I like to sing the simple tone Marian antiphons with my daughter, who hasn’t had any Latin yet. I sing first the original Latin chant, and then I sing it again, putting English words to the chant melody. That is, if I have an English version of the chant! Maria A. Trapp’s book Around the…
People used to sing together–on pilgrimage, on Crusade, on the way to battle. It kept up the marchers’ morale for the cause, shared beauty of melody and lyric, handed down and passed on noble ideas. The songs were really love songs: proclaiming love for Christ, and His mother, the saints, the Church, and the good…
Originally posted on Learn Church Latin:
Catholics have accepted some of the worst distortions of their Faith in the order of music, art, and literature without a shiver of discontent because they never really heard the “Tantum Ergo” or the “Ave Maris Stella” –not for lack of faith, but because there had never been ordinary…
If you’re ready to prepare for the beautiful liturgical season of Christmastide by learning traditional chants for this time, you’re in the right place. It’s never to early to begin practicing these chants, keeping a good Advent season the meanwhile! (Speaking of which–for Advent chants, please go here.) The chants for Christmas clearly inspired the…
Anyone can learn to chant. It’s important to remember that for centuries very young boys learned to sing this by ear, simply by hearing it over and over. Now that we have so much technology to help us, anyone anywhere with the internet and the ability to read can learn chant. Lately (for several months…
Yes, even if you “can’t sing,” you should learn some of the glorious chants by heart and sing them to your babies every night. (I’ll bet you sing in the shower, or somewhere else where no one hears you. And I’ll bet you’re keeping in tune pretty well, too.) I could give you dozens of…
Just nine days away now is that glorious feast day, that taste of Christmas in Lent, the Solemnity of the Annunciation! I sincerely hope you are planning something very special for this day (March 25th)! At Holy Mass we will sing the Gloria again, as well as genuflect/kneel during the Nicene Creed (and the ONLY other…
Look where I was two weekends ago! Ahhhh…Classical music is just about my favorite type of music to play on the stereo each day–but it’s even better to experience it in a packed symphony hall (and the place was packed, too, after fifteen more minutes). If you have ever been to a philharmonic or classical…
Just around the corner, Twelfth Night is coming! Twelfth Night is an important part of the Christmas Season for Catholics throughout history and around the world–don’t let this day pass you by without commemorating it SOMEHOW! So what is Twelfth Night? The vigil of the Feast of the Epiphany. Why is it important? The day before a…
…should definitely include: the work of St. Hildegard of Bingen. This dear saint was/did so many things that I can’t list them all here–but one of them was composing sacred music and frequently writing the text to go with the tunes. The German group Sequentia has excellent albums that I highly recommend. (Just beware some other groups/albums since the…
St. Catherine Catholic Culture Center 