This is the information that was sent to Jennifer Pascaul, the Director of Music at the Cathedral of St. Patrick in New York, and the host of Sounds from the Spires, a radio program on The Catholic Channel on XM and Sirius satellite radio.
I have no idea how you prepare for interviews for your show but I thought you would like to know something about me before we begin. You could piece much of this together if you Googled my name but this will be less work. Endure what you can and take what you need from this essay. In spite of the way it sounds, our Musical Rosary project is not about me. When we began, I didn’t want my name or picture on the CD because I felt it would distract from the prayer but the KC’s believed that we needed an identity to go with the project so that people could better relate to it.
You asked for about seven tracks for the interview. The first four are from the Rosary.
The first track on the CD is the sign of the cross we have at the beginning and end of the Rosary. I thought it would be a great introduction but it is very short (:27 sec)
The second track begins with the end of the creed and flows into the beginning of our music. This track shows how we braid the music to make the prayers flow from one to another. This second track includes the first Our Father, Three Hail Marys and the Glory Be, then announces and leads to the first mystery. (3:22)
The third track is the end of the third decade. This is the decade that I led. The track is short (1:18) but shows the diversity of music and voices that make up the Rosary.
The fourth track is the entire uninterrupted decade. My Daughter Beth and Beth Paige sing the lead together. The music begins with strings then moves to guitar and later to keyboard. The percussion comes and goes and throughout different instruments blend together. This is the best track to illustrate the meditative power of the CD.
The fifth track is the Lord’s Prayer for the beginning of the fifth mystery. In this you can hear how the melody remains the same throughout the prayer but the accompaniment builds as it progresses. (:59) Had you played the entire Rosary you would have heard the same Hail Mary Melody 53 times with about 40 different musical accompaniments and 5 different combinations of voices. Each of the 6 Our Fathers have a different musical setting as well and the entire set of mysteries would take just over 32 minuets. Each CD set includes all 4 mysteries.
The remainder of the tracks on the CD are explained in the narration that follows. They are recordings of original music from our small rural parish. I have a deep appreciation and love of traditional Catholic music but in our remote environment we are limited by our talents as to what we can do so we give back to God from the gifts that he has given us in our own humble way.
At the end of this material, you will find an assortment of letters that the Knights of Columbus have received over the past few years. It is very satisfying to know that we have been given the ability to do something so meaningful for others. Thank you for your help as we continue this mission.
My Early Musical Years
What was my childhood like? Well in many ways it is still going on. It’s a trait I inherited from my grandmother, Nita. She was a master jokester and had a magnetic attraction to kids. There were six children in my family and she always had enough room on her lap for all of us. I was the youngest so I never got much attention… I was spoiled and I still am.
I grew up in the early 60’s when television was relatively new. I remember seeing the Kennedy assassination on TV just before we moved to Germany for three and a half years. There we had to survive without any television at all. It was a blessing because I learned to love music and developed a great imagination. We continually listened to music. Everyone sang … loud. The goal in our family was to be heard over all the others.
My siblings always told me that I couldn’t sing, but I would try anyway. When I was in Junior High School my sister Gail had a boyfriend, Dave, who spent an inordinate amount of time at our house. That was fine because I liked Dave and he had a guitar that he left at the house most of the time that he didn’t mind if I played, so I did. Then I won a talent show at North Hardin Junior High School with a song I wrote about my undying devotion to Lisa Little, (a girl that I never saw after we moved to Bowling Green a year later) and that was it, I was hooked. My guitar and I spent many hours together from then on.
Few people in rural Kentucky played a guitar in the Catholic Church at that time but we were able to play at the occasional family wedding and Midnight Mass.
In 1976 I went to college at Southeast Missouri on a football scholarship where I discovered kids from St. Louis who had been exposed to the Jesuits. A group of us played at mass regularly in the tiny chapel at the Newman Center. We were young with a vision of changing the world. Those were some of the most spirit-filled services I ever encountered.
