Speaking of Top Ten Lists

Here is the latest Top Ten List of previous winners from Top Catholic Songs.com Top Ten Lists. How about that? It's a list of lists so to speak.

Top Catholic Songs.com

I have been kind of quite for a while regarding my friends at Top Catholic Songs.com. Please take a minute to go over to the website and check out the great new (and not so new) Catholic artists. Nick Alexander has been very busy promoting Catholic music and hightlighting great ways that Catholic music can be incorporated into your personal spiritual journey.

Starting a New Book Today

Ok, so it really isn't a new book; but, I haven't read it yet so that makes it new for me. I started The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict XVI.

I have had some reservations about reading the Pope's books mainly because they seem so dense and hard to follow. So far I have found this particular little gem to be quite easy to read. Hopefully, I will get caught up to speed and be able to read some of the Pope's more recent works such as Jesus of Nazareth.

Choir Season is Here!

In spite of the foul weather of the last few days, Choir Season is now here. Please remember that our regular Wednesday rehearsals begin tonight at 7:30.

Email or call me with regrets...I have already recieved a couple. Please remember that we will be choosing new choir officers so your presence and participation over the next few weeks is critical.

As always if you know of people who like sing (and can carry a tune) but are not involved in the music ministry, please give me their name and phone number. I would love the chance to speak with them.

New Music for the Psalms

I'm currently working on two Psalm settings. I have finished Psalm 78: Do Not Forget which is the setting for the Feast of the Exalation of the Cross on Sept. 12. And I have finished the refrain for Psalm 25: Remember Your Mercies, O Lord. I'm still deciding on how to proceed with the verse of Psalm 25. I think that I will try to have a metered melody, but that may change if there is no regular phonetic rhythm to follow in the text.

For Psalm 78, I chose to write a simple psalm tone for the verses because they were so irregular in English. Those Latin monks sure knew what they were doing when they invented Psalm tones. They are very useful particularly when one cannot paraphrase the text to fit a particular melodic idea.

Check out my book review at Grapevine Online

Take a minute to check out the Grapevine Online for my book review. It was published back on July 31 so you have to scroll down a few entries to find it.