www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Kliros A shortage of cantors

Recently I heard about a parish without a single cantor. One family decided not to go there because of this, but attends an Orthodox parish instead.

There are apt to be lots of ideas and opinions as to how to encourage more folks to be cantors. Besides the Metropolitan Cantor's Institute and the Passaic eparchy's cantor program, I am wondering what constructive ideas folks here have to cultivate cantors nationally, regionally, as well as locally, within the Byzantine Catholic Metropolia of Pittsburgh.

Jim Sprinkle, Cantor
St. Thomas Byzantine Catholic Church
Gilbert AZ

How about paying them? It is a fairly demanding job, from what I've seen.

And along with paying them, treat them with some respect. Don't bitch and moan about how things were done elsewhere by someone else, especially if the cantor is new. Get behind them and give them the support and encouragement they need to succeed.

Contact Mr. Jerry Jumba at Holy Ghost parish in Mckees Rocks. He was awarded another grant from the state of PA to teach Plain Chant. His students still meet at Holy Ghost on a regular basis.

Ungcsertezs

. Money
. Respect
. Alternative training in Pa. (still within the archeparchy, I believe, which has the MCI.)

All are good suggestions. Passiac has a program I am told. What about Parma and Van Nuys? What else is going on there, and are there other ideas about how to get cantors to work together more regardless of location?

This topic was on my mind over the last week, so I was delighted to see Jim raise it.

I am not aware of a program in the Passaic Diocese at the current time [which is not to say it doesn't exist!] Fr. Gene Fulton ran a program about 10 or 15 years ago here in NEPA, and I believe there was something parallel in NJ; Sr. Joan Roccasalvo also did a local program in the late 80s early 90s.

Andy Drozdick is the unoffical "Dean" of cantors in our area. He has done a nice job of attracting and forming interested folks in St. Mary's parish. He has a group of 5-10 interested folks who meet once a week to practice for an hour or two. Most of them could cover a Divine Liturgy if needed, and some are capable of doing Funerals or Presanctified.

I would love to see our priests organize something on the local level. I think an ideal would be a "deanery level" formation program. Imagine gathering interested folks from a 30-90 minute radius, spending an average of 1-2 hours a week in whatever time format works best for that group [Monday evenings, Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, ...] Most of the time would be spent on the "craft" of learning the music, but some time needs to be spent on spirituality, and some time devoted to basic liturgical instruction would be time well spent.

Ung - very glad to hear that about Jerry. It seems at least the state realizes his talents and the cultural value of what he has to offer. He's lived it and breathed it his entire life - the cantor's cantor.

And after Liturgy he can teach you some cool traditional folk dances, songs, and stories.
FDD

Diak,

Yes indeed! A prophet is never accepted in his own land!

Ungcsertezs (a student of Jerry's for twenty years now!)

I don't speak for the Eparchy of Van Nuys, of course, but currently we do not have an eparchy-wide program for developing cantors. There has been some talk about gathering cantors for training if/when a new people's book is promulgated for use. To date, parishes continue to rely on their own internal resources, pretty much. There is a general lack of inter-parish collegiality, sotospeak, when it comes to comparing notes (pun intended) .

I think would like to be a cantor, except I can't read musical notation very well. I had a piano class which taught me some basics I vaguely remember. I have not noticed a shortage of cantors necessarily. How many is too many? I hardly know what a cantor is. Holy Transfiguration seems to have about 10 male cantors. Is this one who chants? And what about female cantors? I hope these questions aren;t stupid. there's another 10 female cantors or singers too on the opposite of the men. Is cantor an actual "minor order" or church office?

The cantor is someone who usually leads chant. What you describe may actually be a choir or kliros.

There are technically minor orders of Acolyte, Cantor and Reader, but these are usually combined in succession at the tonsure of a Reader. I don't know of any church of Byzantine usage that only ordaines an Acolyte or a Cantor without tonsuring. The Ethiopians do things like that.

Using neumes (markings to know when to go up or down in the scale) is a great way to sing texts if you don't read music - after all this is way it was done for centuries in Byzantine chant, Greek or Slavonic.
FDD

My Uncle Had been Cantor at our Parish for 30+ years. He travels a lot now in his retirement. My dad and I have since put forth our best effort to fill the void he has left. It has been difficult to learn what we need to know. It is hard to appreciate the difficulty in leading the mass. It is much easier to chant along than to start on your own. Jerry has help us significantly. He has helped us by crossing the river and taking over in times when we had no idea what was going on at all, like pre-sanctified liturgies, all-souls saturdays, etc. He has also helped with my Old Slavonic pronunciations. A mentor type makes learning all this information so much easier. We still have a long way to go. Christ is Risen - Christos Voskrese - Christos Anesti

Encouragement.

You know, in my experience, I have heard people with a good voice singing, sitting in some pew. I go up to that person and tell them they would be a great addition to the Kliros, or I ask them to do the Epistle.

And a lot of times, that is all it takes. They will become more involved and can be a great addition.

So what I have seen is that people are timid or emberresed to come foward to help with the singing. Just be encouraging and positive, and you will be suprised to see how much people will be willing to help.

-uc

or I ask them to do the Epistle.

There are differing opinions on the feasibility of doing the above. In my own parish I am discouraged from offering that, unless I have proof of sufficient prior experience. Perhaps enough fact-finding can be done at social hour or otherwise to arrive at an offer of reading the epistle, though.

Preferred in my parish is for a person start by standing by the Kliros, so that they can observe and assist the ministry firsthand. There needs to be evidence that the reader can sing on pitch, can enunciate well, and has sufficient volume and projection to be heard and easily understood by all.

The difficulty comes in the ability to make an ongoing committment to the ministry. That often can't happen due to other obligations, regardless of their experience.

Jim,

I asked a 70-year old man to do it once. He has been a parishioner for over 30 years and would always quitly sing along with us in the Kliros. Since he was 70-years old, he would have heard the Epistle chanted for 70 years so I was pretty sure he would be familiar with the process.

He was a bit nervous but he did it "recto tono" and did it fine. Good pitch, good diction, good intonation. He now joins us in the Kliros for most of the time.

Now something like this doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it's nice.

And also, the priest basically doesn't care who does the Epitsle (as long as its a man) and is happy when new people help out liturgically.

-uc