About

Dr Geoffrey Madden.  MBBS BA PGDipArts MA (Theol) GCTS(Liturgy)

Roman Catholic

General Practitioner

Music Ministry for twenty-eight years or so

geoff@sixmaddens.org

50 Responses to About

  1. Richard McCutcheon says:
    December 27, 2011 at 5:17 am

    Hi Geoff,

    I have just upgraded to BIAB 2012, primarily to get some backing tracks, and was trying to find “revelation song” midi to use with BIAB. So your MP3 was interesting. Did you use real band. I was looking for the midi so i could use the melody line. I have the sheet music, via a purchased music book from one of the Christian event we have here in England.
    They supply fantastic quality PDF files and I could step type it in but as a lazy sort of guy I was going to use Photoscore 7, however I don’t have the free cash to purchase it yet. It will allow me to quickly scan in any PDF and output a sequence file ( I think ) or at least a midi file.
    Just wanted to say keep up the great work. Have a Great new year.
    Blessings

    Richard.

    Reply
    • admin says:
      December 28, 2011 at 7:46 pm

      I don’t use Realband – i’m lazy enough to just enter the melody line in BIAB. Since you have BIAB and the sheet music I could just send you the BIAB file and you can adapt it to your needs. I’ll send it separately. I’d be interested in hearing the backings you make – I’ve just got my 2012 version of BIAB but I haven’t played with it yet.

      Geoff

      Reply
  2. Mel says:
    March 4, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    I’m in the music ministry at my parish of St Andrews, Clarkson, Western Australia and I just wanted to thank you so much for these wonderful tracks. We have a wedding coming up that our organist isn’t available to play for, so these will be SUCH a huge help for our choir.

    Thank you and God Bless.

    Mel.

    Reply
    • admin says:
      March 4, 2012 at 6:11 pm

      You’re welcome, Mel.
      I read the inspiring story of the growth of your parish in Perth on your parish website. Keep up the good work.

      Geoff

      Reply
  3. Chris Clark says:
    April 29, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    Thank you, Geoff, for such a wonderful blend of inspirational Christian music. I found your website when I was looking for the ‘Lord is my shepherd’ hymn by Brian Boniwell. I an a teacher of Religious Education at St Dominic’s College, Auckland, New Zealand, and am always searching for quality material for class prayer and liturgies. You are doing such wonderful work! Bless you in God’s kingdom.

    Reply
  4. Br Martin Conneely says:
    June 30, 2012 at 10:00 am

    Can yo please make the Marist hymn ‘great man of god’ you can most probably get the chords from any Marist school or CaSPA.

    Great Man of God

    Great man of God, Champagnat shone with zeal,
    Strove thru’ his life, his Master to reveal;
    With him for guide may we o’er sin prevail,
    Praise be to Jesus and to His Mother!

    For Mary’s son, this son of Lyon’s soil,
    Gave up himself, for youth to pray and toil,
    To lead to God, and Satan’s power to foil,
    Praise be to Jesus and to His Mother!

    So let these words of Great Champagnat ring,
    and with one voice let’s praise our God and King.
    Let Marist’s sons be ever proud to sing:
    Praise be to Jesus and to His Mother!

    These hopes that bind us, this purpose and this plan,
    Everywhere find us, held by friendship’s hand.
    In work, in play, in all, to serve, to pray.
    We will be faithful, Servo Fidem.

    Reply
    • admin says:
      June 30, 2012 at 1:29 pm

      I can’t find any music on the net so I’ve contacted a local Marist school and I’ll see what they can come up with.

      Geoff

      Reply
  5. Chris says:
    July 2, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    FYI, “Great Man of God”, goes to the tune of “For All the Saints”. I went to a Marist school from yrs 8-10 and we sang this song at are school Masses

    Reply
  6. Kate Keefe says:
    July 24, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    Dear Dr Madden

    I’ve just happened upon your blog, and I wondered if my website would be any use to you. It’s at http://www.musicformass.co.uk. I write psalm settings and Alleluias for our ex-pat community here in Moscow to use at mass week by week. I do a US version (because our community is mainly US) and a UK (different) one, (because the lectionaries are different). I’ve also set the main parts of the new Mass, and we’ve been using these for some months now, so I know they work. If any of it is any use to you, you’re most welcome to use it. I would be particularly grateful for any feedback, and if you know anyone else who could use any of the music, I’d be delighted if you could pass on the web address. Thank you very much, and let’s all keep singing.

