Merry Christmas!  I had started writing this post several weeks ago and am glad it has delayed since I have had some wonderful conversations on this very topic more recently.

Now that finals and Christmas have passed, I can get back into the swing of things!

Last post, we discussed Don Chihuly and his amazing glasswork as a way of looking at different types of experience, and what those have to do with success. Today, we will talk more specifically about the challenges in the Orthodox church and what it means to be a life-long learner of music in the Orthodox faith using the most fundamental resource to any church musician: The Great Typikon.

If you are reading this, you likely fall into one (or more) of three categories: chanter/director, choir member/director, or clergy. Yet, if you are in the first three of these categories, I pose a question to you.

What do you know about, or are familiar with, the Typikon of the Orthodox church?

The Typikon, in a nutshell, is the rubrics for the different services of the Orthodox Church. It is quite dense, like anything in the Orthodox Church, and can be extremely difficult to understand depending on the festal season and your experience. The Patriarchate of Constantinople issues an Imerologion (more on this in a coming post!) to each community that lists the specific typikon rubrics for the calendar year. It is much easier to reference what hymns/readings are needed for the day than knowing each Typikon rule by heart.

Understanding what hymns go where in the services, how they change with the season, and how they all make perfect theological sense, is a challenge. Remember though, that it is not how much experience, but what kind of experience that shapes you. For those who chanted and sang Orthros and Vespers during this last week through Christmas, with Christmas falling on a Sunday, you hopefully understand much more not just about orders and rubrics, but about the theology of Christmas itself. Chanters or choir members, and especially directors, have to understand and dedicate themselves to a furthering of their knowledge in the services of the Orthodox Church.

The Great Typikon takes years and years to really understand and even for well-educated priests, each year seems to have a few surprises.  Just remember though, what kind of experience you have, and a dedication to being a life-long learner, will lead you to a deeper understanding of the Orthodox Church and its hymnology.

Next week, we will talk more in depth about the Typikon and the resources I use to chant with.  Until then, Happy New Year!

Thank you for reading! As always, you can find me on facebook (please message me and let me know you found me here), twitter, or by email at david@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com

Do you want to know a secret?  It is a truth of the world that no one else will tell you and yet, it is important in everything from the ancient art of glass-blowing, to Liturgical music.  No one will tell you because either they do not know it, or because they are afraid of it.  ”Afraid of what?” you may ask.  Well, let’s take it one step at a time.  Let me first give you the secret truth equation.

Amount of experience is not equal to success.

I learned this in college, not from a professor, but from watching masterful and woefully un-masterful teachers.  Yet, I see it everywhere in business, music, and yes, our churches.

You cry foul!  ”Experience is what separates an apprentice from a master!”  Alas, it does not.  It is the kind of experience that shapes, guides, and fortifies knowledge into mastery.  Let me explain:

Dale Chihuly is an artist, inventor, and visionary in a what was considered a mostly unwavering art form.  Glass-blowing has been around for millennia, but has stayed relatively the same in its artistic contributions.  Glass art is often functional, whether it be a vases or bowls or similar decorative/functional objects.  Sure, there have been pieces of glass purely for art, but Dale Chihuly changed everything about what glass, and the art of glass could do.  Watch the short CBS video here to see what I mean.

So what in the world does this have to do with Liturgical Music?  Well it has less to do with the music, and more to do with direction.  Let me ask a question now that you have watched the Chihuly video.  Do you think it would be more advantageous to study with a traditional glass-blowing artist for 10 years, or Chihuly for 9 months?  I think we both know the answer.

In Liturgical music, no matter what style we do, we must always be improving, always be learning, and pass this down to the members of our groups.  We cannot go forward if we are not in motion, and we must be life-long learners about church music and its organizational processes.  Even if you are not a director/leader in your specific choir, you can not do harm by learning about what you are singing.

To put it briefly, we never master an ancient art.  We only improve our interpretation of it.

Next week in part 2, we will look at more specifically the Typikon and Herimologion in our discussion about life-long learners in the Orthodox Church.

