Whistle and flute duet for Catholic Mass

knorris908 · Post by **knorris908** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 4:54 pm

Also, if you're ambitious:

Bach's Fifth Bradenburg Concerto

Just the first movement, bridge, then ending should be more than sufficient. And while it sounds daunting, it's actually fairly simple. The hardest part will probably be the timing. But since you are already accustomed to playing together, that should come almost intuitively to you two.

Just a thought.

Best wishes, and have a great performance!

Kenneth

clarinetwhistler · Post by **clarinetwhistler** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 9:39 am

These are all great ideas! I'll have to make notes for future use, myself

I don't have the opportunity to play with the choir as much anymore since our second son came along, but used to throw in a little whistle once in awhile rather than sing or play clarinet. One thing my wife and I would do when our choir director asked us to occasionally come up with a duet to play while the choir went to Communion was look ahead at the other music scheduled for that Sunday and also the Readings for the Mass. That always proves to be a suitable guide to what would be liturgically fitting to that Sunday's Mass as well as some good tune ideas. There are a lot of Hymns that work well as instrumentals and are pretty easy to adapt, especially if your choir has the instrumental accompaniment book or there are parts available (even vocal). A thing to consider is where in the Mass you're going to play and if it's too big of a deal that some people may want to sing (especially true, we found, when playing a Marian Hymn--which is actually really cool unless it's supposed to be a quiet, reflective period).

One that I really like is How Beautiful. Nice with Piano and Whistle though Guitar and Flute or Whistle and Flute would be very nice, too, and it works well on a D whistle. There are a lot of Marian Hymns that are very beautiful: Ave Maria (almost any version, though I think Schubert is particularly nice), Salve Regina, Immaculate Mary, Hail Holy Queen, and Hail Mary Gentle Woman are a few. My wife and I took the vocal parts to Pie Jesu and played a clarinet duet one year that brought out a few tears in the pews (it should work on flute and whistle, though I don't recall the key so I don't know how easy it might be to do). In addition, you might consider songs like You Are Mine, Prayer of St Francis, Be Not Afraid, Here I Am Lord, One Bread One Body, I Am The Bread Of Life--all in suitable keys and with instrumental parts and vocal harmonies which make them easy to adapt as duets.

My wife also plays Recorder and has some nice Sacred Hymns duet books that we've played as Recorder/Whistle or Clarinet/Whistle duets. I'll check with her for the book titles and a couple of the Hymns to pass along. As I recall, they were very simple, but very nice. And, the books themselves have a range of music throughout the year so it was easy to find a quick, last minute duet for Lent, Easter Season, Advent, Christmas Season, or Ordinary Time.

Thanks for bringing up this topic, Flamman! I love the Mass and I love Sacred Music. Do you know of any other forums that discuss these subjects? I haven't had time to really look for any Catholic music forums (I'm sure they exist), but I do often lurk on the PWA site which is a forum for Praise Whistling started by Mack Hoover. It's a very good Christian forum at:

http://www.format.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi

hillfolk22 · Post by **hillfolk22** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:06 pm

Hello,

Any Choral arrangement that you can find will help you with the duets, (providing it fits with your key and has a limited amount of accidentals)
However, dont let that stop ya. Transpose, take the opportunity to buy a new whistle. ( great excuse, I did, thats why I purchased my Bb Brass Burke) or fudge around with the arrangement if you do happen to come across an accidental. It's your opportunity to be creative.

www.ocp.org

Is a good place to start. I cant recall the name of the choir book that I lent out to a co-worker. It is from ocp and all of the arrangements are for choir. It has traditional Catholic songs and also some of the newer contemporary Catholic songs.

Spirit and Song is another good investment for the contemporary Catholic. Again another ocp song book. Included is guitar chords and two part vocal arrangements.

Being a music director at my church, I have tons of choral arrangements. You may wish to ask your choir director to borrow a few songs that you think will go well.

Descants are good as well to use with a duet.