    Kate Keefe

    Reply
  7. Giovanna says:
    March 8, 2014 at 3:22 pm

    Wow! How com I never knew of this site long ago! Am a chorister in Nigeria (west Africa) saw your site while searching for. “As the deer longs by Gretchen Harris and other lentern songs! Thanks for all these wonderful songs! As so impressed! Pls can I follow you on twitter/Facebook? Kindly gv us ur ID. God bless!

    Reply
    • admin says:
      March 8, 2014 at 3:31 pm

      G’Day Giovanna

      There is no twitter or facebook I’m afraid, just the blog. There’s no reason anyone should know about the blog – it’s all unofficial and designed to help people like me who can’t just look at a piece of music to see how it goes. Since I only play guitar, and I need to know how the melody line goes, I make the backings to find out.

      I’m always glad to hear that people are singing in church. I’m afraid we don’t have choristers around here so we all just try to sing!

      cheers

      Geoff

      Reply
  8. IAN DOWNES says:
    May 4, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    Hi Geoff,
    I am involved each week in setting up the overhead screen data for our weekly Mass at Saint Helen’s Church in Calen (about 60 kms north of Mackay North Queensland. I am always searching for the lyrics for the hymns we sing each week. We have the 9 disc set of As One Voice volume one, and some other sundry discs gathered over the years. However I still have to physically transfer the words for the hymns to the power point USB drive I receive each week from our main church in Mackay. The data for the mass is set up on the disc, but I need to change most of the hymns as they are usually from other sources. I just found your site and think it is great. If there is a easy way to search for these hymns could you advise me on how to do this. Kind regards and as always. GOD BLESS!

    Reply
    • admin says:
      May 4, 2014 at 5:58 pm

      G’Day Ian

      I don’t envy the job you do, but it is really vital. I am lucky never to have had that ministry.

      I’ve recently stopped putting lyrics up on my blog to make myself a smaller target.

      I gather most people in your situation build up a collection of the lyrics in powerpoint form over many years, and just cut and paste each week, so the first thing I would do is ask neighbouring parishes if they have such a collection.

      If you have to find the text on the net, basically everything in Spirit & Song, which has a lot of AOV stuff, is there, and really with a bit of effort almost every song’s lyrics are already on the net somewhere – the interpreters friend is pretty reliable as they print the lyrics along with their particular instructions. The few that aren’t anywhere I used to type out from the sheet music, but you only have to do it once. The mechanism of text/word to powerpoint conversion is beyond me I’m afraid.

      The only other suggestion I have is to talk to the people at As One Voice to see if they have suggestions that fit within your church’s copyright licence.

      If you figure out a good way of doing it I’d love to know.

      cheers
      Geoff

      Reply
      • Mary says:
        May 17, 2014 at 11:25 pm

        Hi – here’s an article that describes the approach I now use:
        http://www.liturgytools.net/2010/05/organising-your-template-song-and.html

        It took a bit of setting up, but now I can make the slideshow for Mass in about 5-10 minutes, provided all the hymns are already in my library.

        fyi, I almost never have to type in the words of a hymn these days. With some clever Googling, there is al most always someone else who done it before (sadly, often illegally).

        Hope this helps, drop me a line if you have any questions.

        Reply
  9. mary says:
    May 10, 2014 at 9:32 am

    Yes, that what I’ve done: build up a library of hymns over the years, and use the Include function in PowerPoint to make up my sideshow. When I’m not posting from the phone I’ll post a link about how.

    Reply
  10. Pamella Bowen says:
    August 27, 2014 at 1:02 am

    Hello, Dr. Madden,
    Today I got the urge to write a lyric called “Easter People”, so I googled the title to see if it had been done, and of course it is a traditional hymn. In the course of looking at my “hits” I came upon your blog.
    I gathered you enjoy setting scripture to music, sort of a form of Lectio Divina. I am a lyricist, an Episcopalian, and always looking for composers who might be willing to set my words to music. You can hear my songs on reverbnation, or you can go to bowen2.com, go to “Family” and then to “Pam” which dumps you at my wordpress blog.

    Let me know if you are at all interested by emailing me at pam@bowen2.com
    Thanks and Blessings,
    Pamella Bowen

    Reply
  11. Mary says:
    September 24, 2014 at 4:56 am

    Hi Geoff, I’m sure you’ve read the work of people who look fondly back to before VII, when there were choirs in ever church, everything was in Latin, and Gregorian chant reigned supreme.

