Church Music

This is also Psalm 33 but with a different response and altered verses. It is Paul Mason’s setting for the Psalm for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C from his Psalms for All Time Vol 3. You can purchase the collection at Liturgical Song.

The tune for the verses is much the same as yesterday’s psalm with accomodations for the change in text, but you can see how it would help an assembly having familar themes repeat over the weeks, especially when they are as interesting as this.

Response

Blessed the people the Lord has chosen,

Chosen to be his own.

1 Ring out your joy to the Lord, O you just;

For praise is fitting from the upright.

Bles’d the nation whose God is the Lord,

The people ha has chosen as his heritage.

2 Yes the Lord’s eyes are on those who fear him,

Who hope in his merciful love,

To rescue their soul from death,

To keep them alive in famine.

3 Our soul is waiting for the Lord.

He is our help and shield.

May your merciful love be upon us,

As we hope in you, O Lord.

This is Paul Mason’s setting of Psalm 33 for the Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A (ie soon) from Psalms for All Time Volume Three – buy the sheet music from Liturgical Song. There are samples of the some of the psalms there, but not this one and also some at his Youtube page but not this one either.

The notes for this psalm are, of course, in Volume Two. I blogged the same tune, same psalm response, but for for the Second Sunday of Lent and the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time when I looked at Volume two.

I should comment on the layout of the sheet music. He has chosen absolute clarity so the pages are very uncluttered – in other words your organist will need a willing page turner. A tech nut like Mason would have everything on his big Ipad with a foot switch to turn pages but otherwise the psalms spread over enough pages to be absolutely clear so be prepared. He provides chords to keep us guitarists happy but basic guitarists will have to look up the more esoteric ones, or more likely dumb the chords down, ignore the bass runs and fudge mightily. All I can say is there is beauty in his detail if you are up to it.

This psalm is a good example: response in Gm, verses in D, but enough accidentals everywhere so you aren’t sure which key you are in. Yet the tune flows and maintains interest.

My BIAB backing aspires to the prayerfully confident style suggested. It does not attempt his wonderful keyboard arrangement, it’s just Band in a Box. There is also no ten string lute settings on BIAB.

Response

Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.

1 Ring out your joy to the Lord, O you just;

For praise is fitting from the upright.

Give thanks to the Lord upon the harp;

With a ten string lute sing him songs.

2 For the word of the Lord is upright,

And all his works to be trusted.

The Lord loves justice and right,

And his merciful love fills the earth.

3 Yes the Lord’s eyes are on those who fear him,

Who hope in his merciful love,

To rescue their soul from death,

To keep them alive in famine.

This is Paul Mason’s setting of Psalm 25 for the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A.

It is from Psalms for All Time Vol 3, which should be purchased from Liturgical Song – it’s that good. His notes for this psalm are of course in Volume One, so you’ll have to buy that as well. If you buy them all and the future volumes, you will have psalms for everything if you have the cantors up to the task. If not, you at least the the refrains, the commentaries and songs that stand up as hymns apart from being psalms.

Response

Remember your mercies, O Lord.

Remember O Lord.

1 O Lord, make me know your ways,

Teach me. Teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth, and teach me;

For you are the God of my salvation.

2 Remember your compassion, O Lord,

And your merciful love, for they are from of old.

Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions.

In your merciful love remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord.

3 Good and upright is the Lord,

He shows the way to sinners.

He guides the humble in right judgment;

To the humble he teaches the way.

This is Psalm 18 for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A and the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B, as set by Paul Mason.

Find it in Psalms for All Time Vol 3 at Liturgical Song.

I make these backings because I can’t sight read and I want to know how it goes. Mason has a few of these songs on YouTube, but not nearly enough.

This is typically delightful and a good example of how a psalm like this could be used as a hymn in other settings.

Response

I love you, Lord. I love you, Lord.

I love you, Lord, my strength.

1 I love you, Lord, my strength;

O Lord, my rock, my fortress, my saviour.

2 My God, my rock where I take refuge;

My Shield, my saving strength, my stronghold.

I cry out, “O Praised be the Lord!”

And see, I am saved from my foes.

3 The Lord lives, and blest be my Rock!

May the God of my salvation be exalted.

The Lord gives great victories to his king,

And shows merciful love for his anointed.

This is Paul Mason’s take on the Psalm for the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Year C.

It’s still Psalm 16 and he has kept the same interesting but singable tune and the verses are the same as yesterday’s psalm. I love the detail in the chord choice: D(omit3), Em11, G3m7b5, etc.

The whole collection (Vol 3 of Psalms for All Time) is great value and available at Liturgical Song.

I made a slightly different style of backing this time:

Response

You are my inheritance , O Lord, O Lord.

You are my inheritance.

1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord.”

O Lord it is you who are my portion and cup;

You yourself who secure my lot.

2 I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,

Who even at night directs my heart.

I keep the Lord before me always;

with him at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

3 And so, my heart rejoices, my soul is glad;

Even my flesh shall rest in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

Not let your holy one see corruption.

4 You will show me the path of life,

The fullness of joy in your presence,

At your right hand, bliss forever.

He has notes for this psalm that give interesting background information on the psalm itself, other uses in the Weekday Lectionary, various blessings and Saints’ Days and the Liturgy of Hours. There is always more than just sheet music in Mason’s books.

This is Paul Mason’s setting of Psalm 16 for the Third Sunday of Easter Year A. The tune is just about the same as yesterday’s psalm. It is from Volume 3 of Psalms for All Time.

Buy this collection of psalms at Liturgical Song.

Response

Lord, you will show us the path of life, show us the path of life.

or Alleluia! x3

1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord.”

