About Me

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 My name is Kathleen, and I’m the music director at a Catholic parish in a small college town in Southern California. During my 20+ years at this parish and throughout my whole lifetime of liturgical music, I’ve worn many different hats - organist, choir member, cantor, choir director, person who chooses the music, person who manages the music staff - so I can speak from many different perspectives.

For more about me, see my first post: So What's This All About, Then?

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Hymn of the Week: The God of Abraham Praise (LEONI)

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 Hymn Title: The God of Abraham Praise Tune Name: LEONI Meter: 6 6 8 4 D Another "any season" hymn,  The God of Abraham Praise  is supposedly based on the Jewish hymn "Yigdal Elohim Chai," but has been paraphrased almost out of recognition. The story is that Thomas Olivers attended a service in the London Synagogue in the late 1700's, and was so taken with the hymn listing the 13 truths of Maimonides as sung by the cantor Meyer Lyon, that he carried it home in his heart, paraphrased and Christianized each truth into a verse, and adapted the melody into the tune LEONI, which is still used. Most of the original 13 verses have been dropped, mixed up, re-formulated and re-ordered over time, but the result is still a fine, firm, majestic piece of poetry, paired with bold notes. Whenever we sing it at Mass, I find myself humming it all day. The melody has a funny little skip in the second line where it is not intuitively clear whether one should go up or down, but
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Ora et labora

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 O nce there were two novices working in the field, and they heard the bells ring for the Angelus. While one of them began to pray immediately, the other quickly lit a cigarette first. "Hey!" cried the first novice indignantly. "I asked the prior if I could smoke while I prayed and he said no!" "That's where you went wrong," replied the second, puffing away. "I asked prior if I could pray while I smoked, and he said yes." Jokes aside, sometimes it's hard to remember to pray the Masses we work for, especially if we are tucked away in a loft or a corner. Responsibilities will tug the corners of our mind, changes might need to be made and communicated, or just plain performance nerves get in the way. I have sat in the choir loft of many a restless choir director, as well as tried to manage my own ADHD while balancing presence for the job at hand with presence for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The struggle is real, whether you are a choir m
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5 Quick Tips (5QT) to Make You a Better Accompanist Today

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 When I first started writing this blog, I had a plan of sorts, which included periodic "5 Quick Tips" to improve your performance at every different job in liturgical music. This is not an earth-shaking list, it's literally just bite-sized habits you can incorporate to make things a little easier on yourself. Try working on one new little habit per month. Let's begin with the Organist: 1. Hit the "Cancel" button after every hymn. No mistake feels more conspicuous than stepping on a pedal by mistake when there are stops open. Those keys are sensitive, man. Make it a habit to turn everything off between pieces. (My five-year-old likes to sit on the bench next to me, and pressing the cancel button is his job.) 2. Choose your tempo before  beginning the intro. Changes in tempo make the congregation uncertain. An uncertain congregation is a silent congregation. Count yourself in, start playing at the tempo you intend to use throughout, and stick with it. Don&#
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