I am aware that the musical content of the Offices might be out of reach for people who do not have a musical background. I myself am a former musician. But as I said it earlier, this work was intended to be used in a Community where assistance would have been naturally provided to all the members.

In order to help with the musical features of the Offices, a special section has been added: a “PSALMODY GUIDE”,  with indications for coping with the sung psalmody. I would like to add, in a next step, more audio files to help with the singing of the hymns as well as for all the parts of the offices that are sung. I have already started including some audio files of hymns used in the Offices by inserting downloads mainly from Youtube and Liberhymnarius.org. They are indicated by a green note ♪  in the title of the hymn: a bigger note if it is a proper recording, a smaller one if it is just the tune that I played on a simple keyboard. The recording can be played at the same time while praying the Office since they open on separate tabs : you can have the office open on the main page and the hymn in another tab.

Bilingual Hymns: I have used the Latin hymns of the Breviary in the 4 weeks Psalter in a bilingual form: I have inserted in the same score, under the latin lyrics, a second line in red with an English text to allow choosing between  Latin and English. However, if the red English text is in italic letters it means that  the translation is only a literal one and is not suitable for singing and that the score works only with the Latin text.

It was a real task to  add  English lyrics under latin lyrics in the same score without altering the score because the Latin language is more concise that the English one.  So I had to rewrite parts of the melody line, to put more space between the notes to fit the English text.

I have borrowed several translations from the Hymnal of Hours of Fr Weber o.s.b. but not the tunes. The other translations are from Internet :Schraeder's,  Caswall's, Neale's, and Kathleen Pluth’s, to mention only some.

For recent feasts from the two last centuries where no traditional latin hymns could be found, I have taken English Hymns from different sources: The musical section at the end of the Christian Prayer of the above mentioned Liturgy of Hours , The Collegeville Hymnal, as well as from Internet.

The variety of sources for the hymns explains why you will find the usage of both “Thou” and “You“, from old and modern English,  in the translation of the hymns. This applies also to the readings and to  all the Offices  in general.

In the 4 weeks psalter of Ordinary Time, I kept for the Office of Readings the two hymns proposed for Matins ,one being for the night-time and the second for the morning alternating them between weeks 1 and 3 and weeks 2 and 4. It could sound inappropriate to sing the lyrics of night time hymns during daytime but I nevertheless put them for those who still would want to pray at night and also to remind us of the good old praying habits.

For the sung Antiphons: I have been inspired by the Antiphons of the Antiphonale Monasticum of the Order of Preachers; I took also some Antiphons from the Liber Usualis and even from the Sarum breviaries.  In some places and offices that I created,  like for example the Common of Prophets, I have made  myself the Antiphons by taking a text from the Scriptures and adding a tune to it.

Last but not least,I regret that I wasn’t able to use the software available on Internet to write aesthetically the Gregorian scores (little bit messy I recognize).