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup;

You yourself who secure my lot.

2 I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,

Who even at night directs my heart.

I keep the Lord before me always;

with him at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

3 And so, my heart rejoices, my soul is glad;

Even my flesh shall rest in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

Not let your holy one see corruption.

4 You will show me the path of life,

The fullness of joy in your presence,

At your right hand, bliss forever.

I’m starting on Paul Mason’s third collection of psalms, Psalms for All Times Vol 3.

Go and buy all his psalm books at Liturgical Song. You get the texts, his amazing music and extensive commentary, as well as the fun of searching for where he inserted the technical notes for each song – sometimes in a different volume.

This is Psalm 16 for the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B and the Easter Vigil.

I repeated the response in this one as if you were using it for the psalm, but I won’t keep doing that. I am unlikely to use these, except maybe the responses, as we don’t have a cantor, but they are also worth consideration just as songs for mass using the words of the psalm.

Paul is good at reusing themes across psalms so they will become familar over time. Within the psalms, even when the stanzas won’t line up he still manages to have similar tunes that sound natural and flowing.

He has some of the psalms up his Youtune channel, but not this one – hopefully more are on the way.

I’ve debated whether to put the words up as they are somehow copyright, but it has been pointed out they are all over the internet already.

Response

Keep me safe, O God, you are my hope. Keep me safe, O God.

1 O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup;

You yourself who secure my lot.

I keep the Lord before me always;

With him at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

2 And so, my heart rejoices, my soul is glad;

Even my flesh shall rest in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

Nor let your holy one see corruption.

3 You will show the path of life,

The fullness of joy in your presence,

At your right hand, bliss forever.

It’s Ash Wednesday already…

I’d like to to keep the same songs running throughout Lent.

Entrance: Merciful God – Entrance (Alonso)

Gifts: All the Hungry (Doherty)

Communion: Coming Home (Kirkpatrick)

Recessional: Hope in Love (Bierer, Deegan, Hart, Lynch, Watts)

While I’d like to do a seasonal psalm like Mason’s “With the Lord” Psalm 129, we may end up just saying the psalms for Lent.

It was suggested at our music meeting that after communion in Lent there could be silence or a Taize hymn. “Stay with me” would work.

There are new Lectionaries that have either arrived or are coming for the English speaking Catholic world.

England has theirs already using the ESV-CE translation for the readings, the USA is going with the Catholic American Bible (natch) when they get around to it and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand will use the the RNJB at some stage, because why not?

So we either get the Vatican making lousy decisions for the whole English speaking world or we get lots of different decisions for different areas to cause confusion.

Regarding psalms there appears more unity in that everyone is moving to “The Abbey Psalms and Canticles” otherwise known as the Revised, Revised Grail. Australia will use the ICEL responses but I’m struggling to find what other jurisdictions are doing with their responses, it appears that they won’t be using the ICEL responses I think.

There is little between them all, but it means the psalms for Australia will have two copyrights, ICEL for the responses and the holder of the copyright for “The Abbey Psalms.” That was the abbey who sold it to GIA who sold it to the USCCB.

There are some who think that copyright over psalms is evil and have posted the whole thing on the internet. They suggest it should be under a creative commons licence and that is something the USCCB could do if they wanted to.

This is all annoying me because I’m looking at the third volume of Paul Mason’s excellent psalms. All his volumes use ICEL (First 1981, 2nd and beyond 1997) responses. For verses, the first one used 1963 Grail, the second, 2010 Revised Grail and the third 2018 Revised, Revised Grail. This all makes my brain hurt and you wonder why anyone writes psalms with the confusion causing delays and limiting sales to smaller areas.

Blame Mary for this one.

In the context of church songs that may have become country standards, she directed us to this song by Fr. Eamonn (Eddie) Bheartla Ó Connaighle. It is a proper Irish folk song.

The background for this is all at Godsongs naturally.

I love the version by John Beag Ó Flatharta, but I can’t see it working at our local church, except perhaps during the local Tamar Valley Folk Festival each January.

Godsongs has a link to the guitar chords and lyrics. There is also some sheet music there that is just wrong, both unsuccessfully trying to put an Irish lilt to the tune and also with many incorrect notes.

My backing is in E like the version above and I’ve made what corrections I could but I don’t vouch for their accuracy. I put a BIAB instrumental verse after the chorus.

This brings up the idea of what music can be sacred. Historically, sacred music was generally secular before it was taken up by the church, usually after enough of an interval so that the secular roots of the music have been forgotten. It is temporal, cultural and responds to the available technology. An enclosed community is ideal for chant. An organ is ideal for the long reverberation of a cathedral. A piano is great to support an assembly, as in good hands it gives melody, harmony, and percussion support. A voice plus guitar will work for small assemblies unamplified and large ones amplified. A voice plus a backing is better than listening to a CD or tape. All can be sacred if they arise from a worshipping community.

The Catholic church has a big problem in not being self conscious enough to notice the relativistic nature of its worship over centuries and cultures and the organic adaptations that are made adapting to technology, equipment, time, place and changing patterns of human thought and belief.

The style is irrevelant except that it needs to not cause problems with the liturgical flow of the mass. Since style is linked to instrumental accompaniment, each will have its achilles heel. For example, an overbearing organ that goes on too long or drowns out the assembly isn’t helpful. A drummer who hasn’t learned to play quietly or know when not to play at all has things to learn. Over amplified voices and instruments that discourage the assembly from participation must be avoided. The style may not be a problem but the sound system may well be.

Just because I don’t associate a certain style with being sacred doesn’t mean a particular assembly won’t find it exactly what is needed for their expression of faith. I could go on…