New free resource for church musicians

CJM Music is providing church musicians with accompaniments for psalms that can be downloaded free from the internet for all Masses on Sundays and Feast Days. Parish music groups preparing liturgies can now download the musical accompaniment for psalms as sheet music or as MP3 recordings from www.cjmmusic.com/liturgy/psalms. The arrangements have been simplified to make the pieces easy and quick to learn. Jo Boyce, of CJM, said: :Most of us know that the Responsorial Psalm should really be sung, but a common problem for those planning liturgies week in and week out is finding an appropriate setting of the psalm - especially if they are looking for something accessible, easy to learn and perhaps a little more contemporary. "As a result, more often that not, our experience of the Psalm in many parishes is a rushed recitation that does very little to help us reflect on God's word! "We think we've come up with a resource that will help change that - a free online Responsorial Psalm Library for Sundays and Feast Days of the Church's year." CJM Music has launched the series as a complement to regular music books or hymnals, to broaden the repertoires of parish groups and to build on their understanding of the role of music within the liturgy. For more than 10 years CJM Music, based in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, have been developing contemporary music and liturgy resources for today's church. This latest initiative harnesses the power of the internet to create an online library that can serve as a complement to regular music books or hymnals, to broaden the repertoires of parish groups and to build on their understanding of the role of music within the liturgy: One visitor to the site emailed CJM to thank them for this initiative: "I just found your site and listened to the coming week,s psalm and printed the dots. Can't say a big enough thanks! This is an answer to prayer.... and it's free!! You are amazing AND generous - thank you so much." Source: Naughton Media