---

"NPM is greying."

That was the phrase thrown around me at the National Pastoral Music Convention in Detroit, Michigan.

This conference is a great experience filled with workshops, liturgy, concert experiences and more to help inspire, enrich and further educate pastoral musicians. But I could usually count the number of young people that crossed my path on one hand, if I even saw any.

It was a bit unnerving to find only 20 to 30 youth gathered for a jam session with the famous composer John Angotti, at a conference that consisted of a few thousand participants.

It was also disappointing to sign up for a young cantor workshop with Kate Cuddy, composer of "Jesus, the Living Bread of God," as well as a few other famous tunes, and find only two other youth signed up to join me.

The most disheartening part of that workshop, however, was that one adult signed up to observe - and she only stuck her head in the room for about 10 minutes in the middle of the session.

However, the message that these events show is clear: Youth aren't too interested in coming to these conventions, and adults aren't too supportive about having them there.

NPM is making it one of their goals to involve more youth in the coming years. However, the amount of effort that must go into these projects must be substantial and consistent in order to really make a difference. That's certainly a tall order.

The real trick of the matter is how to get youth involved in music during liturgy.

The concept of training young musicians to take over for older musicians doesn't seem to be the norm in the Roman Catholic Church. How many young interns do you see helping out your organist?

Part of this problem is that being a leader requires skill and experience on the piano or the organ. Making a choir a low-commitment, easygoing and fun extra-curricular activity is easy enough to do - although that means they can also be easy activities to leave.

Simple cantor parts are also available to get a young person involved in liturgy.

While church songs are meant to be easy to sing, the accompaniment parts can be a little more challenging. What about the piano or organ accompaniments that can provide the backbone to the ensemble, which provides the backbone to the prayer experience during liturgical song?

Those parts are a big jump from the simple melodies played in youthful piano lessons, or even from classical pieces.

One man asked at the end of a session at the conference how we can go about training youth to follow in current musicians' footsteps. In any case, the question touches on the larger challenge of engaging young Catholics in singing, playing, directing and even composing music that expresses our faith. Who among us, young or old, will rise to the occasion?

(Jenny Gorman is a student at The College of Saint Rose and a member of St. Vincent de Paul parish in Albany.)

(08/05/10)[[In-content Ad]]

---