Paul Mason’s series, Psalms for all Time, is a project to get psalms being sung in your parish. If you have cantors, it is a great idea, but if that isn’t going to happen, they are still useful as hymns in themselves. We sing Amanda McKenna’s responses and have the verses said, so I am mainly thinking of these as hymns.
I’ve done the original book last year, which has been updated now as volume one, and will turn to the second volume now. You can (and should) purchase the book at Liturgical Song. It isn’t just sheet music – he has the background and suggested uses for all the psalms as well as a cogent rationale for the singing of psalms in the introduction. There is even a chord sheet and capoing directions where needed to cater for guitarists – CWBII take note! It is possible to be pastorally relevant to guitarists providing music in church and still be liturgically correct – just ask Paul Mason. He also often has SATB arrangements for the refrains if you have a choir of that nature.
Psalm 8 is for The Most Holy Trinity Year C, but has a use for Christian Initiation (outside Easter) and masses for civil needs. It is also a hymn of praise that can be used whenever you can’t face singing “How Great Thou Art” anymore.
I find the choice of English texts for the Psalms a confusing jumble of versions of the Grail and rife with copyright hassles. The text Mason uses is here. (Psalm 8:4-9)
There are still very few You Tube clips of Mason’s material, so if you are using them please post them where we can hear them in action.
Even if used as hymns, surely you are still going to need a soloist or choir to lead/teach the congregation, which isn’t all that different from cantoring! This sort of material could be very useful for communion, where the congregation has a brief refrain to sing with the choir/cantor handling the verses.
Chris
Paul Mason, in his notes, makes exactly the same good point about using these as communion songs with the assembly only having to remember the refrain.
Geoff