Foreword
·Once there was a computer scientist and mathematician who was unsatisfied with how the new edition of his book was being produced with different technology. He realised he could make a computer program to typeset books and estimated that it would take about six months. This is Donald Knuth who started the TeX project. He didn’t charge for his software. He actually paid people who found bugs in the program.
It was through this typesetting program taht I came into the world of Gregorian Chant. I learned TeX while preparing my undergraduate thesis at the University of New South Wales. Not long afterwards, I was asked to type up the hymn Adoro Te Devote for a children’s class. The tools available were a long way from those available today. More requests for chant booklets followed. I would type it up, then the choir or master of ceremonies would find all the mistakes and explain the right way to set things out. In this peculiar way I learned a lot about reading square notes as well as bits about the Mass and the Divine Office.
This ability to type chant served well what I started leading a little choir for Sunday Mass. The full propers were too complex, so I would make psalm toned copies of anything that I couldn’t master from the Liber Usualis. I also started making videos for other choir members to learn the pieces by ear. The process of simplifying and recording pieces helped me gain more facility with the music. Over years I grew better able to make sense of the melodies and hopefully make pleasing music in the service of God.
In 2020 I had some more spare time thanks to Sydney’s precautionary measures. My video of the main hymn from the Little Office, Memento Rerum, was the most popular of all my videos. Earlier I had toyed with the idea of making an online course, scripting and recording a few videos exploring the Salve Regina, but this had been knocked back as being too short. Maybe I could make a course teaching how to sing the Little Office of Our Lady in Latin. I was already singing Prime and Compline. I thought I knew enough to sing the rest. Soon this endeavour was capably filling up my spare time.
At first I thought it would be an easy task as the Baronius Press books included the music. I would just read from these. Maybe this could work for one person singing by themselves, but when teaching people exactly what and when to sing, the Baronius Press books were woefully inadequate. I started setting out a few psalms and soon realised I would need to type up the whole thing.
The course was more successful than I had imagined and still remains helpful despite my less-than-professional setup. The booklets remain in an inconsistent state, some with English translations, some without. I fix up mistakes as they are pointed out, but making a consistent book seems like a far off goal. I would like to fix up the course. I have learned so much since I started and no doubt there are still more things to learn! Maybe the course and the booklets will develop together.
This is where the work of Mr Acevedo has been so astonishing. He has taken a fairly haphazard collection of words and music and fashioned a beautiful new book in Latin and Spanish.