Thank you for reading! As always, you can find me on facebook (please message me and let me know you found me here), twitter, or by email at david@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com

I am thankful for much, and strive to always remember what I am thankful for.  Today, I will tell you of one of the most memorable Thanksgivings that happened thousands of miles away in Athena, Greece.

My cousin, who is my only true life-long friend and a brilliant chanter, moved to Greece for the fall months of 2006 to study Byzantine Chant with the Archon Protopsaltis Mr. Lycourgos Angelopoulos. (more on this later)  It also just so happened, that my mother-in-law, who always finds great deals, decided to graciously fly out the family for about a week’s stay in Athens.  Posing as a kind cousin who would send Sam a thanksgiving package, I got his address for the apartment he was living in.  Needless to say, he was completely surprised (or even disoriented) when we showed up at his Athens apartment door on Thanksgiving day.

That’s the setup, and although the rest of the trip was magnificent, this is anecdotal and by definition, ancecdotes must stay short.   Now to the music.

For those who do not know, an Archon Protopsaltis is the highest rank the Patriarchate of Constantinople can give to a chanter.  Mr. Lycourgos Angelopoulos has not only being given this distinction, but as the director of the Byzantine Choir of Greece (EBX), he has completely changed the world of Byzantine music and its education.  He loves passing his music along to others, and took my cousin Sam in with open and welcome arms.  When I arrived, Mr. Angelopoulos’s hospitality was no different.

I went to a rehearsal for EBX, in a small hallway of a room in a small flat, up the elevator.  Who knows where the heck I was.  Although there were a few missing from his normal group since they had just finished a tour in Europe, I was still able to see how the master worked with professionals.  It was incredible.  Many pieces were 15 minutes long, and simply started and ended.  There were not long stops for checking errors, but continuous chanting by incredible psalti.  Everyone was fantastic and knew their part prior to rehearsal.  There was an occasional error, but only small ones in these long complex hymns.  Once however, he stopped after a chanter made a mistake and gave a shout “VODI! VODI!” which means cow, and had the offender get an inconspicuous box from on top of a cabinet.  The somewhat cautious chanter pulled out a small plastic yellow cow head.  Everyone erupted in laughter including Mr. Angelopoulos.  He is an amazingly funny and optimistic person, but make no mistake, he demanded excellence.

The entire family went to hear him chant at Agia Irini in Athens.  He actually invited me to chant with him, since Sam was one of his students.  There were roughly 30 chanters there every Sunday for both Orthros and Liturgy.  Sam and I sang a verse of Ayios o Theos together in English, which was an honor.  We sang with him the rest of the service, and one idea struck me:  although this choir of chanters is amazing, there are mistakes-unlike the EBX.  The reason was simple, Mr. Angelopoulos knew that mistakes happen in services, and valued learning above all.  He didn’t need the needle and thread precision of the Greek Byzantine Choir with those in the learning process, although many were phenomenal.  He knew exactly what to expect from his conglomerate group of advanced and beginner chanters.

You may notice that I left out when/how I first met him.  This is purposeful.  The first time I met Mr. Angelopoulos was to see him teach at a conservatory in Athens.  Conservatory for non musicians can be misnomer, since the teaching space was just a room, with a desk and chairs, and not much else.  Every student had a tape recorder as Angelopoulos explained some, sang for, and sang with the students.  I even sang some for Mr. Angelopoulos, as he kindly prompted me “Ayios O Theos.”  I sometimes think to myself, “was I really blessed enough to sing Ayios o Theos to one of the single greatest musicians and educators ever in Byzantine music?” I’ll never forget that moment.  He appreciated hearing another American sing correctly in the sacred tradition.

The last memory I will share is from this class.  I could easily share at least ten more.

