Chant, Polyphony, Motets and a Certain Amount of Insanity

The retreat was a wonderful experience with the choir. We began with pizza and rules and ended with a beautiful blessing at Mass by Fr. Mike. Along the way, we learned a great deal about our faith and the great music of the Catholic Church. We have begun learning the chants of the Ordinary for Rome.

This means we spent a great deal of our time and effort learning to read neumes, the tiny square note notation of Gregorian Chant. We learned words like podatus, ictus, and bistrophe, and learned to find them in chants like the Kyrie Eleison, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.

We learned about art, architecture, and why churches were designed the way they were...and we had some fun with the idea of navis, the vessel, the church and the sacraments symbolized in the nave. We became the pirates of God.

Storming the bridge

stopped at the vestibule

into the water

pirates no more

sacraments

save us...

Deus

Exitus

Creatio

Reditus

Deus

And after hours of rehearsals, and cooking and cleaning and playing sword fights and pirates and Wii and table tennis... we went to Mass and really listened. We were not the choir this time, we are in preparation mode still.

When this group of guys & trebles hit the wall, they don't just get slap happy, they get downright silly. So for your viewing *experience* I give you....When Choir Retreats Go Wrong: Alligators Suffer. I promise we sound really lofty and lovely when we're not crazy tired. Seriously.

And all the alligator activists out there...don't send me emails, no actual alligators were harmed in the making of this video.