For those of you first timers to CL or frequent visitors with short-term memory problems, my parish did a big ol' survey on our music program. I'll put up more complete results, but here's some nuggets for you.
We got 114 surveys back over two weeks. Our church building fits around 800 total. The good news is the average score for whether singing is latin "helps me pray" got a 3.5 out of a possible five. The distribution of answers is pretty telling: lots of 5's, lots of 1's. Still - 3.5 out of 5 is pretty significant.
We did have a section for narrative comments. Some are helpful, some are the rantings of people with... how do I put this diplomatically... significant psychological issues bordering on paranoia.
One gentlement said the music at our Mass was dreary, not good for his small children and why don't the choirs get switched around since there are so many children at our Mass. I guess hymns and chants are not suitable for a "family" liturgy - give them to the old geezers who are up for the early Mass or maybe for the midday hangover Mass. But right in the mid-morning: that's primetime for Barney, Haugen, Veggie Tales, Priestly puppet shows and kazoos. Ok, I was exaggerating about the puppet shows.
In any case, and this almost made me hurl, his last line included the words: "... and you should make these changes for the children."
Which reminds me of this post.
The respondent included his name and phone number. I will refrain from posting it here since our site is visited by the Society for the Harassment of People Who Think They Should Do It "For The Children."
John,
you suppose I could get a copy of that survey? I would love to find out why, after 12 years on the job, I still have only 14 singers in the choir out of a congregation of 500 families.
This was more congregation perception of music in the liturgy. It covers various impressions about how much people around them are participating, what repertiore they prefer, if they can understand the words.
As far as recruiting - one of my tricks is to get 1-2 mins. during anouncement time and say "How many of you have ever sung in a choir?" You'll see a good 20-30% raise their hands.
Then you ask them to remember how much they enjoyed music-making and how God put that experience in their life for a reason... and of course that you need more folks.
It's worked pretty well in the past. I have 30 people on Christmas and Easter and 16-25 during the rest of the year.