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…
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…
Seemingly simplistic or rigidly anachronistic, perhaps, the simple truth is that the Church’s music is basically Gregorian Chant. (The other forms of truly sacred music, such as polyphony and reverent hymnody, have grown directly out of it and are therefore closely related to chant.) When you play a CD of chant, what you are hearing…
Almost nothing has brought greater happiness and inspiration into my life in the last five years than my discovery of the continuous tradition of Sacred Music within the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church built the Western Civilization of the last 2,000 years, and Sacred Music is the soundtrack for all this history! To connect to this artistic glory through modern…
From a beautiful hymn from Lauds the-day-before-yesterday: “Tui precatus munere/Nostrum reatum dilue./ Arcens mali contagium,/ vitae repellens taedium.” —or— “Now join thy prayers with ours, who pray/ That God may pardon us and bless;/ For prayer keeps evil’s plague away,/ And draws from life its weariness.” Yes! That is exactly what I have been feeling.…
Yes, it really is this easy to begin chanting the ancient music of the Church! Two and a half years ago I knew NOTHING about Sacred Music, had no vocal training, and had never even sung in a choir. But I wanted to learn to sing this amazing music, and this is how I got…
That seeming paradox about human nature is my theme again today–examining the Spiritual Life in light of our physical bodies. Devoted to helping inspire a rebirth of Christian culture in the outside world, this blog’s purpose is to help each of you develop a Christian culture in your homes. Whether or not we actually have a Christian culture in our homes is extremely evident…
St. Catherine Catholic Culture Center 