I play my whistle when ever I can get a chance along with flute and violin. I play guitar as well. (not at the same time.

)

Hail Mary, Gentle Woman is a good one.... I like to play the beginning like an air... You may wish to have the flute take over the Gentle Woman part as the range skips around a bit for whistle. The refrain then goes into parts.

Good luck and enjoy the adventure.

Please feel free to email for anymore new ideas we can toss about.

Oh, there is a catholic musicians forum.

Go to:

www.npm.org

Scroll down to Membership then click on mailing list.
There you can join a NPM yahoo group of your choosing.

Hope this helps.

Laura

Ps. I feel the need to edit this... I cannot play flute or violin. I meant. I play along with the violin and flute.... Oh how I do wish that I could play these two instruments. My life would be... well, almost complete.

njs_44 · Post by **njs_44** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:10 pm

The Summons is a lovely Scottish trad hymn which we do at our church, the words start 'Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?'

I found this discussion so interesting I've joined the community instead of just reading other people's posts.

JMcCYoung · Post by **JMcCYoung** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:20 pm

hillfolk22 wrote:Oh, there is a catholic musicians forum.

Go to:

www.npm.org

Scroll down to Membership then click on mailing list.
There you can join a NPM yahoo group of your choosing.

I'm not sure how many of the lists besides [npmusers] are active. I've been a member of that list for almost 6 years. Note that you don't have to be a member of the NPM to join the list; I'm not.

Just to warn people, discussions can get quite heated at times (in a religious forum, can you imagine?

).

Also, although it's true that almost everyone's Catholic, there are a few Protestants on the list.

John, hasn't been asked to play whistle at church since a flautist joined the choir for his Mass

hillfolk22 · Post by **hillfolk22** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:28 pm

JMcCYoung wrote:
hillfolk22 wrote:Oh, there is a catholic musicians forum.

Go to:

www.npm.org

Scroll down to Membership then click on mailing list.
There you can join a NPM yahoo group of your choosing.

I'm not sure how many of the lists besides [npmusers] are active. I've been a member of that list for almost 6 years. Note that you don't have to be a member of the NPM to join the list; I'm not.

Just to warn people, discussions can get quite heated at times (in a religious forum, can you imagine? ).

Also, although it's true that almost everyone's Catholic, there are a few Protestants on the list.

John, hasn't been asked to play whistle at church since a flautist joined the choir for his Mass

Ya, they need to pick it up again... meaning make it more active.
And Yes, we are human and prone to some really heated discussions.

I also get that at my church as well. It is called Parish Counsel. Zoiks

Laura

clarinetwhistler · Post by **clarinetwhistler** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:37 pm

I once worked with a young man from India who thought the American tendency to avoid discussions about Religion and Politics rather odd. He said that where he was from, if they didn't talk about Religion or Politics they wouldn't have anything to talk about!

Flamman · Post by **Flamman** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 4:43 pm

I'm overwhelmed by all the good ideas. Hail Mary Gentle Woman also struck me as a good possibility. And I also agree with the theory that this problem offers a good excuse to pick up new whistles. (That's where my Susato C came from.)

JohnPalmer · Post by **JohnPalmer** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 5:05 pm

If you have OCP's music books, here are some very good songs that we use:

As the Deer Longs #454
Bread That Was Sown #332
Center of My Life #458
Holy Spirit #409
No Longer I #639
Peace #475
The Lord is my Light #670

JP

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 5:36 pm

markv wrote:
The Weekenders wrote:"Morning Has Broken" is found in Protestant hymnbooks, claiming Celtic origin. Pretty sweet tune but hard to get Cat Stevens' version out of yer head whilst playing.

I have the same problem!

Mark V.

Both my choirmasters (my current one and the one in NC) REALLY hated to do Morning is Broken because we all had Cat Steven's version firmly in our heads. Personally, I PREFER Cat Steven's version...it is so passionate, and the "straight" version in the hymnal just sounds stilted.

