If you're running out of time to produce both versions, I suppose an alternative would be to let others transcribe it for you, and post it on the site when they mail you the PDF. Some folks are reluctant to throw chant notation at their congregations - the last time I did an insert in our hymnal I did it all in modern notation, even though I personally find it harder to sing to.

Jeff O., what word processor or layout program are you using with Caeciliae? (You're a Mac user too, right?) Fr. Spencer explained to me that he uses Adobe Creative Suite, which supports Caeciliae completely; I don't have that, but have managed to make it work somewhat well — somewhat! — with TextEdit.

Also, how do you get the text underneath the square notes? I don't recall the accompanying PDF explaining that… I'm guessing it's just another line of text, in whatever font you choose.

Amazingly enough, after years of sporting subpar typography it looks like Microsoft Word 2010 will provide respectable OpenType support (including ligatures and contextual alternates) which will make it possible to use Caeciliae directly from Microsoft Word. At least on a PC. :-P The Microsoft Office 2010 beta is open to the public, in case you want to play around with Caeciliae w/o Adobe products on a PC.

Dear Fr. Matthew,

Is it best to use APPLE PAGES, InDESIGN, or PHOTOSHOP with Cecilia Fonts ?

I'm currently using Apple Pages

I haven't used Apple Pages, so I can't really comment on that. I know that MacOS' implementation of OpenType is pretty good, but it's missing some features that make it a little easier to use Caeciliae. (For example, I'm told that writing "7ph" won't automatically place the horizontal episema automatically at the punctum's height. But this can be fixed by an extra keystroke: "7p7h" will manually place the episema at the correct height.)

The big advantage that InDesign has over Photoshop is that you can create more sophisticated styles for setting your chant. For example, you can create a style with tabs set that will automatically create drop caps, finish the chant lines at the same widths, etc. I use Photoshop for some basic settings, but InDesign for anything with more than two lines.

I've been hoping some word processors would come out that would support OpenType fully (and thus Caeciliae), but no such luck. Sigh.

Noel: kudos for the shoutout!

I jokingly refer to square notes as the domain of chant nuts, elitists, and academics. However, I realize many others use them, too. That said, I would no more give square notes to my congregation than I would ask them to abandon electricity and go back to oil lamps. School music programs teach modern notation, and that's what most of my people are familiar with. Keep the ancient notation for the music scholars. I can think of no faster way to make those psalms useless to exactly the churches that need to get away from Haugen/Haas.

Fantastic, Jeff. The best part about this is that you readily incorporate multiple composers, so that I can pick whichever composition seems to fit our schola and parish the best.

By the way, I've tried to use Caeciliae but I always get hung up on how to line up the syllables with the notes. So I keep going back to Gregoire - it can have its challenges, but at least they're ones that I'm comfortable with.

Carl

Very nice. Thanks again!

The square notes leave the text with all the syllables connected, while modern notation requires much more syllabification and underline spans for the same music! It is just easier to see and read the words of the text in square note notation than in modern notation.

Hear, hear!

Maybe I can talk The Liturgical Press into letting me use square note notation for the next edition of By Flowing Waters, not to mention a Spanish edition of the Graduale Simplex.

Thanks, Noel, I'll give that a try. With the different spacing options between neums, that may just do the trick!

I actually had a non-musician friend tell me once that she could read Gregorian notation easier than the modern. But she went to a "traditional" parish where people were used to seeing it. Square notes seem a bit foreign to a lot of people in more "average" parishes (heck, they still seem a bit foreign to me), so it is nice to have a more familiar-looking option to use as least as a transition. Put it this way: at my new music director position, I think I could use the psalms in modern notation pretty soon, while I feel like I would have to ask permission from the pastor to use the neumes. I wouldn't mind asking permission down the road, but it would be really nice to not have to do that at first.

I have been in my current position since 2001, and have moved the music in a more traditional direction. We do some chant. We also do some of the incredibly beautiful music that has been written in modern notation since the heyday of chant. I don't see us ever going to all chant and nothing else, so the modern notation is going to stay.

Oh, I probably enjoy chant as much as many other folks. But it is not the only church music. What I don't love is archaeologism. Didn't we get enough of that from Vatican II? I find it no more appealing in music than in liturgy, or cars, or anything else. Keep the best from the past, just don't try to live in it. It may not have been as great as many think it was. Organic development is good.

BTW, enjoy the collegium and tell me the good things from it when you return. I am an organist, not a professional singer. One choir rehearsal per week is about all I can stand.

I do understand. The public and private school children in my area learn to read notes and their relationships to each other. How much of that stays with them is anyone's guess. I find that even when adults are probably not reading the actual notes, they do pick up what they hear rather easily. Either system could work in that circumstance. But for those who can read modern notation, neumes can be frustrating. I've heard the argument, "Oh don't try to transpose neumes into modern notation, just sing them." Easier said than done. It's like reading Russian words - rather easy in when our familiar alphabet is used, extremely difficult when those words are written in unfamiliar Cyrillic. Do I think neumes are worth trying to beat into the head of a congregation unfamiliar with them? No, I don't. There are more important battles to fight at the moment.