    Well today I found a very surprising document, printed in the front a an Australian hymn book, which your national library has digitized. Basically it’s referring to a 1950 document from the church in Rome, which instructs them to use Gregorian chant AND popular hymns, and says that the people should be singing. I’ve put a link to it here: http://pastoralmusicmusings.blogspot.ie/2014/09/congregational-singing-is-always-living.html

    Reply
  12. Eleanor says:
    January 15, 2015 at 5:00 pm

    Hello, I just wanted to thank you for all the trouble you go to in selecting the appropriate music for each week’s sunday mass – it has proved an invaluable resource tool for me, reassuring me that I am on the right track when I select what I hope fits the week.

    Reply
  13. Ronald says:
    May 29, 2015 at 2:18 pm

    I find music for my Choir at my church in Texas. Does this “As One Voice” really provide a better music arrangement than the Gather (GIA Publications), the Spirit And Song (OCP), Collegeville (Order Of St. Benedict), or even the Adoremus (Order of St. Ignatius)?

    Reply
  14. Mary says:
    April 7, 2016 at 8:12 pm

    Hi Geoff

    A quick question: how do you embed midi files from BIAB into your posts? Is hosting them something which WordPress offers, or do you keep the files elsewhere and use some sort of gadget? I’ve got tools which can make a midi, but cannot figure out how to share them.

    Reply
    • admin says:
      April 8, 2016 at 6:36 pm

      Mary

      I’m hosted on Bluehost so that gives me unlimited storage of my MP3 files. I embed them from my storage area. It was very cheap when I signed up but it isn’t quite as inexpensive these days.

      On other sites I have used Box.net and linked there, which might still be an option.

      cheers

      Geoff

      Reply
  15. Marc Baylon says:
    April 23, 2017 at 1:18 am

    Hi Dr Geoff,

    First I would like to commend you and your site – you are indeed a God’s blessings to small choirs who struggles to find a member who plays a guitar or a piano (like us).

    Your wonderful backings helped our Sunday service to be more lively and uplifting – your backings made it easier for the community to sing our Sunday hymns.

    May the Lord bless your good heart as always!

    Sincerely,
    Marc

    Reply
  16. Shelley McDugald Lucas says:
    October 5, 2017 at 12:24 pm

    Not sure if have the right people looking for the Gospel group Sounds of Glory I believe Gloria Russell is the person to contact to book them any one that can help direct me to them plz contact me I live in the Decatur al area thank u Sister Shelley 256/221/1533

    Reply
  17. Michael Vermeulen says:
    July 6, 2018 at 3:42 pm

    Hi Geoff, I’ve been involved in music ministry for the last few years (as a guitar player) but circumstances have thrust me into the choir/music leadership role.
    Well, it’s great to find a site like this as I struggle with A) choice of songs (5 per service) and B) Finding music especially guitar stuff. Our Parish bases their songs on Gather Australia but happy to seek other appropriate songs elsewhere.
    Glad I found this site and was hoping to find a Facebook group of likeminded liturgical music ministers to share ideas, sheet music etc. to assist in what is sometimes a daunting task. Many thanks for your site.
    Michael (St Peter’s Epping, St Mary of the Cross McKillop Nth Epping, Victoria)

    Reply
    • admin says:
      July 7, 2018 at 11:30 am

      G’Day Michael

      Good luck with your endeavour. Get as much help as you can.
      Don’t forget to look into the APMN as their conference will be in Melbourne next year.
      I think the Facebook idea is great even if we can’t actually share sheet music. The music selections I was involved with cover most Sundays if you search for them and don’t forget the links to suggestions like AOV.

      cheers

      Geoff

      Reply
  18. Tom Hodgson says:
    July 30, 2018 at 11:59 pm

    I want to obtain the new living parish hymnal accompianment book ( blue cover ) by Lucas set written in the late 1960’s. It is the hymnal I grew up with and I have been chasing one for over 20 yueras. Would anyone know where one is?

    Reply
  19. Roger Valmadre says:
    October 5, 2018 at 5:59 am

    Morning Geoff,
    Thanks very much for all your hard work in compiling this extremely useful resource; it’s a great help to cantors such as I. 🙂
    Kind regards,
    Roger V.

    Reply
  20. Angie Fennell says:
    March 11, 2019 at 3:15 am

    Are these recorded in midi files? I have a Clavinova that I sing to, but it takes floppy disks with midi files on them, and I have a song or two that you sequenced that I can’t find midi files to anywhere else that I would love to get ahold of. Do you send people the files?

    Reply
  21. Matthew Ramirez says:
    July 20, 2019 at 1:07 pm

    Hi Geoff.

    Thank you for all the hard work that you put into maintaining this site.

    It has been really helpful to have backings available for rehearsals. I also appreciate your Sunday to Sunday music suggestions.

    Keep up the good work.

