Variety and Consistency

Variety, Variety, Variety.

When choosing songs for liturgy, I have but another thing for you to keep in mind today. The difference between our musical attention spans as musicians and those of the congregation. I can't count the number of times that I have second guessed song choices because I though "I've done this too many times recently, people are going to get tired of it." When in essence these songs are often the most popular and well loved songs.

Pescador De Hombres is a song used frequently in Hispanic communities but it is also a song that gets the community SINGING. When the "fishers of men" reading came up last weekend I was really worried to sing it again because I had used it for about 3 weeks in a row. But the community sings and more importantly, prays with it. I'm sure I could have found a more obscure song to fit the liturgical need but what good does it do?

We as musicians need to feel fulfilled in our ministry as well. Part of that is doing a variety of new and challenging music. But this must be balanced with consistent, meaningful, and singable music. Music that the congregation will know in the first few beats. This is why songs like "City of God", "Table of Plenty", "Find Us Ready" and the like have stayed so strong in the community masses.

Variety and Consistency

John 3:30

Getting people to sing! How do we do it? Do they want to? Do they like the music?

So many thoughts go through my mind each week as I lead music at my new parish. But I think the biggest question that I often forget to ask myself is, "Am I doing too much?".  It's hard to understand, but "doing too much" can destroy your chances of getting people to sing.  As musicians, we can't always be performing. The connotation that comes along with performing is that everyone else should just listen, and it's a privilege at that. Instead we need to stay true to our positions. We are ministers and leaders first. We are performers second. We must encourage others to join us in the praise of God.

John 3:30 says "He must increase; I must decrease."

I love that line because it sums up our role as music ministers. "I MUST DECREASE", and the congregations must see Jesus increase through us. This will bring us all closer to him. There will be time for performances, Christmas concerts, Easter Pageants, Spaghetti dinner fundraisers and open mic nights. Those are a whole other story. 

Starting New

New to this site. New to Google+. New to a lot of things. But what I will be talking about here is being "new" to a parish. Starting a ministry from scratch, with a fresh beginning.  My name is Alex Navas and I am a music director in Tucson, AZ currently working at St. Christopher's Parish. Recently my life was rocked by a job change that I thought was otherwise stable and I ended up in a brand new parish. A parish that hasn't had music in their liturgies, community, life teen or any of their events for a good time. This parish community seems to truly understand the benefit of music and what it adds to the Mass and Parish life.

This transition has put me in a unique situation, however, that I haven't experienced before. It has given me the chance to build the music program from the floor up. I am not inheriting a ministry, choirs, repertoire and traditions from a previous leader. I am set with the challenge of building these up. Instead of buying a furnished home I get to pick out the drapes and decide which furniture best suits this families needs.

In this blog I will try to explain the joys and struggles of what that entails in real time. I began this position on the 1st of 2012 and will continue to update this as new things occur.

Hope this helps other music ministers and leaders and if you have any specific questions let me know and I will try to address them here.

God Bless,
Alex Navas