Notating Chant in Finale:
Price $600 - $350 for Theological Use

Open new file.
Specify time signature.
Major or Minor
Choose Staffs
Choral
Remove Alto
Remove Tenor
Remove Bass
Remove Piano
Set Document options to hide Stems
Set Measure to tick
Set HIDE TIME SIGNATURE
Count notes in first measure
Set time signature for first measure.
Count notes in second measure
Set time signature for second measure.
and so on for each measure.

Then begin to enter notes..
[some other actions have been left out to make this sound simpler than it is.]

Notating Chant in Ceacelia:
Price: None

Open Document
Type Clef line number
space
Enter first neueme and all following neumes with spaces in between as needed.
Insert measure bars and custos at end of line

Easy to type in, easy to read and understand.

People...it is the FOUNDATION OF ALL MODERN MUSIC NOTATION...unchanged for hundreds of years. It's like Latin, a DEAD language and very simple and specific.

It is rather telling that in The English Hymnal of 1960 edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams offers plainsong with modern notation of the melody and accompaniment below and that for every square note of the melody below is what we in the US call a half-note the half-notes that are part neume groupings are beamed throughout.

Rather off-putting at first, like reading chant after knowing modern notations, after a bit one realizes that this is an attempt to preserve the value of grouping to the syllable and an early realization that modern notation fails miserably at notating chant in a precise manner.

If modern notation were preferable to square notes, no one would be using square notes. Is every one aware that the Old Order Amish church services are in German and the singing is very, very slow chant melody throughout? WIKI : "Older Amish hymns are monophonic, without meter, featuring drawn-out tones and slowly-articulated ornamentation."

This raises the question...how many have had the glorious experience this last year in being at Mass lit only by candles?

To go a bit further, there is a fine gentleman who posts here whose name I won't mention. He's also very talented. He essentially lost his job because of too much chant and polyphony that his congregation wasn't ready for. The Catholic world is not necessarily hungering after chant. Perhaps in some places, but not in many others. I will take things slowly even if it takes years.

Actually, the gentleman's job was ended not due to any complaints from the congregation about chant, polyphony or anything at all. An amazing turnaround came about as people who hated and wrote hate mail found they loved the solemnity and beauty of Catholic music in a Catholic church.

There have been stories floating around about that firing. Without going into details, the congregation and choir were quite happy with the mix of hymns, chant and polyphony, and all music was presented to and approved by the Pastor. All congregation complaints were heard over the three years and written instructions by the pastor concerning these complaints were heard, accepted and put into effect without discussion and with complete acceptance by the gentleman in question. In fact, when money ran out, the gentleman actually worked almost a year without pay under even more restrictions which banned Latin at Mass outside of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei...and during that time there was never Latin at the Mass aside from the Sanctus and Agnus Dei. It's important to be a team player.

The Dedication of the Church program did have Latin psalms and music mixed with English, but the gentleman in question carefully presented all of this information for approval by the Pastor and Bishop in their planning meeting and he was quite pleasantly surprised that all of it received approval by the Bishop at the meeting.

You may have all noticed that diocesan newspapers rarely, if ever, mention unrest, problems and dissent within parishes. It's sort of a high-road approach for there are definitely two sides to every issue. The gentleman in question will definitely state that his choice of music and leadership of the music was not an issue for the congregation. He has chosen not to go public with the details behind the firing for life is too short and there is no reason to close doors when, with time and perseverance, sometimes they may be reopened.

Within 24 hours he was approached about another very responsible position within the diocese by another priest who was in full knowledge of the situation, which was encouraging to him.

The only public statement made by anyone was by a cantor, it has been said, who announced to the choir that the music was going to return to being congregation-friendly with the gentleman gone.

One must, at all times, be supportive and submissive to the Pastor. The gentleman was and continues to be so.

Gregorian Chant is the music of the church and when you walk into a church and hear chant you know you are in a Catholic Church. For some reason that's so logical that people who do not have a burning desire to do chant seem somewhat out of place in a Catholic church. Sorry, but that's how I feel. I know that that is no secret. However, I remain amazed at the poor excuse for music that exists in almost all Catholic churches.

"Coolness" may come into play here, as well, no?

For myself, I really think the Gregorian version looks "cooler":

Fr. Nicolas Viel version with GREGORIAN and MODERN notation Congregational inserts

;-)

Pierre,

I would be glad to try and help, but let me ask: do you have Apple Pages?

Or Adobe Illustrator?

Jeff, thank you. You already helped me. I was using Adobe Pagemaker. But your question suggested me to use Illustrator. I had it, but not installed. After installation, the program Caecilia works fine.
I still need to understand how to put the text under the neums, but I will get there.
Fr. Pierre

PS Jeffrey is right. I am using Windows XP.

Fr. Pierre, if you have InDesign, I can share the styles I use to lay out chant using Caeciliae. It makes it easier to do large initial letters, text with the chant lines, etc. matthew@osjoseph.org

Fr, Matthew, I do not have InDesign. I have to look into this. It would be very helpful. I need to put "in music" the text of the Orationes for Lauds and Vespers, and also the reading for Lauds, and the Introduction to the Intercessions for each Sunday and Feast. I will try to download InDesign and let you know. Thanks.

Adam, I tried what you suggested for the size of fonts. The proportion is very good. Thanks.

Welcome, Fr. Pierre. It is a joy to have contact with you. Thank you for your good work.