Last Saturday, Jonathan, Lisa P., Maggie, Karina and I stuck around to practice. We worked on selections for next week, most notably our Communion song, 'In the Lord I'll Be Ever Thankful'.
For those of you unfamiliar, we first did this piece for the Dedication Service several weeks ago. We reviewed the choir parts, learned the verse, and developed a structure, but as a Taize piece, we'll repeat/change this as needed to fill the time.
We also continued discussing changes to the group, and resumed Monday evening with an email thread. A few new thoughts:
(this list to be expanded upon as the week continues)
We wrapped up practice around 8:30 PM, one of our longer sessions this summer.
Mass for Feast of the Assumption is being held on Thursday at 7 PM and Friday at 9 AM.
- Father let us know that we can do the same song twice in one mass, as long as the piece is used for both Gathering and Sending.
- In light of this, one approach we're seriously considering is limiting the number of 'new' songs we do each week to three, while using the same piece for Gathering and Sending (preferably, one with lots of verses that could be split up) and another for Communion.
- These two 'common' songs would be used throughout one month, before being swapped out for a different set.
- Again, this approach would allow us to focus our rehearsal time and resources on a smaller pool of pieces that we could learn thoroughly.
- The Communion songs that have been put forth so far include:
- SS 105 - Christ, Be Our Light
- SS 131 - Song of the Body of Christ
- SS 143 - We Are the Light of the World
- SS 151 - Come to the Lord
- SS 152 - Here I Am
- SS 153 - I Am the Bread of Life
- SS 157 - Bread for the World
- SS 162 - Lord, You Have Come
- SS 163 - Table of Plenty
- SS 165 - We Are One Body (Killoren)
- SS 166 - Worthy is the Lamb
- SS 202 - Shine, Jesus, Shine
- GC 639 - Nothing Can Trouble (Taize)
- GC 655 - In the Lord (Taize)
- GC 726 - Make Me a Channel of Your Peace
- GC 815 - You Satisfy the Hungry Heart
- GC 834 - Seed, Scattered and Sown
- GC 838 - Eat This Bread (Taize)
UPDATE (8/15): 'We Are One Body' has been selected as the Communion song for the next month. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the list of candidates!
If you haven't already, please read over Father's letter to Jim regarding the music for 5:30 mass. It can be found HERE.
We wrapped up practice around 8:30 PM, one of our longer sessions this summer.
Mass for Feast of the Assumption is being held on Thursday at 7 PM and Friday at 9 AM.
UPDATE (8/13): the 9:00 Music Ministry has invited all of us to attend a special dinner in honor of Anne G., who will shortly be stepping down as organist and director of the 9:00 Choir. See the email forwarded by Jonathan for details.
UPDATE (8/16): on Tuesday, a representative from the company that upgraded our sound system visited to give tips on the new system and tweak settings. See Barb's notes below for the highlights -- most of it is naturally 11:00-oriented, but still (generally) relevant to us:
- For the 3 microphones that can be held (the solo mics; 2 on the wooden stand and one standing in front of choir), the singer needs to be 1 to 3 inches away from the mic in order for it to pick up the voice and project it loud enough into the entire sanctuary space. He demonstrated how being further than 3 inches away greatly diminishes the sound. So if you are cantoring and singing the 'Alleluia' or leading the first song during Communion, please get close to those microphones.
- For the people in the Cry Room or the Gathering Space, the sound they are hearing for the singing and spoken prayers is coming from the choir microphones (the 4 thin ones that are angled over our heads). I had been muting all the microphones when we were not singing in order to eliminate extra noise coming from the choir area. I am now going to let the choir mics on during spoken prayer. Please be aware of this and keep extra noise coming from us to a minimum - side conversations we are having, kids talking, papers/books rustling, will be picked up on those mics when they are not muted.
- Our 11:00 preset on the iPad is working well and we don't need to adjust anything. We just need to make sure it is 'on-line' during mass. (A few of us know how to do that.) When we have special instruments, such as brass for holidays, we will need to reconfigure some things, but we can save that discussion for when the time comes.
Jim, Barry, Maggie, Lisa K., and Emily are out this week.
Here are the songs for Saturday:
Gathering:
SS 168 - Cry the Gospel
Glory to God:
Mass of Creation
Response (Karina):
SS 70 - Lord, Every Nation (Psalm 72)
Gospel Acclamation:
Mass of Creation
Offertory:
SS 196 - Open My Eyes
Holy, Holy, Holy:
Mass of Creation
Eucharistic Acclamation:
Mass of Creation
Eucharistic Doxology:
Mass of Creation
Lamb of God:
Mass of Creation
Communion:
GC 566 - In the Lord I'll Be Ever Thankful
Choir Parts: (soprano) (alto) (tenor) (bass)
Closing:
GC 658 - Bring Forth the Kingdom
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