At this specific class, Mr. Angelopoulos’s age started to show, as while singing a hymn by himself, on more than one occasion, he would doze off while singing.  The miraculous thing about this is that when he would come out of his brief slump, he would pick up exactly where he left off.  The hymns of the saints runs through him and cannot ever be separated from who he is.  Even in sleep, he is a psalti and a teacher.  He is a man that truly lives by the Psalms “I will chant to my God for as long as I have my being.”

I am thankful for meeting and interacting with Mr. Angelopoulos and of course, for Byzantine Chant.

Thank you for reading.  Thank you for being involved in church music, and let us always sing to God for as long as we have our being.

Thank you for reading! As always, you can find me on facebook (please message me and let me know you found me here), twitter, or by email at david@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com

Myself, Mr. Angelopoulos, and my cousin Sam.

The murmur of the crowd of thousands of people turns into unified cheering.  ”BRUUUUUCCCCEE!” is shouted as the Boss makes his way through the backstage of the arena.  Lights are flashing all around and the anxiousness of the crowd is palpable.  Finally the lights fade, and the Boss takes his place on stage while cheers become louder.  The drums kick, the lights flash, and Bruce Springsteen begins his performance.

———————————————————————————————————————————–

The quiet is deafening because that’s all you can hear.  Maybe a few brief “hello”s are exchanged, but besides that, just silence.  A flipping of pages, a setting up of books, a blessing from the Priest.  Then the anticipated words chanted aloud by the priest “Blessed is our God always now and forever, and to the ages of ages”  start the Orthros service.

These two analogies are obviously completely different, but they can provide a little insight into a very misunderstood word.  That word is performance.

I usually am annoyed by articles/essays that use dictionary definitions, but realize that the word performance does not just apply to “a person’s rendering of a dramatic role, song, or piece of music,” but also “ the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.” (New Oxford Dictionary)  Ask any priest about the Liturgy, which comes from the Greek to mean roughly “public work,” and they’ll tell you that we perform the Liturgy.  As Psalm 102 (103) says, “The Lord performs deeds of mercy…”

The main reason to bring this syntactical misunderstanding up, is that whenever it is necessary to use the word performance in teaching or discussing a Liturgical music group, one feels like they are walking on egg shells, waiting for someone to snap “BUT SINGING IN CHURCH IS NOT A PERFORMANCE!”

So is singing in church a performance?  Let me ask another question.  Is iconography art?

The answer is yes.  You just can’t perform the music like Bruce Springsteen does at a concert, or the art like Monet.  You must give all that desire to be noticed that can sometimes infiltrate the arts, and I think is usually mishandled in the secular arts, and give it to the creator.

The Orthodox church demands our best, and our discipline.  The arts are an embodiment of that.  We don’t use sheetrock for a church, but stone and marble.  We do not use pictures of icons or simple drawings of Christ and the saints, but hand-crafted writing of icons and gilding of many items in gold.  We also, do not provide unrehearsed or poorly planned music to the creator of sound. All these are a way to perform with our talents the same way we as a congregation, with our priest, perform the Liturgy.

So let us be unafraid of the word.  Let us embrace it, but with a clear understanding of to whom we are performing.

Thank you for reading! As always, you can find me on facebook (please message me and let me know you found me here), twitter, or by email atdavid@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com

Since there are a variety of topics I cover, I have decided to title all those pertaining to Orthodox culture and ancestry, as “Know your community.”  For this post, we are going to look at how much of what language is appropriate in your services, and why.  It is a topic not easily tread, and one that sometimes meets great passion.  This is a good thing.  Where there is passion, there is care, but fear not!  There is a relatively easy litmus test to make conclusions from.

One of my favorite quotes from my father is “people show their support with their feet.”  If people are committed enough to something, then they will show up.  Although this idea could be used to describe many situations in the church, I will use it today to describe my viewpoint on how much of what language to use in church.  Who and how many are “showing up” for certain hymns/prayers?

Usually, no matter what jurisdiction, there are only two languages to debate about being in a church.  One is English, and one is the native tongue from the heritage of the church.  For the sake of argument, I will just use Greek and English since I am in the GOC.

