Happy Chinese New Year

GONG XI FA CAI!!
Wishing SCC a happy and blessed Lunar New Year.

And as in previous years, I went to mass to start off the CNY.
It feels good to sit among the congregation and worship. The choir on duty on the 9am mass was LCC. I loved their selection, we opened with the traditional PRAISE TO THE LORD...good choice of entrance hymn because the entire congregation sang.

Then offertory, communion and thanksgiving totally lost me.
Ok take offertory hymn.
The words were very meaningful.
But I have never heard of the piece before, so I listened, I did not sing.
The refrain came back and I could slowly pick it up.
Then by the 3rd time the refrain came back....I could sing.....and then the music ended!!
I did not even sing the verse because it was:
1. too difficult
2. different each time
3. they had parts
4. the singing was nice so I just listened
Point being, I did not SING.

The thanksgiving hymn was something called, SEND FORTH.
It sounded very classical.
Some lessons learnt here as well:
1. It is very difficult to do classical choral pieces well. When the voices sound thin, or when the high notes are strained, there is no where to hide.
2. The beauty of classical pieces is that the lyrics tied closely to the music. And a lot of expressive singing with neat phrasing and dynamics are needed to amplify the meaning of the words.

Again, the singing was beautiful.
We all don't know how to sing it.
So, the ENTIRE CHURCH including the 2 priests SAT IN ABSOLUTE SILENCE

Moral of the story, the hymns in the red book really got everyone to sing.
How to get people to sing:
1. Teach the REFRAIN. We have been teaching the entire piece.
2. Keep singing the same piece for a few weeks, or else you learn it after the 3rd verse, and the music stops, and the next time the choir sings it again is next month??