My pet peeve is the way the congregation is now prevented from singing anything but the refrain during the Gloria. We should all be singing those glorious words of praise to God. Instead, the Gloria is reduced to a solo moment for the cantor and we all listen passively as someone else praises God.
They are also always tinkering with the tune and the wording so the poor parishioners never get familiar enough with it to sing along and ruin their solo.
We should all be singing it, loud and proud! I refuse to stop singing it and sing all the words along with the cantor; but people look at me funny.
Our parish uses that same arrangement. The music director tried that for a while. She gave up when people kept singing the verses as well as the refrain.
Now they don't even bother trying to stop the faithful from singing the whole thing.
Many people in my parish sing all of the Gloria. (In the Spanish service, we have the complete words for the arrangement we're using on the song-sheet handout.)
At English Masses, you can often tell who the visitors are because they turn around to stare at those singing all the Mass parts, or harmonies to the hymns. Phooey, I say.
We sing this...
GLORIA in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
LAUDAMUS te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam, Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, Deus Pater omnipotens.
DOMINE Fili unigenite, Jesu Christe, Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis. O Dominus, tu solus Altissimus, Jesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris. Amen
Get a couple of people around you to sing it.
Drown the cantor out. The words sound like they are written and if you need to learn it, they have it on YouTube or I can have my girls record it for you.
This is the time to take back our Liturgy.
My understanding is that this is supposed to go away and the Gloria is to be sung straight through. We do it that way, but not everyone does.
The choir at our Parish sings the Gloria verses, in four part harmony, but if folks want to sing along with the melody, we’re happy to have them do it. We sing the same one, during the whole liturgical season, so they are certainly familiar with it, as they are will all the other parts of the Mass.