    Matthew

    Reply
    • admin says:
      July 23, 2019 at 9:46 am

      G’Day Matthew and you are welcome. I should note that the music selections come from a small team of musicians in our parish.

      cheers

      Geoff

      Reply
  22. Peter Laffan says:
    September 26, 2019 at 1:55 pm

    Thanks for this wonderful site, I use it everyday, working my way through AOVs to get to know what’s on offer for liturgy and prayer. Your comments on each piece are a delight, and the info very helpful.
    Love music, love faith music, or as Pope Francis says at the end of Laudato Si’ “Sing as you go!”
    Blessings
    Peter

    Reply
  23. Michael Vermeulen says:
    June 10, 2020 at 1:36 pm

    Hi Dr Geoff,
    I’m trying to find a different versions of the “Alleluia”, as part of the Gospel Acclamation.
    I generally use the Mass of St Francis by Paul Taylor as its a delight to play (I’m a guitarist) and sing and very accessible to the congregation.
    But this version doesn’t contain a Alleluia and I am struggling to find versions to try.
    I’m thinking specifically for Ordinary Time services. Currently we do a version based on See Ye first tune (the chorus) but I’m looking for something new (but old, I grew up in 70s and 80s and have some strong connections to earlier hymns)
    Anyway, would be good to see what people have to offer, if you open it up.
    Cheers,
    Michael

    Reply
    • Bernie Callum says:
      May 7, 2024 at 8:04 pm

      Michael I would recommend the refrain of the Melchizedek Alleluia. It’s very guitar friendly with a 70’s vibe
      Beers
      Bernie

      Reply
  24. Christopher Rushlau says:
    September 19, 2020 at 7:59 am

    I rode from an airfield to someplace in Kuwait with an Australian special forces guy and we agreed that Australia had a well-deserved reputation for sanity. This COVID Inquisition you have going requires me to ask in this Catholic setting, who is this cabal which has taken over Australia since I assume most Australians retain that common sense? More to the point, why did you let them take over? I have to say the SF guy was a tiny bit worried that the common sense was under some difficulty at that moment, 2004.

    Reply
    • admin says:
      September 19, 2020 at 5:25 pm

      G’Day Christopher

      I don’t know what news you get to see about Australia. We get a lot of US news here.

      In Queensland, where I live, we have close to zero community spread of Covid 19 and apart from quarantining arrivals and sensible precautions at places like churches and restaurants to allow efficient contact tracing, life here is close to normal. Those who have lost jobs or are struggling looking for work have had extra support from our conservative federal government and although we are in our first recession for thirty years, things look reasonably bright for the future. I expect a vaccine will be available in record time, but still not before mid 2021 at the earliest and then maybe we can open up to the world. Apart from Victoria, that is pretty much the story around Australia. We have had hard border closures between states to prevent Victoria’s outbreak spreading that will begin easing soon, as the sacrifices made, especially in Melbourne, have worked and they are down to less than thirty new cases a day.

      There are arguments about the strictness of the lockdown in Melbourne and the Victorian police force have a reputation to rival some of their American colleagues but they haven’t shot any unarmed protestors.

      As a doctor I saw what happened in Italy when exponential spread of Covid overwhelmed their health system and it terrified me. In solidarity with the many health workers who have died along with their patients, I am grateful for cautious governments who listen to their health advisers and do their best to reduce illness and death rather than acting by chaos or incompetence to try to achieve herd immunity.

      In Australia, we have had to accept that the care of the elderly in nursing homes, that had been sold off to private enterprise so that profit rather than care was being emphasised, has been less than adequate and we have suffered from dreadful outbreaks in some private nursing homes – notably our state run nursing homes have fared much better.

      Finally, it is clear that countries that have had sensible approaches have had fewer deaths and less economic damage compared to those who have failed to coordinate their response, especially with regard to contact tracing. I test every patient with even the slight symptoms of a viral illness and have a result within twenty-fours hours so that in the unlikely event they have Covid 19 they can be isolated and their contacts traced.

      We have got through a local winter with the lowest amount of influenza I have ever seen and avoided exponential growth of Covid 19. I wish those in the Northern Hemisphere the same outcome for their winter.

      Sorry for the wordy response on an off topic post, Christopher, but I think it is common sense to have a functioning response from governments to pandemics, that while never perfect, reduces the impact of disease on the community. Most of my patients, though elderly, have many years of high quality life ahead of them that community spread of Covid 19 would have eliminated.