How do we know how much of Greek/English to use in our services?  What is a good balance?  One must be extremely careful, because on one hand you can be neglecting a tradition, and on the other you can be neglecting your congregation.  It is not an easy challenge to fix.  Yet, we can test our market, so to speak, by using what is already in the Divine Liturgy: The Nicene Creed.

Now, some of you may think this is too obvious (and it is somewhat), but let us dig deeper.  The Creed is a beautiful way to show us how to connect with our community even more.  Here are some examples of what I am talking about:  Let’s say that you are in NYC in one of the churches where most, if not the entire community has such strong Greek ancestry that nearly everyone has spoken the language their whole life.  Now, when it is time to recite the Creed in Greek, 96% of the congregation rattles off the Creed effortlessly.  It seems simple, but my opinion is that roughly 96% of each service should be in Greek.  If you have 2%Romanians, 1% American, and 1% Russian, then maybe a petition, hymn, or lord have mercy is done in those languages.  A proportionate amount is quite appropriate and reasonable.

It works the other way too.  In the south, many communities are made up quite differently than the north.  There are churches where there are enough with Greek ancestry to rattle off the Creed in similar fashion to the northern church, but usually in a smaller percentage.  There are also churches where a Creed in Greek barely gets off the ground.  If you are one of those churches pulling in about 3% who can recite the Creed in the mother tongue, and your services, especially the Liturgy, are done in those tongues, you may want to reevaluate how much of what languages you are singing in.  You may be leading the music of a community, but just not the one you are in.

However,  before this crazy idea of proportionate language use causes an Occupy David’s House movement, realize that there is always wiggle room.  My personal opinion is I do not think it is completely appropriate for a community to neglect a mother tongue in its entirety because “everyone is a convert” or for a community in America to ignore English because “everyone is Greek/Russian/Arabic/Romanian/Bulgarian ect.”  It is just important to see how many pairs of feet there are in the right places.

Language in the Orthodox church is not a barrier, but a door.  We just have to constantly be aware of which doors we are opening up.

As always, you can find me on facebook (please message me and let me know you found me here), twitter, or by email at david@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com

Some weeks, like those in weeks past, I will concentrate on issues that are not specific to music on a page.  Other weeks, like this one, I will give advice specific to singing.  This simple, but not easy, exercise that will drastically improve the sound, sensitivity, and cohesion of your choir.  The more you work on this exercise and make it a part of what you do, the more great singing will become habit.

All you need is good ears, and a single note.

Here are the steps to the “Walker one-note Warmup,” and yes I am naming it after myself for the time being, unless you have a better name.  I’d love to hear suggestions in the comments (which btw, we will be updating the system soon).  :-)

1-Use one single pitch, preferably between a D and A (or ?-? for the chanters) and have everyone sing, in tune hopefully, in the most comfortable octave.  This exercise continues on just one pitch for minutes at a time, so make sure everyone knows they can breathe at will. What this should give you is everybody’s best and most relaxed vocal production on one note. –Note– make sure all are singing the same vowel (ah or oh) and the same interpretation of that vowel sound.

2-Really listen to who is sticking out or not singing enough.  This is pivotal!  This is balancing your ensemble.  No one person is too loud or too soft (over/under-balanced respectively).  Make sure the shy ones sing out more, and make sure to keep your Pavarotti at bay.  You want the volume to be the exact same from each singer.  Spend time doing this in an un-rushed way, and you will be amazed how different your group sounds.  When this happens, you will notice that instead of a widely spread sound, that the sound will become much more focused and tight.  I hear/describe it as a kind of softball of sound.  This is a sound that gives you chills.

3-After minutes of saying “a little more” or “a little less” to individuals, conduct the group through different dynamics.  Do this by repeating step 2 at a softer volume (dynamic), then at a louder one. Granted, Liturgical music is wisely not too dramatic in dynamic contrast, but by singing at different volumes, you enhance individuals’ sensitivity to not only their sound, but the sound around them.

