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Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, & let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. Happy All Souls Day 2012.
Greetings. salutations & a great big HOLA from under1music studios here in the beautiful South Bay of Southern California. As you might have seen from our last post, we've been a little busy lately preparing for the upcoming Guadalupana Event/Mass at East Los Angeles College Stadium on December 2nd, 2012 with Archbishop Jose Gomez presiding. Please pray for all who volunteer, participate & plan this annual event, that all go well & also that it doesn't rain on us.
Yesterday, All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation for us Catholics, put us 7 o'clock at night, in Hacienda Heights, CA at St. John Vianny's Church. We had a pretty busy day that sort of ended up there in that city visiting relatives. We hadn't gone to Mass so we quickly found that St. John Vianny had it's last Mass of the day in Spanish, so off we went. Before entering the make shift church (their regular church was burnt down by vandalism awhile back, so their temporary church is a well built, tent revival style structure). Anyways, we went to use the restrooms & upon passing by the church we happened to catch the choir rehearsing songs & already, I could see the look in my wife's eyes as she mumbled under her breath, "this is what I was dreading". Now in previous posts I've written about volunteer choirs, especially the ones who play the Spanish Masses, but mainly about their "leadership" a.k.a. directors & how they choose to or in many cases not to help their choir members reach their potential & yet again, in Hacienda Heights for crying out loud, we've managed to bump into another repeated vent-able topic.
To make this l-o-n-g story as short as possible, in a nut shell this is my observance of what I saw & couldn't believe was happening. 1st of all, & to me most noticeable right out of the bag, their pianist. I told myself, he should be working at a Shakey's Pizza Parlor playing an upright, providing the silent movie soundtrack to a Charlie Chaplin film. Without talking about it, my daughter kinda heard the same thing & suggested a job with the Disneyland Dixieland Band. O well, like father, like daughter. My wife simply said he was too over the top for the music they chose. 2nd, the actual choir director, I believe his name is Jose. He was wearing a wireless headset mic, I said to myself, oh wow, he's gonna direct from the sound booth or something,...wrong. Next to him I notice a snare drum on a stand, 1 cymbal, wind chimes & a stick bag. Again, I said to myself, oh cool, they've got a percussionist who's gonna add a little rhythm,....wrong.
Mass began. (Sidebar: there were 2 altar  boys bearing lit candles & 1 altar "girl" with long hair. Well, no one really noticed, except my daughter, one of the altar boys was fiddling with his candle & somehow the altar "girl's" hair caught on fire. Like I said, if it wasn't for my daughter 1st noticing & speaking out, it would've been worse. Thank God the altar "girl" was fine. A little smelly, but fine. I have 2 words for something like that "altar boys?". Thank you Iris.) As I said Mass began & the entrance hymn they chose was Litany of the Saints, no music. You would think that the director would place as cantor the better singer, yeah, so did we. What we didn't know was by the sounds of the rest of the choir, the director's pick WAS probably the best. Overall, the song came off pretty weak for an entrance but the son's content was more important as the rest of the congregation were singing along. Getting back to Jose, soon came the Gloria. Without looking up, I asked my wife, "who is off key?" She turned & said, "the director". I said, "Wha??" Sure enough, the more he tried, whether it was unison or harmony, he just couldn't find the key. Oh sure, some spots he got lucky, but they were too far & in between. Then I heard the rat, tat, tat of the snare. The pinging of the cymbal & the occasional sound of the chimes. The patterns did not match. The playing was pretty much at random like saying: I'll hit this 5 times then the snare 17 times the bell twice & just mix it up. Again without looking up I asked my wife, "who's playing percussion?" she turned & said, "the director". I said "Wha??" OH NO HE DID ENT! Words of advice to Mr. Jose the Spanish Choir Director at St. John Vianny Church in Hacienda Heights, California: Lose the wireless headset, stop the loud singing, give up the drumming (find a real drummer), focus more on the choir sounding like,....a choir. Surround yourself with competent, seasoned musicians, not overpowering ones. Again, most parishioners are just happy to have a joyful noise, & sometimes it is noise, at Mass. But we as musicians should take pride in what we are assigned to do, especially making it presentable to our Lord. We've seen too many volunteers choirs that simply need good leadership & speaking from experience, it's hard work, but in the end, everyone benefits. So until we post again, please keep caeli & their music apostolate in your prayers, especially for our upcoming Guadalupana event. Thanx a mil!