Furthermore…

I am pleased today because I had a chance to present my ideas for special music for with praying and meditating the Rosary to an interested individual who is a specialist in church music, and he had some very encouraging things to say. I feel that I am further along now on my path toward having an accomplished composer consider my concept and possibly work on it.  A step ahead!

I was fortunate enough to tune into EWTN at the time there was an interview with two people from a foundation devoted to furthering sacred art. One of them was a lady convert devoted to fine art and its place in the Church. I was pleased to  learn of their current mounting of an art exhibit devoted to works concerned with the Rosary.  The gentleman in his portion of the interview spoke interestingly about religious music.

Catching this program greatly pleased me in connection with my interest in finding some way to bring into reality  music that might enhance the experience of praying and meditating on the Rosary by contributing to creating moods and feelings consistent with the content of the Rosary Mysteries, as discussed in a March 22, 2009 post here.

First, the Angel Gabriel says “Hail Mary, Full of Grace. The Lord is with You.” The Angel’s voice must have been otherworldly, yet beautiful, heard by no one but Mary. Then St. Elizabeth, with a mature woman’s voice said, “Blessed are you, among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” If creating a production of these voices, the Angel’s and Elizabeth’s would have to be clearly different one from the other to avoid any impression of their being the same and flowing together. The “Jesus” might be sung or otherwise enhanced to carry a strong impression of loving worship. A chorus might be used here, suggestive of the angelic choirs imagined serenading the shepherds out in the fields at the time of Christ’s birth.

The rest, “Holy Mary, Mother of God” and so on, to the Amen, might be done in loose combination of everyday voices, such as might be heard when a small mixed group is saying the Rosary. The Amen might also be included this way, although an emphatic finale could be achieved with some musical accompaniment here and an elaborately chanted Amen.

When I was in grammar school one of the nuns who was teaching us singing said that in some groups and choirs it is sometimes the custom to appoint one person to loudly and clearly enunciate the ‘t’ sound at the ends of words, because otherwise (I think this was the reason) the t’s aren’t heard clearly.
I think I’d rather do the regular kind of singing than be the one selected for enunciating the t’s. It would be, in one way, like being a cymbal player, who only gets to do his thing every once in a great while, but the t’s person would have to be alerT At every momenT trying to spoT t’s, because there are a loT of words thaT have thaT letter aT their end are there noT?

On my radio dial there are four religious stations right next to one another, one Catholic and three ‘Christian.’ One of the Christian stations plays either traditional, uplifting music such as familiar hymns, or a kind of Country-Christian gospel. The Catholic and the other two Christian stations all seem to play the same, at least to my ears, modern-sounding jingling genre with vocals mostly by grown up girls sounding like children or guys whose voices are not yet manly.
I usually can’t make out the lyrics, although I have gotten new hearing aids and I might begin to pick up a few more of them. Still, it seems to me I keep hearing phrases like “inside of me” (!) or “in your arms” and otherwise romantic sounding attestations of spiritual interpenetration. So I wonder if these are intentionally dual-purpose productions designed to allow listeners’ minds to flit back and forth between thoughts of You (the Lord) and you (the hoped for romantic conquest).

I happened to catch a TV show on one of the religious channels about a week ago that had ‘Music from God’ as its topic. An Israeli teacher of Hebrew, Uri Harel, held a belief that the Bible contained music, in keeping with an old Jewish tradition about the Hebrew letters somehow playing a part in the creation of the world by God.
A project was initiated whereby a musical note was associated with each Hebrew letter, and then certain passages in the Bible were converted into sequenced notes and arranged into music that was then performed and recorded.
Just as there is a tradition that certain of the Psalms in Hebrew have a healing effect when listened to, so do people hearing the results of the letters-notes-music project report experiencing a calming effect. The associated website is

I’ve started a quest for Rosary music, initially thinking in terms of finding a composer to write background music for praying the Rosary. For each of the 20 Mysteries, there would have to be background music styled to agree with the mood or emotional associations of that Mystery, such as glory for the Resurrection, struggle for Carrying the Cross, joy for the Birth of the Lord, and reverence for The Institution of the Eucharist.

Now, instead of trying to find a composer, I am convinced that music written for the movies would nicely fill the bill. The art of adding music to movies in order to enhance viewers’ feelings during a particular scene has been developed to a high state of excellence in the film-making world. I am thinking it all is “in the can.”

So the next stage of this quest will be to solicit suggestions, from anyone interested, of movie music selections well suited to being played along with each of the Mysteries, music that will serve to deepen and enrich the Rosary prayer experience.

There are already productions in audio, video, and on web sites to accompany praying the Rosary, often including music of some sort, but I haven’t come across any having music such as I am seeking, such as would tend to establish and convey feelings allied with the scenes within the Mysteries.

Unjust steward talking to himself:

“I’m not strong enough to dig ditches, and I’m too lazy to work. Maybe I should go into Christian Praise & Worship music!”

Music director to Pastor about drummer hitting himself on the head with a board:

“It’s the only way we can get that heavy beat with the hollow, wooden sound!”

Music Director making an announcement:

“We are forming a new Praise & Worship group. Anyone with musical talent need not apply!”