I have been cantoring for years, with a good measure of success. I have a certain perspective. Some people may not agree with me, but my ideas are based on experience. For those cantoring for the first time, here are a few things I have learned to help you do your job well.
You are not in this just for the money
You are part of the “music ministry” of the church where you are singing. Cantoring is a form of prayer. Your cantoring should enhance the service and uplift the congregation. In other words, you need to take it seriously. This can be difficult, because you may not love some of the music you will be required to sing at Mass. But you need to put as much effort and heart into the hymns you don’t love as those you do.
If you are hired to sub for another cantor, take the job just as seriously. In other words, show up on time and be prepared. This could mean calling the organist a few days beforehand to discuss the music that is planned for the service and even arranging to rehearse, if necessary. Do whatever you have to do to be ready. Don’t just come charging into the church five minutes before the service is about to start, and then make it obvious to everybody that you are sight-reading the music because you never bothered to find out what it would be. This is insulting to the organist, the priest, and the congregation. You will not be asked back unless they are really desperate—and they are rarely that desperate.
If you are hired to sub, don’t try to take the job away from the person you are subbing for. The job already belongs to the person the church has already hired. As a sub, you are supposed to sub, that’s all. Trying to get yourself hired in place of the person you are subbing for is unethical. You wouldn’t want someone else to do that to you. Enough said.
Know the liturgy
You should know the Catholic Mass as well as you know the color of your eyes. If you are a Catholic who attended parochial school and have been going to Mass faithfully most of your life, that will be a big help. Ideally, you will know the service so well you can recite all the responses by heart, and you will know what is happening and why. If you are not Catholic, or you are one but you never go to church except when you can’t get out of it, you are at more of a disadvantage. The following online resources can help you:
www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/euch1.html#EUCHARIST (an excerpt from The Catechism of the Catholic Church)
www.newadvent.org/cathen/index.html (The Catholic Encyclopedia).
You can also ask almost any elderly, church-lady type, especially the ones who do a lot of volunteering for the parish. They’ve been through the whole thing for years and can probably answer a lot of questions.
Get used to singing at unholy hours without a chance to warm up your voice
Most singers hate to open their mouths before noon. If one of your duties is to sing an early Mass on Sunday mornings, however, you will have to do it. Most churches are not equipped with a soundproof room for vocalizing, so it is best if you perfect some silent ways of getting your throat ready to produce musical sounds. It also helps if you have been out of bed for at least a few hours prior to the service, so that at least your body is awake, even if your brain is still asleep. A long commute comes in handy here.
It is advisable to get up early enough to wake up, get dressed, have some breakfast, and leave for the church in time to arrive early. This will give you a few moments to find your music, set up, ask any questions you need to ask, put on your vestments (if required) and—very important—go to the bathroom.
If you are lucky, your church will have a bathroom in the sacristy or somewhere reserved for those taking part in the services. If not, you will have to use the communal restrooms, and hope that you don’t end up in line behind some elderly congregant who doesn’t understand why you are asking to cut in next just because you have to be on the altar ready to sing before the Mass starts.
People will often tell you that you are not supposed to be performing while cantoring—don’t believe it
You are performing. This is how.
Present a warm, welcoming face to the congregation. Make announcements with a cheerful look on your face and a cheerful tone to your voice. Your voice is the first one people hear when the service begins and your face is the first one they see on the altar. You want to make them feel welcome and included. So even if you are screaming mad at the entire universe and you feel like you are coming down with every disease in the world, try not to show it. Whatever is bothering you isn’t the congregation’s fault, so don’t take it out on them.
Speaking of making people feel welcome, it is nice if you give the Sign of Peace to the congregation when the time comes, even if nobody gives it back to you. I do this by holding up my hands and waving my fingers, since I can’t step down and actually shake hands with people. Giving a Sign of Peace to the congregants can do a lot to bring you closer to them.
Don’t overdress, but look nice, well groomed, modest, and reasonably conservative. In other words, don’t wear things that will inspire anyone to complain to the pastor.
The hymn that you dislike with a passion is probably the one that someone in the congregation finds moving and beautiful. The words of that hymn might have a very personal meaning to someone, so it is vital that you make the words of whatever you are singing easily understood. This can be difficult for those of us who have been trained in classical singing, because we are always concerned about making a beautiful sound, sometimes to the detriment of good diction. But good diction is imperative when you are cantoring.
And yes, despite what people might tell you, you must put interpretation into your hymn singing when you are cantoring. People respond instinctively to a deeply felt, well-sung, and well-phrased hymn. I have found that this is one way to inspire them to sing along. Again, the words should form the basis of the interpretation.
The microphone is your friend
Rock and pop singers already know this, but for all of you classical singers who pride yourselves on never needing a microphone, you can use that little piece of machinery, that microphone you are afraid to touch, to your advantage in church. At times you want to give up on the full operatic sound, including: (1) when the hymn is pitched in an uncomfortable key (as it invariably is a great deal of the time), and (2) when it is a piece meant to be sung softly and thus sounds ridiculous honked out in full, grand opera style.
This means learning how to use the microphone. Consider these tips for basic church microphone technique for classical singers:
Understand that you are dealing with less than ideal technology. Most church amplifying systems are cheap and they sound like it.
Don’t be afraid of the microphone. It is an inanimate object; it won’t attack you.
If your mic is making those squealing noises, it’s because (1) you are standing in front of an amplifier, (2) you are standing too close to the mic, (3) there are other mics in the vicinity and they are too close to each other, (4) the mic is set too high, or (5) it’s just a cheap, crummy system. If situation 1, 2, 3 or 4 is causing the problem, solving it is simple. If (5) is the villain, you can’t do anything about it except complain, and that won’t help much because everybody else is complaining about it, too.
When you are pulling out all the operatic stops, step back a little from the mic. If you don’t do this, you will get complaints that you are singing too loudly, and nobody—except you—will blame the microphone.
When you are singing quietly, step up to the mic and put it close to your mouth. Sometimes it helps to take the mic off the stand and hold it. After you have been doing this a while, you get a feel for it.
When you are close to the mic, be careful of all those explosive consonants, especially “p.” A strong “p” sung into a microphone can sound like you are spitting at the congregation, and you don’t want that. So try to mute those consonants. It’s easy, actually—you just have to remember to do it.
It is not the cantor’s fault if the congregation is not singing along
Congregational singing is new to Catholics, especially the older ones. They aren’t that used to the idea that the people in the pews actually sing in church. If you do sing out loud in the congregation during a Catholic Mass you might get some looks from some of your pew neighbors, especially if your voice is particularly good or particularly awful.
Congregational singing is optional. To most Catholics, this means they don’t have to sing—and they are not going to unless someone puts a gun to their heads, and even then they will think about it. Even the people who do sing in church won’t sing if they don’t know the hymn.
So it’s not your fault if most of the congregation sits out of the singing. They are going to sit it out anyway, no matter who is leading them.
What so many of the people in charge don’t seem to realize is that sometimes it doesn’t matter if a person is singing along or not. If the cantor is a gifted singer or the hymn is a moving one, people can get a spiritual experience out of just listening. Many people have told me this over the years. I just wish some of them would tell the liturgical authorities instead of just telling me.
This is dedicated to my friend Michelle, who has shared her invaluable cantoring stories and her support with me.
