Last week Paul introduced his seven guiding principles for music directors who wish to implement change in the music at a parish. This week we discuss real situations:
The ‘Catholic megachurch’ which seems successful and has lots of money and whose worship is barely distinguishable from an Evangelical Christian church
The traditional parish that has successfully implemented traditional chant and polyphony, but is frozen in time. How do you introduce new music so as to bolster, rather than undermine the tradition? Why this is vital.
The standard Catholic parish, that has an aging, declining congregation that is generally happy with missalette music. How do you reverse this situation of carefully managed decline.
The dead parish in which there is barely any music and it is almost at the point of expiration. This is probably the closest to a blank sheet you will get and in some ways the easiest to deal with. St John Cantius in Chicago was like this several decades ago.
