I mentioned in an earlier blog that I like to make a chart of all of my song selections on a dry-erase board in order to see the different weeks/liturgies side by side. It helps me to see all of the recent weeks at a glance for comparison sake. Needless to say, with the additional Holy Week liturgies, I began to run out of room in the music office! The white-board was full with the weeks leading up to Palm Sunday, so I had to add some extra paper for Holy Week: Holy Thursday, 3 Good Friday Services, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. A lot of blanks...a lot of songs. A challenge...and a privilege to choose the music our community will sing at these beautiful and important celebrations.
Every song choice is important.
Every song serves a purpose in the liturgy.
Add to that the fact that there would be many, many visitors to our parish liturgies in these coming days. The music needs to work for everyone. You can't just choose music your particular community is familiar with singing. It needs to appeal to everyone. It needs to engage everyone. It can't just be the latest, most popular songs. A good mix of tradition...combined with solid, familiar songs...combined with new and fresh music...that's my goal for this weekend's music.
And, for the most part, there will be different musicians at all the masses. Some will have drums and bass, some will only have piano, some will have a choir, some will have a solo cantor, etc.
I've spent a good deal of time going over the selections and instrumentation to do my best to help enhance these celebrations. It's been wonderful working with the rest of our liturgy and audio/visual team to find creative and effective ways to celebrate with our community. I've welcomed their comments about years' past and their suggestions for this Holy Week as well. We're a team. It's not MY music. It's not MY ministry. It's ours.
It's a lot to think about!!!
So, this weekend we'll be singing everything from "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today," to "Pange Lingua Gloriosi," to "Revelation Song." We're using everything from a contemporary band to a traditional organ.
I'm looking forward to sharing our experiences in next week's blog.
I was actually just thinking about this. Our choir is doing the Vigil, which in itself has so much more music than normal, but I'm also helping out with the Holy Thursday and Good Friday services. The range of music is awesome. We have Taize, modern, traditional, and varied instrumentation. And that's just one service! I look forward to seeing how it worked out for you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Happy Easter!!!
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