You know, if you're doing it as an instrumental, there's no reason you can't do it just like he did it (with all the little embelishments)...nobody expects an instrumental to sound like something from the hymnal.

Redwolf

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 8:57 pm

Redwolf wrote:
markv wrote:
The Weekenders wrote:"Morning Has Broken" is found in Protestant hymnbooks, claiming Celtic origin. Pretty sweet tune but hard to get Cat Stevens' version out of yer head whilst playing.

I have the same problem!

Mark V.
Both my choirmasters (my current one and the one in NC) REALLY hated to do Morning is Broken because we all had Cat Steven's version firmly in our heads. Personally, I PREFER Cat Steven's version...it is so passionate, and the "straight" version in the hymnal just sounds stilted.

You know, if you're doing it as an instrumental, there's no reason you can't do it just like he did it (with all the little embelishments)...nobody expects an instrumental to sound like something from the hymnal.

Redwolf

Funny you should mention this. We were just discussing this at choir practice(I'm the organist).

They knew that I was playing it different and they were singing it different but they never realized till I told them that they ARE singinig it Cat Stevens way!!!

I just can't bring myself to play it as written.

Back to the subject of the post:

Have you ever tried to do some plainsongs? They are personal favorites(even if the choir and priest look at me like I'm crazy if I even mention them. They are usually in C and are beautiful. I always play at least one either for a prelude or during communion.

Also, I was just skimming over Today's Missal , Music Issue(loaned to me by a friend- Episcopalian here) anyway, I found-

Lord of the Dance- easy on whistle. I always play it on whistle for our Christmas to-do.

Also found Lord of all Hopefullness(Be Thou My Vision) which is another one good on whistle.

My favorite hymn of all - All Creatures of Our God and King(Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones#718 is in D.

I have to suggest anything by Ralph Vaughn Williams. I just love most of his hymns because he took common, well known, mostly English, folk tunes and put words to them that turned them into hymns. You can find many of them in the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal.

Lastly, I have to fall back on my theory that anything on whistle is great , but TRAD is wonderful. I most often play,and this is for communion, on low whistle-

By the Side of the Rock
The Song of the Books

Whatever you decide on , rest assured, the congregation will LOVE it if they are anything like the foks at my church.

Have fun.

clarinetwhistler · Post by **clarinetwhistler** » Fri Aug 22, 2003 6:49 am

cowtime wrote: Whatever you decide on , rest assured, the congregation will LOVE it if they are anything like the foks at my church.

I second this, at least in my experiences, too.

Hail Mary Gentle Woman works well on an A Whistle. Good excuse to look for one, if you don't have one, yet.

The book I mentioned earlier that my wife has is Mel Bay Presents Hymns & Sacred Melodies for Recorder.

This has been a great topic. Thanks for bringing it up (brought me out of lurking).

Have fun and God Bless!

hillfolk22 · Post by **hillfolk22** » Fri Aug 22, 2003 8:43 am

A few from Journeysong... ocp

Alleluia! Hurry the Lord is Near... Ernest Sands
One Bread One Body
Behold the Wood.. Dan Schutte (soulfully)
Ye Sons and Daughters ... O Fill Et Filiae
All My Days... Dan Schutte ( I did this as an instrumental for a funeral)
Alleluia! Sing to Jesus... Hyfrydol
Sing a New Church... Nettleton (very celtic sounding)
Open My Eyes... Jesse Manibusan (one of my favs.)
All the Earth.... Lucien Deiss, CSSp
City of God.... Dan Schutte

Yes, this has been a great thread.
And I too agree, anything you do on whislte and flute will be much appreciated by the congregation.

Laura

don · Post by **don** » Fri Aug 22, 2003 8:56 am

I haven't seen it posted yet, but "Be thou my vision" is a whistle staple. I'm not sure of a harmony but you can get it from several midi players

you might also try this thread on Mudcat:
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=53879#834050

Or the The Ames Hymn Collection:
http://junior.apk.net/~bmames/hymnsjs.htm?n

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Whistle and flute duet for Catholic Mass

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