Transition
When I finished playing football I traveled around the world for a few years. My dad was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia so I worked there for a while. I spent some time in Australia on a sheep ranch, and later joined the Peace Corp and was stationed in Gabon, West Africa. While I was there I ruptured a disk in my back and was sent home. I was devastated because I couldn’t finish my tour in the Peace Corp but like always, God’s plan was much better than mine.
While I was recovering from surgery I decided to take a job teaching and coaching in a little town in West Tennessee for a year. I planned to move to South America after that year in 1982. My first weekend in Dyersburg, I walked into Holy Angels, the only Catholic Church in the county. When I was looking for a seat among the 20 or so parishioners there, I noticed a family with four teenage daughters sitting together. I decided I needed to sit a few pews in front of them. The high school Athletic Director and his wife, Terry and Donna Glover, were sitting right behind the family and overheard the oldest daughter turn to her sister saying, “Do you see that?” as I walked by. In less than two years we were married. None of my three children or I have ever made it to South America.
Music Ministry
I immediately took an active role in the music ministry at Holy Angels. We have had some very active youth choirs that have led the music at numerous diocesan and regional events. We have had many talented young vocalists, guitarists and percussionists through the years but being a rural community, most move away as they graduate and rarely return.
Just before 2000, our organist Donna, retired. Our Pastoral Council could have hired an organist from outside our Catholic community but decided to allow me to direct the music with guitar accompaniment. I have tremendous help a loyal core of about six dedicated members who help lead the music. But the best choir we have, the best we could ever have, sits in the pews. Our congregation is the choir. They are the soul of the music in our church. Full and active participation is truly at the core of our music ministry.
Professions
I find it awkward when I meet new friends who ask, “What do you do?” because I find my time split between four different professions.
First I am a Geography teacher. From the fall of 1982 I have tried to open the world to young minds. We learn in the class but have also explored the world. I have taken hundreds of students to the UK, France, New Zealand, and the Cook Islands. Hundreds more have traveled with me in the U.S., and many more have been influenced to travel throughout the world on their own. I have been recognized with numerous local, state and national awards but none mean more than a returning student with an appreciation for their education and experiences.
My success as a teacher has led me to two other jobs; one as a consultant, the other as an administrator. In 2000, College Board began an Advanced Placement offering in Human Geography. Dyersburg High School was one of 160 schools in the world to offer this course. Over the years the number of schools offering AP Geography grew exponentially as did the need for qualified consultants to train the new teachers. I spend many weeks each year preparing and presenting workshops in different parts of the country. Recently I have had to scale down from this second profession because of new administrative duties in my third profession.
In the summer of 2008, I moved to the district office of Dyersburg City Schools to serve as business manager and maintenance supervisor. That sounds well defined but I have found that an administrator in a small school district wears many hats. One of my more unusual hats for an administrator is the same hat I have worn for the past 27 years, that of teacher. I was not ready to leave the classroom so I now volunteer to teach a class before the normal school day. So at 6:45 am 20 or so students come to eat breakfast as we begin class. AP Geography is not required but insightful students know the value of knowledge and chose to take this demanding course. Though I am a teacher, a consultant and an administrator, from the time I sang in the Junior High School talent show I have been a musician.
Being the Director of Music at Holy Angels is not a full time position but it fills up the weekends. In our musical philosophy we believe that where two or three are gathered there should be as much music as if there were two or three thousand. Therefore, each of our three masses are filled with music. Special masses and events fill any voids I might have in my calendar.
I feel truly blessed that I enjoy what I do and that I have been able to share all of my jobs with my beautiful and talented family.
The Story of the Musical Rosary
Sometime around the summer of 2000, my family made a trip to Bowling Green, KY to visit my parents. The 3½ hour drive through Western Kentucky is usually very uneventful. Once we leave Bowling Green on our way home we never see a community of more than a few thousand people and are usually accompanied by little traffic on the four lane highway. That afternoon, as they began to fall asleep, I was left to the company of the radio until I was asked to turn it off because it was keeping some of the family awake. So I drove west in silence into the mid afternoon sun.