4-The final step is the proof in the puddin’ (you did read earlier that I’m southern right?).  Sing the very first phrase of a hymn that everyone knows, and listen to what it sounds like.  Let people discuss the change.  It can sometimes lead to amazing results, and with a heightened sensitivity, a greater sense of balance, and a better overall sound, you may just save your choir.

Do not be afraid to do this exercise more than once in a rehearsal, in fact the more you do it, the more a balanced, beautiful sound where there are no heros to save the group becomes a habit.  As William James Durant wrote sumising the ideas of Aristotle “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

So let’s review:

1- Get a pitch, sing in-tune

2- Listen and balance

3- Repeat at different dynamics

4- Sing sections of your hymns

RINSE and REPEAT!

I hope this helps you on a path to music on a deeper and more beautiful level!  Please remember you can find me on facebook, twitter, or email me whenever you want.

Last week, I teased this post with a line about how one note can save your choir, but I’ve realized that was putting the proverbial cart before the horse.  So instead of that post, I will go back way before you sing one note.  Also, please note* the word “choir” here can refer to either a Byzantine or Western choir.

This week, we will look at how an age-old phrase, professional orchestral musicians, and classical music excerpts, to makes steps forward for your Liturgical choir

The old adage of “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice” holds many truths to professional musicians.  Yet, notice that the phrase intentionally is not “rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.”  Why is that?  Do musicians not need to rehearse?  Don’t they need to slave hours and hours together to make a Beethoven symphony get an audience to their feet?  To answer this question, let us briefly look inside the life of an orchestral musician.

Typically to audition for a symphony with open auditions (some are by invite only), one must work up around 20 or so excerpts.  These are excerpts from serious symphonic works and are to be played as a solo in front of a (usually hidden) judges panel.  It should also go without saying that these excerpts are never easy, even if they are slow and soft, which are usually the hardest ones.  To win an audition, a performer “sells out” to these excerpts, sleeping in practice rooms, and neglecting their friends and family to take the audition.  Then, once they show up to the audition, there are several levels of eliminations until a candidate or two are chosen to sit in with the rest of the orchestra so the conductor and group can see how well the new person does.  Finally, after all that, a person is selected to perform temporarially for a season and then may work towards tenure if invited back.

WHEW!  Aren’t we all glad we don’t have to do that?!  However, notice how little time is spent on rehearsal.  Many professional symphony orchestras rehearse less than 20 hours a week.  So you may be saying to yourself, “so we don’t have to rehearse as a church group?  Good because that’s what we were doing anyways!”

WRONG!  You have to rehearse every week if you are even remotely serious about being a contributing musical group, either professional or amateur. Rehearsal is a given in the professional world.  Of course there is going to be rehearsal.  There always is rehearsal.  It is not even given a second thought, yet in church groups, rehearsal seems about as mandatory as Orthros. (see what I did there?)

It does not matter if you do the same music every week.  Does your group know about the history of their music, about the composer, the tradition, hymnology or the typikon,or the cycles of the Liturgy?  Do they sing their thirds in tune, have balance and blend, good cut-offs, breathing, or are the Zo’s natural on the way up and flat on the way down for your chanters?  If you answered no to any of these questions, then you need to rehearse.  The thing is, only God is perfect, so unless you are working on getting better, you are getting worse.

How should we all look at the information above and conclude anything remotely concise from it?  Basically, practice and rehearsals are two completely necessary and completely different things.   Rehearsal is the bringing together of many parts, not practicing for individuals.  Practice at home alone; rehearse together.  Again I say, rehearsal is a given, but not only that, the members of your group should have practiced before coming to rehearsal.  The reason professional orchestras do not rehearse so much is because every single member has practiced their part!

There is hope for your group!  If you are just starting out, need an overhaul, or have not given some of these points a thought yet, here are some steps to you get started on a very productive and spiritually fruitful path.

-First and foremost, establish a consistent rehearsal schedule that works for the most people.  You may not be able to get everyone there at one time, but do the best you can.
-Insist that rehearsal is mandatory for every member.  If certain members are frequently not at rehearsal, they should not be allowed to participate in Liturgy.

