Posture for the Liturgical Instrumentalist

I recently sent an email to the instrumentalist in my choir reminding them of some extra responsibilities they have as liturgical musicians and leaders of sung prayer.  There are the obvious ones, like having a well tuned instrument, having music set up in a binder in the proper order and having practiced the music before hand so they are not sight reading their music.   But what I wanted to discuss is the posture or movement of the musician in the choir area. 

Let me start off by offering a little confession.  I often times day dream during the homily, even when there is a very gifted homilist speaking.  It’s been pointed out to me after mass by very dear friends in the assembly that I was obviously not paying attention or looked like I was off in space.  We all need to keep in mind that as members of the choir or music ministry, we are on display in front of the assembly (hopefully there are no longer any choirs still singing from the back balcony of the church!).  Any movement or sound we make can be seen and may be distracting to the assembly.

Here are the bullet points I sent to my instrumentalist (based on what I have seen lately during mass).  I know…some of them may seem blatantly obvious:

Please arrive at the church early so that you have enough time to tune up and warm up your instrument.  At least 10 minutes before mass (15 minutes would even be better), please stop warming up (playing scales, etc.) your instrument or tuning.  By this time, the microphones are usually on and even though you might not have your own microphone, other microphones in the area may pick up your sound.  Others around you may be trying to quite themselves and/or pray.

During the mass, please don’t play your instrument softly, or even finger your instrument without making a sound.  Even though you may be playing softly, it is still distracting to other instrumentalist around you.   Please remember that we are very much on display where we sit.  I’ve actually had people from the assembly mention about a musician, "that person sure was moving around a lot".

If you don’t have the music (an example is after communion when the keyboard player is playing an instrumental piece), please don’t try to improvise or pick out the tune yourself.

This list may need to be modified when there are younger instrumentalist.  I’ve worked with younger drum kit players (I’ve always called it a trap set) for other churches who only know how to play one volume (loud of course!) and it is really a challenge getting them to understand that we, as instrumentalist, are there to support the singing and to not be the center of attention.  The same goes for other instrumentalist, especially those who have access to an amplifier.  I myself, play bass guitar most Sundays but constantly ask key members of the assembly to check my volume during the mass to ensure I’m not playing to loud. 

I’m sure I’ve missed some bad habits that I’ve seen pop up at other times during my liturgical career, but this blog entry at least hits the highlights.  The main point for all of us to remember, is that we are not playing our instrumentalist as soloist or are sitting in a liturgical bubble.  There are other musicians and singers around us and we are there to support the sung prayer of the assembly by adding some musical variation and interest.  If we are distracting by playing to loudly, or moving around to much, or playing when we are not supposed to be playing, then we are not doing our job as liturgical musicians. 

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