Like any musician, I have a song in my head and at all times. Many times original melodies and lyrics come to me. That afternoon as we drove, I began a melody to the “Hail Mary”. I kept repeating it over and over. In my head I could hear the changing accompaniment as the series repeated. The melody accompanied my drive and I thought about how wonderful it would be to have the entire Rosary to music.
It was months before I actually completed the Rosary project and then I felt the need to share it with others. Like most churches, we have a small group that recites the Rosary during certain times of the year. As an addition to our recitation, occasionally we began to sing the Rosary. It wasn’t long before some of the parishioners asked for a recording. I procrastinated and time passed. One day, two friends Steve Stanionis and Moe Sims asked again about the possibility of recording the Rosary. Both were members of the Knights of Columbus and Steve was a businessman. I returned the challenge to them. I told Steve that I was a teacher and musician. I could record the Rosary but did not have the time or business background to duplicate it. If it was such a worthwhile project then someone like himself should proceed with it. To my surprise he agreed. (Steve also became the spoken voice on the recording.)
Nothing happened for months and by the time the topic resurfaced in 2003, I had discovered that my computer would not store a song of that length. The only answer was to go into a studio. I knew a few professional musicians and had played a few times in Memphis with John Angotti. John was fast becoming one of the best-known Catholic musicians in the nation and had spent many hours in studios. John had worked with Beale Street musician and 70’s pop star Kevin Paige on a number of occasions and suggested we book time with Kevin at his studio in Memphis. Kevin stays pretty busy but due to cancellations he had immediate open studio time. Off to Memphis we went.
Kevin is a gifted musician, writer and performer. I went into the studio with the idea of recording a live version of the Rosary so that we could burn CDs. Kevin never shared that dream; his vision was much better. Kevin took the project and arraigned it much better than what I had heard in my head on the trip home from Bowling Green years earlier. Kevin brought professional touches to the Rosary that I could only dream of.
In each of the Mysteries, my daughter Beth is the first lead voice, Kevin’s wife Beth is the second and I am the third. The two Beths lead the fourth decade and we all join the final decade as it builds. Marina Stanionis and Kevin have vocal tracks as well.
After a number of trips to the studio we had a master CD. I received the first copy about midnight the day before I took a group of students on a trip to the Cook Islands and New Zealand.
I am a well-grounded conservative individual. I don’t believe in special destinies or luck anymore or less than the average person but the development of the Rosary has had some strange twists that we consider out of the ordinary.
The condition that the melody came to me was out of the ordinary.
The idea of recording a Musical Rosary was not unique but not ordinary.
Steve’s ability to schedule with Kevin on such short notice was not the norm.
It was not ordinary that Kevin’s father had worked at a Memphis radio station years earlier and that one of his duties was to sing a song before a weekly program hosted by a local priest. In the program the priest would recite the Rosary.
The whole concept of giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of CD’s for free was quite out of the ordinary considering no one involved in the production and distribution was of considerable financial means.
Kevin was raised Catholic, the representative of the company who pressed the CDs was Catholic. You don’t run into many Catholics in West Tennessee.
Before I left for New Zealand I burned two copies of the Musical Rosary on to unmarked CDs. I left one with my wife and took the other. While on the trip, I went to mass at the old Cathedral in downtown Auckland. Not being familiar with the mass schedule, I arrived quite early for mass. As I walked around the old cathedral admiring the architecture and art, an elderly woman began to set up for mass. I sat down so not to be a distraction but soon she walked over and asked if I would help her light the candles on the altar. We talked a little as I helped and she somehow mentioned that she said the Rosary every day. I had carried my copy of the Rosary hoping to give that first copy away. I offered it to her and she gratefully accepted although she personally did not own a CD player. Just before I sat down for mass I vainly told her my name (as if it mattered). In reply she introduced herself. Her name … Mary.
I feel that my mission to reach as many people as possible with this recording. Katrina refugees to soldiers in Iraq have received copies and found comfort during time of reflection. They have made their way to most if not all states and to many countries. We give permission and encourage people to copy our CDs and share the prayer as much as possible. Our only request is that it is never sold, only given away.