      I was a medical adviser to the Department of Veterans Affairs for many years in the past and I hope your special forces friend got through his career unscathed.

      cheers

      Geoff

      Reply
  25. Adam says:
    November 17, 2020 at 6:59 pm

    Hi Geoff,

    Just wondering, have you ever used the Simple Psalms (http://www.willowpublishing.com.au/CatalogueRetrieve.aspx?ProductID=11290587&A=SearchResult&SearchID=193681931&ObjectID=11290587&ObjectType=27 There’s preview music available for the book) books in your parish? They are the only psalms we use in our parish, and I find the psalms work really well and sound good. How do they compare to the other psalms available from Willow or any other psalms you use?

    Thanks,
    Adam

    Reply
    • admin says:
      November 18, 2020 at 7:12 pm

      G’Day Adam

      We haven’t used that collection, but I’m glad they’ve worked well at your parish.

      In the past we used Jenny O’Brien’s and Paul Mason’s Psalm settings, which were fine, but we’ve settled on Amanda McKenna’s settings now because they can be sung after one listen so they enhance participation. We only sing the psalm response so they are all we need.

      lovely to hear from you
      cheers

      Geoff

      Reply
  26. Anne says:
    November 11, 2021 at 1:11 am

    Hello sir good day, I am sending you this email for the reason that I have knowledge about a song that you posted in one of your blog titled Jerusalem: A new song and Back to Jerusalem. I have read in your caption that your looking for details. Please email me back thank you I hopr you will be ablento read my email.

    Reply
  27. Catharine says:
    January 13, 2022 at 11:08 am

    Hi Dr Geoff,
    Your blog is a blessing and thanks for doing this wonderful work! I find it very useful given I am not good at reading sheet music and only play guitar by the ear.
    Thanks,
    Catharine

    Reply
  28. Lupe G says:
    May 1, 2023 at 8:45 am

    Hello,

    This is a wonderful and helpful site.

    I like your arrangements of Mass of St Ann very much. Is there any way to get your arrangements (files) without the horn playing the melody?

    Reply
  29. Debbie Reid says:
    January 8, 2024 at 4:42 pm

    Hi, I was wondering if I can purchase any of your music? The church I go to will not have an organist soon, (she is 92 soon) and thinking of retiring very soon. We are using mp3 music which has been recorded by herself when we need a new song, but like I said she gets very tired. I’ve been trying to find a way to build our repertoire without hassling our wonderful organist. If you can let me know if I can download from somewhere please. Thanks, Debbie.

    Reply
    • admin says:
      January 8, 2024 at 8:50 pm

      G’Day Debbie

      I don’t sell anything – anything I do is free. If you are unable to download an MP3 of something you need on my site just let me know and I will send it to you.

      The wonderful organist who played in George Town for 5 decades died last year and we are down to a few guitarists and singers now. I think we are all feeling the loss of our stalwarts.

      If you haven’t seen it before this article of mine from an APMN presentation some years ago goes through options when resources are skinny and why we shouldn’t feel bad about using them.
      https://apmn.org.au/apmn/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SFTJ-Geoffrey-Madden-Marginally-Musical.pdf

      I definitely think MyMIDI is worth exploring and I can help with MIDI files:
      https://mymidi.audio/

      If there are absolutely no musicians available and you want to be self sufficient then a backing program like Band in a Box, which I use, is nice.
      https://www.pgmusic.com/

      Every parish is different and and none of these may be relevant to your situation, but I am happy to help out.

      cheers

      Geoff

      Reply
  30. Chris Wroblewski says:
    January 9, 2024 at 10:14 am

    Another very useful source these days is YouTube. While, sadly, Australian churches and singers seem to rarely use this facility, there are many U.S. recordings, some with just music, for the specific purpose of teaching choir members. Additionally, one can download the videos to mobile devices: its probably not a good idea to directly run from the Internet during Mass.

    It’s a pity Willow didn’t produce a set of music-only recordings from As One Voice for use in the classroom, but I suspect the fear they would be freely shared would have made it a difficult commercial decision. It’s also a pity they don’t include midi recordings of everything they sell as part of the package simply because any music score produced on a computer is going to have midi output as an option, so its really a minor production expense, and they do this for Amanda McKenna’s psalm settings.

    I’ve used the free mp3 converter at audio.online-convert.com/convert-to-mp3 for a number of years, and it does a much better job than my computer!

    Finally, if you are interesting traditional style hymns (not necessarily old lyrics), there’s my website, https://liturgyshare.org. The piano recording are from midi files and are easiest to sing with, but are very basic, while the organ recording are sourced from smallchurchmusic.com with an adjusted number of verses and transposed when necessary to a congregational friendly key.

    Reply

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