Muic As Prayer, Cantor As Orchestra by Ed Horodko
Music is a means of liturgical expression as old
as liturgy itself. Cultures use the language of music to express universal
emotions and ideas; our church uses music as the universal language of the
soul calling out to God in praise, gratitude, glory, petition, and apology.
Music strengthens our prayer by focusing our feelings and merging them with
the feelings of the people we sing with. My principal goal as musician and
music leader is to nurture this process. Next issue, I'll recount some of
the history of liturgical music in the 20th Century.
Welcome to a series of articles on music and liturgy. I'm writing it for
my parish community at Sacred Heart, in Olema, California, in Marin County,
about an hour north of San Francisco, as well as for the consideration of
the virtual community of Digital Liturgy Internet users. My purpose here
is to enhance understanding of our liturgical music, to deepen our own ability
to use music as prayer, and to broaden our understanding of liturgical concerns
beyond but related to music.
In time, I plan to include subjects like, "What ever happened to Gregorian
Chant?", "What is a Cantor?", "What does scripture say
about music in worship?", "What were those Folk Masses in the
'60's all about?", "How can a mass be in two languages at once?",
"Who picks the music at Sacred Heart and at other parishes?",
and "Is the mass a time of individual or community prayer?". If
you have a suggestion for a future topic, let me know.
At Sacred Heart, we have a baby grand piano that appears to play itself,
and an invisible orchestra. Our music director is also our cantor and, thanks
to his computer, our accompanist. That's me. The computer allows me to perform
the music before mass, and then play the performance through the grand piano
and orchestral sound modules at the press of a computer space bar, freeing
me to sing and lead with two hands and without compromise. This system,
called a midi (musical instrument digital interface), is a cost-effective
tool for the musician that provides flexible, high-quality music, customized
for each mass. In a future issue, I'll describe midi in liturgy in greater
detail. If you'd like more information on this before the article appears,
feel free to email me.
Parishioners and visitors often ask me about our musical instruments.
Where do you get the music you play on the computer at mass? I make
it. In preparation for mass, I arrange and perform the music while the computer
observes how I play the keyboard. Then the computer displays what I've played
in standard music notation and lets me edit notes as one edits words with
a word processesor.
The computer is connected to the keyboards, and can in turn control our
baby grand piano and a device called a "Midi Sound Module" which
contains thousands of digitally recorded notes played originally by acoustic
musical instruments. I can assign any part of my performance to any instrument--
piano, string section, various choruses of men, women, and children, pipe
organ, bass violin, flute, bells, trumpet, french horn, oboe, Hammond organ,
clarinet, bassoon, mandolin, drums, and others.
Our current equipment allows me to compose up to six distinct musical parts
at a time, that is, to play six different instruments or groups of instruments,
all in sync with each other. I can listen to the ones already recorded while
I record the next one.
At mass, I "play" my computer files at the appropriate times,
so I can be the orchestra, the cantor, and the music director simultaneously.
How long does it take you to create the performance file in the computer?
If it's a simple song for piano only, fifteen minutes or so. If it's a rich,
fully orchestrated piece, about two to five hours. If it's musically complex
(such as the Gospel Acclamation by Michael Joncas we used at Easter, the
pipe organ "Alleluia"), about ten hours. This piece employs two
organ manuals, pedals, and several different stops. It's the kind of grand
pipe organ music I lived for as a chapel organist at the seminary I attended
as a teen-ager.
© copyright 1996, Edward R. Horodko
Originally printed in the newsletter of Sacred Heart Church, Olema, CA,
USA.
Published online by Digital Liturgy with permission. Permission is hereby
granted for reprinting in whole or part for distribution solely within one
parish community. Email horodko@aol.com for other reprint permissions.
