catholicmusicBLOG!

Look, at first glance, this blogger space might seem mean spirited, harsh, or simply put, a way to get back at all of the ways people have used or should we say , misused music in the realm of "religious" or "sacred" music. caeli has been performing religious music since 1998 after a dear and loving priest friend (Fr. G. Peter Irving III) approached us to see if we'd be interested in playing and singing at Mass after discovering that we were long time musicians playing in a "secular" mode. For us, being musicians obviously the music ( arranging, chord progression, beat, etc.) is key however; the real power is in the "message". We can't begin to tell you how many people have come to us after hearing us perform and said: "that song, the one you guys sang during communion or meditation, it really touched my heart". Whoop, there it is! It's kinda like when Jesus cured the 10 lepers, and only the one came back to acknowledge what had just happened and to thank Him. No, we're not Jesus and don't pretend to play Him on TV either, but for us, that one person who's life we've touched simply by playing a song truly means a lot to us. Who knows, that individual just might have been drawn even that much closer to our Lord through those same lyrics we belted out as a tune. Who'd a thunk, that a song, performed well, with a little class or arranging could do so much good and still be considered a work of mercy.
Which brings us to the point of starting this blog. How many times have you heard a church choir and/or several quote unquote musicians totally butcher a song that leaves that sour taste on your tongue while screaming (to yourself, quietly) "what part of music 101 did you not get?!!" Unfortunately, for us, too many times. People, it all can be fixed! Well, maybe, as a very good music producer/engineer/friend once said: " I can fix a lot of things, but I can't fix suck". C'mon, tune the guitars. Change the keys. Stay in time. Lose your hard headed director for one who actually knows what he or she is doing. True, the majority of choirs are volunteers, but still, try your best to seek out what sounds best for the choir, whether it be musicianship or vocals. Allow criticism and use it as a positive tool and not a let down. Reason being, there are so many stubborn choir directors as well as members that simply won't take no for an answer. They think they know what they're doing when they can't even follow the original melody of the song. Even if they are flat out told! Once we put together a big project for a Guadalupana celebration which entailed a huge 80 piece volunteer choir to perform on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, starting in the wee hours of the morning, later afternoon and then that evening, all with songs of praise and for the Masses. We had given a special invitation to the existing Spanish singing choir the opportunity to join us, their reply was pretty bold when they said (noses slightly turned up) "Nope, we're fine just the way we are. After all, we don't consider ourselves 'professionals', what we do, we do from the heart". Oh, excuse us, and we don't do it from the heart? We then turned around and said "We're not trying to out do anyone here, we're all in the same boat, working under the same God and seriously, we are not auto mechanics, but let us work on changing the brakes of your car. We promise, even though we don't know what we're doing, we will do it with all of our hearts" Accept that answer from your auto repair guy and see how well that goes. Needless to say, the project was a great success. The choir we conducted dwindled down from almost 90 people to about 60. They sounded great. Musicianship was limited to volunteer professionals (meaning every other Tom, Dick or Harry who thought they could play a guitar or tambourine was not allowed to join the choir band). The Pastor and the peeps were happy. (Thanks to all of those who gave up time for the intense rehearsals, yous guys were fantastic!)
So you see, we're not trying to be mean nor mightier than thou, 'cos the reality is folks, "there's always somebody better" and you always, always want to sound the very best you can to first and foremost: please our Lord and secondly, make it a nice, pleasurable sounding choir that in turn, guides the rest of the congregation to sing along or simply head out to tackle the rest of the week with a song of encouragement, hope or simply God's love in their hearts.