HANDSTOGETHER

~The Music of Daniel Bath~

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LITURGICAL MUSIC WORKSHOPS

Because every church, parish, choir, school, etc. is different with different musical strengths and weaknesses, each workshop is designed individually according to the particular needs of your community. This entails a free consultative visit to your community prior to the workshop day in order to determine what kind of approach is most appropriate.

Workshops can help with singing, playing, composing or leading music for the Mass or any other liturgical celebration.

The focus of the workshop could be anything from getting your congregation to sing Byzantine chant to getting your music group to groove more funkily.

Here are some examples of what is possible:

• GET YOUR CHURCH SINGING - We start off by finding our voices (everyone's range and tone is different) through some fun exercises and musical games. Then we learn, through a variety of religious song, the basics of vocal technique, which, once learnt, enable anyone to sing with confidence. This can include singing in harmony, where the different voices parts give everyone, no matter how high or how low their voices, the chance to shine. We finish the day with a liturgical performance for God and ourselves.

• INSTRUMENTS IN THE LITURGY - We aim to integrate the musical skills of anyone in the community who can play an instrument into the liturgy. Taking a handful of contrasting pieces which are sung regularly in your liturgy, we discover some basic methods for arranging them according to the instruments levels of musical ability which are present. We also learn to improvise with material from the pieces to generate new music to accompany liturgical actions. We finish the day with a liturgical performance.

• CHANT FOR BEGINNERS - We hear and sing examples of liturgical and devotional chant from various traditions and examine how we can use them in our own prayers. We learn some basics of how to sing Gregorian chant musically and expressively and sing extracts from various parts of the Church's year. By understanding how Gregorian chant works, we are empowered to use it in a creative way through improvisation and making our own chant settings of liturgical texts. We finish the day by singing a Mass or Vespers in Gregorian Chant.

• MULTICULTURAL LITURGY - As most of our parish communities include a brilliant mixture of nationalities, languages and cultures from Poland, Ireland, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Colombia and just about everywhere else, it is a wonderful opportunity to learn, share and enrich our liturgical celebrations. This of workshop is a sharing of musical traditions and songs in various languages and a look at how we can successfully integrate (both artistcally and spiritually) these into our celebration of the Mass.