We have sent copies to classrooms in Catholic schools so children can learn to say the Rosary. Parents play it for children as they sleep and drivers use the CD to help them pray as they commute and often face road rage. We have sent copies to the sick and dying such as my Godmother who had the Rosary playing in the room as she passed away. Most of the stories of the Musical Rosary go untold and are not of public concern. I view the Musical Rosary as a tool to help spread the peace of Christ in the world. I have come to the realization that I was just a vehicle.
We are now closing in on 20,000 free CD’s. There are other Rosaries set to music available to the public. The beauty is that each of these Rosaries has it’s own distinct style. There is the Gregorian OCP version, the mellow Donna Cori Gibson Rosary, and the new Corey Williams modern pop version. My favorite is a series of reflections on the Rosary by Daniel Rose, called Mysteries.
There are other copies of the Rosary that are spoken. Some people have stated that the music is a distraction to their meditation; others say it enhances the prayer. I only hope that every person who searches finds a way to pray. It is wonderful that we now have a variety of recordings that fit more needs and desires. As long as the mission is to increase meditations on the life of Christ how can we go wrong?
The following categories are an attempt to show how our small rural parish has developed our limited gifts to glorify God in our worship. Mostly, we sing traditional Catholic music with guitar accompaniment but this is an example of some untraditional music we have created.
Christmas Songs
Just like all churches, our parish occasionally has special needs that require special fundraising. A few Christmas seasons ago we found a need and the need needed funding. In an attempt to use the talents that I might have, I recorded a song each day for over a week to create a CD of original Christmas songs with a great variety of musical styles. It was a fun challenge and like all CDs some songs are better than others.
Give Glory to the Child is art on many levels. The basic story is that of a shepherd boy at the birth of Christ. The shepherd can also be seen as any religious minister or even as a parent. All must go in their own way to see the child with the promise that he brings and then to return and spread the truth.
The music in Peace is Born Today was computer generated. It was fun to develop and manipulate music electronically. Live music is my love but computers have enabled me to create some of the music I could only imagine.
Fun Songs with a message
Spirit in My Song was a combination of computer-generated rhythms, guitar, a great base line and effects. It is a fun song with a message. I enjoy trying to get into the mind of the young without them knowing it. Music allows us to send a subtle message that the youth love to listen to.
Songs of Scripture
Simon Son of John is an example of readings put to music. (Takes the challenge out of writing words.) I learned in the classroom that if you want a student to learn something, put it to music, not only will they learn it, but they will retain it, (just ask any adult what comes after “J” and they will begin singing the “ABC’s”).
Liturgical Music
This Glory to God was written for the Memphis youth convention years ago. This tract is how we taught the choir before the convention. When our youth sang it in a youth mass at home they liked and insisted that we occasionally use it in our liturgy.
Songs for Other Occasions
I have written numerous songs for events such as weddings, first communions, crowning of Mary, and funerals. This is one example:
On September 3, 2008 a young man from West Virginia died. His name was Daniel Duncan. A drunk driver hit Daniel as he trained to join the West Virginia Wesleyan cycling team.
Daniel was a musician, Pianoboy on blogs, and was one of those kids you hear about who seems to have made all the right decisions in life; except to take that ride on September 3. He was a graduate of St Paul’s High School in Norwalk, Ohio and 3 ½ weeks into a music scholarship in college.
To the best of my knowledge I never met Daniel. He was a relative of my sister-in-law. But when I heard of his death I couldn’t get it off my mind. For some reason there was a connection. God Sends His Angels just came to me. I programmed a piano line as the primary instrument. Strange thing is, I don’t play a piano and at the time did not know that Daniel did.
The song itself has no remorse and no reference to how he died. It is just a melancholy reflection on an untimely death. After the song was written I found that my point of view was oddly similar to the family view of the incident.
I have never corresponded with Daniel’s parents, and I don’t know if they have ever listened to the song. I just know that it has given me peace in light of an unexplainable situation.