-Hand out hymns, through email or the week before at rehearsal, to your members for them to practice on their own.  You can also record the hymns and make a dropbox folder so they can listen to the hymns, if some cannot read music, or do not have a keyboard at home.  Working ahead of the curve by getting materials out early is the name of the game.

-Start and end rehearsals on time.  Respect your members’ time always, and they will respect yours.

-Last but not least, resist the temptation to be easily satisfied.  This is the Lord’s work and it has sometimes the most noticeable impact on visitors.  Most non-Orthodox churches take their music WAY more seriously than we do and our lack of preparation can turn away some.  Do you want someone thinking “If that is what they think about their music, what do they think about their spirituality?”

So, rehearse, practice, and be consistent!

Next week we will for sure (it’s already saved as a draft) look at how singing one note can save your choir.  Just work on getting them to rehearsal until then!

Thanks for reading, and as always, you can email me at david@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com or find me at dwalkmusic on twitter.

“He’s Greek!”  ”He’s a convert” “I’m cradle”

We have all heard these phrases frequently (somewhat ad nauseum) in conversations in the Orthodox Church.  Yet, there are fundamental misunderstandings in what these mean and how we refer to ourselves as communities and individuals.  Although this may seem unrelated to music, we will find more and more that a realized clarity in who we are can help solve an abundance of musical and Liturgical challenges.

The largest demographic population of Staten Island in New York is roughly 36% Italian.  The second largest demographic is the Irish, who make up roughly 13% of the total population.  But that’s not right is it?  The numbers are right (at least according to wikipedia), but how I phrased that was wrong.  Did you notice it?  I’m pretty sure I would not have.  Italians and Irish do not make up almost 50% of the population, but it’s those of Italian and Irish ancestry that make up that demographic.  While having never been to Staten Island, I am pretty sure that we would find not quite as much as 50% from those two groups who were born outside of the United States.  It’s just when I put the place (Staten Island) and the demographic (Italian/Irish) together, the connection you had to the historical context of the place and people glossed over the fact that a far smaller percentage was born outside of the United States.

Little Italy in Lower Manhattan, New York is a tourist attraction from which many Italians have moved away after initial success, but still has a small concentrated population of Italians.  It isn’t the restaurants that concern me (although I am a huge fan of Italian food), but how we would describe a restaurant worker by his ancestry.  If his family was from Italy, and he was born in the United States, we would not think twice about calling him Italian.  There’s nothing wrong with this of course, but it is quite worth noting that in America especially, we refer to someone’s identity in context of their ancestry very strongly.

The unbelievably popular HBO series, The Sopranos, featured the star James Gandolfini in the role of Tony Soprano.  His waste management cover to his mob business fooled no one, but we are not looking at that right now.  How do we view his cultural/ancestral identity?  Tony Soprano is Italian.  Well, kind of.  Tony Soprano was born in Jersey.  His Dad was from Italy, but Tony wasn’t.  Tony was American.  See how this is confusing?  We refer, identify, and imagine Tony Soprano as an Italian, but that was his ancestry, not his citizenship.  So even with fictional characters, we identify as strongly (if not more so) with a person’s family background than with where they pay taxes and vote.

Can we identify ourselves by both our ancestry and our citizenship?  The short answer is yes.  We do it all the time, although some times we have to put in a hyphen, like in Italian-American.  Usually that’s how we say it, first the ancestry, then the citizenship.  The fact we can identify ourselves like this is extremely important.  We can be both fully one and fully the other.  This should not be ridiculous to Orthodox Christians since Christ was fully God and fully Man, not 50% one and 50% the other.

