dutch organist, teacher, and conductor HERMAN STRATEGIER (d. 1988) studied under Hendrik Andriessen. He composed this unison setting with organ accompaniment for the LORD’S PRAYER (“Our Father”) which a children’s choir would find both within reach and worthy of the effort. The whole thing fits neatly on a single page. Strategier eventually became organist of Saint Catherine’s Cathedral in Utrecht. He also taught at the “Dutch Institute for Catholic Church Music” (Nederlands Instituut voor Katholieke Kerkmuziek).

—Jeff Ostrowski

PDF • “Organ Interlude” (Manuals Only)

Monsignor Franciszek Walczyński (d. 1937) was a Polish composer. If you play the pipe organ, I encourage you to try out this ORGAN INTERLUDE FOR MANUALS ONLY (1-page PDF) which he composed. Walczyński taught plainsong at the seminary in Tarnów (about 50 miles east of Kraków). With his brother Stanisław—also a Catholic priest—he initiated the Saint Adalbert Society for the Support of Church Music, which ran annual workshops for their diocese. In July of 1894 (more than a decade before the appearance of the Editio Vaticana) Walczyński lectured on “congregational singing and Gregorian Chant.” On top of all that, Monsignor Walczyński founded an organists’ school in Tarnów and the SAINT ADALBERT CHOIR at the cathedral.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Eucharistic Prayer No. 2 on Sundays?

Highlighted in yellow (on this single-page PDF file) is documentation concerning whether the 2nd Eucharistic prayer may be used on Sundays.

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—Jeff Ostrowski

Preface of Saint Joseph (added by the pope)

You can see the “Præfatio de Sancto Joseph” inserted directly into the priest’s missal.

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—Jeff Ostrowski

“Predictable Rhymes?” • A Follow Up

We received considerable correspondence regarding my article, Two Ways to Defile a Hymn. More specifically, what really raised certain people’s hackles was its follow-up article dealing with the keyboard accompaniment for the CHRIST THE KING HYMNAL. But to quote Eliza Doolittle: “Have I said anything I oughtn’t?” Please examine this PDF file and see whether you agree. Were the editors of the BRÉBEUF HYMNAL incorrect to insist upon sophisticated and clever rhymes, rather than mind-numbingly predictable rhymes?

—Jeff Ostrowski

‘Ould’ But Not Good

Dom Samuel Gregory Ould (note the spelling) was a Benedictine monk at FORT AUGUSTUS ABBEY in Scotland. As musician, organist, and composer, Dom Ould was highly regarded. Moreover, he was considered an authority on Gregorian Chant. But not everything found in an old book—or, in this case, an “Ould” book—is necessarily praiseworthy. Consider this page from Dom Ould’s hymnal. Do you see the rhymes? They offend severely by ABR (“Abuse By Reuse”) and are utterly predictable. In my recent article—Two Ways to Defile a Hymn—I addressed this topic.

—Jeff Ostrowski