Not Hogging the Covers

by Dan Masterton

When I’m listening to music, I’ve always struggled with covers. It’s not a total aversion – sometimes they hit just right, like the Smells like Teen Spirit cover by Malia J in the opening sequences of Black Widow.

One of the things that makes me want the original version is that I have an instinctive urge to sing along. Whether out loud or just in my head, I often can’t resist joining in. When you listen to a cover, the artist is reinterpreting the song, so things go a little different. They might change a phrasing or cadence, slow down or speed up the tempo, or diverge from the original in other ways to put their own spin on the song.

My orderly brain is flustered that I can’t sing along as if it’s the original. As a result, I often think covers are inferior or bad. Rationally, I know that those differences are artful, often done in reverent tribute to the original, but I just want the familiar path of singing along with the old standard. This is a small illustration of how I’m just not that literate in appreciating music.

When I first started singing in a choir in college, not only did I not understand much about music, but I especially didn’t know much about music ministry.

One of the components of singing Sunday Mass was that one of our choir members would head down to the sacristy, put on an alb, and take the stand as the cantor for Mass. At my childhood parish, I had cantors at Mass, but I never paid them much specific attention. Now, watching my friends do it, I became more aware of them.

A couple of my dreamboat friends
showcase their cantor skills while
singing the Psalm at my wedding Mass.

Our choir cantors used very ostentatious hand signals to note to the congregation when to join in singing, even when it seemed really obvious, and they also took a sizable step back from singing when the congregation was supposed to stop singing. They sometimes sang something first, solo, before raising their arms to invite everyone else to join in. They also wore big happy smiles on par with cheerleaders or beauty pageant contestants. To be honest, I thought it was all a little silly for a while.

After a few months, it became clear that the consistent ministerial approach of our choir, including our cantors, were part of what helped the congregation be so participative. We definitely started at an advantage, being on a major Catholic college campus where people were predisposed to participate in Mass. But I think the intentionality and consistency of these ministerial points helped make our liturgies as participatory and lively as they could be rather than just presuming that they’d be vibrant. To use a baseball analogy (*grins mischievously*), our congregation was typically above-replacement-level, but with our coaching and player-development approach, we helped achieve all-star level results.

Our friend who cantored our wedding Mass
was the model cantor who
helped everyone in choir learn
to do the ministry well.

Opening and closing hymns were always “unison,” meaning that all choir members (and the cantor) were singing the same melody, so the congregation had a simple tune to follow (tunes were often repeated periodically throughout the year, and after great familiarity, we might add a sopranos-only harmony called a “descant” on a final verse). Psalm refrains were always played by an instrumentalist first, then sung solo by the cantor, then sung by everyone, all in unison; the choir only began to harmonize the refrain after the first verse. Then, during the preparation of the altar, the choir would often do a song that was meant to be more performative, a time for those in the congregation to quietly pray and listen in a contemplative moment, rather than join in – and during this time, the cantor would remain seated or slip back up to the loft to reinforce that this was not a time to participate by singing.

The little details to this pastoral approach could go on and on, but a key practical element was that the cantor always sang what the congregation should sing. Both in terms of when to sing and what to sing, the cantor was essentially a congregation member with an alb and a microphone. The cantor sang at a moderate volume and sang the words and rhythms and notes exactly as they appeared in the program or hymnal. This whole approach provided those in the congregation with a very accessible guiding hand to help them participate as much as possible.

At some Masses in my post-college life, this hasn’t been how music ministry has gone. Sometimes, it’s incidental. Perhaps the cantor and accompanist haven’t had much chance to practice and simply don’t have the rhythms and sequences down. I imagine this likely comes down to insufficient resources to compensate music ministry leadership to dedicate time, or to underengaged parish communities in which those people with gifts and passions for music have not come forward to volunteer themselves.

Sometimes, it feels overt. I’ve been at Masses where it feels like the accompanist and cantor just came from a cabaret and are about to put the beverage schooner on the piano top for tips. Other times, a steady and austere accompanist is overshadowed by a cantor who is attempting too much creativity – swinging rhythms, holding notes too long or not long enough, or singing to hear their own voice rather than to facilitate the raising of others’ voices.

Whether hymnals or song sheets,
worship aids should be prioritized
to help everyone have a helpful guide
to join in the music of the Mass.

I don’t think any of this “ruins” Mass or anything – it just leaves something on the table. There’s some space in the Mass for music ministry to include more performative music – that showcases the instrumentalists, choral voices, or soloists more prominently, hopefully with an eye to facilitating good prayer in the congregation. There’s also major space to do more facilitatory music – that emphasizes simple tunes with singable ranges and intervals, piano accompaniment that doesn’t overshadow the singing, and cantors that are intentionally singing straight, clear, and exactly what the congregation has in front of them. Finding this balance brings something more to the congregation.

For a guy who struggles with covers, I appreciate when I can join in the songs at Mass, which for me means having the music in front of me and music ministers who are guiding me so that I can join in. I’m not going to say there can’t be variety in instrumentation, in harmonization, even in interpretation. I just always hope that there’s a hymnal or songsheet that shows me what the choir will be singing, so that I can keep one eye on the cantor and choir and follow their lead to join along with them. When I lived in Ireland, we often worked off lyrics-only sheets, but at least the song was sung pretty consistently each time it was used.

Mass becomes a richer participatory action when music ministry is an inclusive, engaging, facilitating ministry. If the wherewithal and manpower are there, the main question for the ministry should be are we helping our congregation pray and participate in Mass well?