Orthodox Christians in America have to understand this very delicate distinction between ancestry and citizenship.  In fact, it is safe to say that there are two broad categories in which all members of every Orthodox church in America belong.  One is those with an ancestral background to the church, the other category simply is not ancestrally tied to the church.  That’s it.  Although there are smaller and more minutia-related categories (devoted, non-devoted, convert, cradle, cradle-reconverted, ethnic, really ethnic, really really ethnic, and anti-ethnic to name a few) we must understand first the two big categories and go from there.  You are either ancestrally related to the church because of your parents and their history or you are not.  You cannot be both ancestrally related and not.  That’s not really possible even from mixed-religion households.

Now I am an American.  I have Scottish and Welsh backgrounds from colonial America.  However, with family ties to George Washington, it is safe to say that my ancestry has so long been in America, that I only identify myself in one way.  Those who have directly immigrated from another country, like Tony Soprano’s fictional parents, identify themselves the same way I do. They are Italian because they were born, raised, and spoke Italian.  I am an American.  There is no duality here, as I am not from somewhere else or brought up in another type of household.  Yet, I am ancestrally Orthodox.  My parents and grandparents converted, and I was baptized and raised in the church.  It sometimes stuns others that I am not a convert, or that can chant in Greek, or that I know about different ethnic cultures in the church.   It is confusing because of the “old school” “He’s Greek!”  ”He’s a convert” “I’m cradle” terminologies we so readily use. However,  although my story is sometimes seen as rare, stories like mine are becoming more and more prevalent.

I think many issues that arise in between individuals and groups in Orthodox Churches, especially in church music, stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the ancestral dynamic in a church.  This dynamic of how much Greek or English is used, or Western harmony and Byzantine chant are very particularly dependent on the ancestral dynamic in a specific church community.  The phrases “He’s Greek” or “He’s a convert” do not sufficiently explain anything about someone and their Orthodox experience.  So before addressing any specific needs of a church music group, we have to first change how we fundamentally look at our community and ourselves.  It is in this understanding of who we are, and what our community truly is ancestrally, that our Liturgical practices can fully be realized for the Glory of God.

As always, you can follow me at dwalkmusic, find me on facebook, or email me at david@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com 

Tune in next week to learn about how singing just one note… can save your choir.

For starters, my name is David Walker and I am a consultant for Ecclesiastical Consulting.  My bio has been briefly outlined already by Father Michael, so lets talk about what we can do for your church music ministry.  Ecclesiastical consulting has a vested interest in all sides of the well-being and quality of worship in the Orthodox Church in America.  I work specifically with the musical systems, training, and performance that are such a vital part to the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church and your community.

Sometimes, even as a trained Western and Byzantine musician, it strikes me just how much of our services are sung.  It is constant!  Moreover, it would seem that if there is so much demand of one skill, that the skill needs much attention.  Yet, as I travel and visit other churches, I see many communities that put too little concentration on the musical organization, training, and performance (OTP) of church music.  It is this relationship between the demands of the church and the OTP that brings me here.  I want to help you bridge the sometimes seemingly insurmountable gap between the churches musical needs, and your musical offerings.

It is also important to realize that since there is so much importance in church music, that its mishandling can sometimes pull a church apart.  I have been in several situations, of which I will comment about more in some future posts, that ended very poorly.  I have also been a part of some truly wonderful collaborations.  In addition to the OTP needs of your community, I can offer one-on-one and group mediations that can keep your community intact and thriving.  Being a grandson and son-in-law to priests, I identify with priests quite well, and their vision for liturgical worship can come more efficiently to fruition through some of these mediations.  I want to help in any way I can!

As far as this blog goes, I will be posting once a week about varieties of topics that you will find useful to your musical output.  There will be some, such as the next one, that target specific social, cultural, or global issues that affect musical decisions in the USA.  Other entries will deal with specific performance topics ranging from how to keep choir members, to balance and blending exercises.

However, before we get into specifics about the music, we must better understand the cultural identities of the Orthodox church in America, and how that knowledge affects our current liturgical music culture  Next time, we will take Staten Island, The Sopranos, and family ancestry to lay a foundation for making the right musical decisions for your liturgical music community.

Until next time, find me on facebook or twitter @dwalkmusic!