That explains that much at least, but it doesn’t explain the disregard for the Church’s entirely-non-instrumental musical patrimony, i.e., chant and polyphony. Anyone can do them, and chant especially is not terribly difficult to learn.
It’s not disregard, it’s ignorance due to the deplorable state of music education in the United States over the last 40 years or so in the public, private, and even the homeschools.
Due to the push to get our U.S. schoolchildren up to par with other nations in science and math (which we have also failed to do for several reasons, mainly breakdown of the family that would hold children accountable for what they learn in school and how they behave in school), music and other arts have been cut drastically and even eliminated in some school districts.
In spite of the studies demonstrating a strong correlation between musical training and math comprehension, many schools districts have cut music classes to once a week.
Misguided groups have also brought about the demise of traditional music training in many schools, where it has been replaced with more “relevant” music classes such as hip-hop. Protests against “white Eurocentric Christian-based” music have ended any attempt in many schools to teach reading music through any method, including the time-honored solfege method and also the technique of “head voice,” and replaced it with listening to and singing along with CDs of currently-popular pop musicians.
I attended a meeting of the “State of the Arts” in our city’s public schools a few years ago, and I was appalled when the Superintendent expressed great pride in our district’s Hip Hop classes in the elementary schools!
Many schools have cut out band and orchestra as well, again in the misguided effort to vamp up achievements in math and science. This effort has obviously failed.
In other words, sw85, most Americans under the age of 50 have never been taught how to sing, let alone read music.
Please understand that this means that they DO NOT grasp the concept that marks on a sheet of paper indicate pitches. This means that they are not capable of reading neumes for chant, let alone notes for a polyphonic piece.
But how about singing “by ear?” It won’t happen. Many Americans have not developed the ability to listen to a line of music and sing it back again; they are utterly incapable of matching pitches. I work with many choirs, including children’s choirs, and the directors are shocked by how many of the children cannot sing back a simple melody line. Adults are even worse. They cannot hear the pitches and match them in their brain and in their voices.
Of course you understand that this means that even if a good musician plays or sings a line of chant, the majority of people will NOT be able to sing it back.
If people are “forced” to sing chant in their parishes, many of them will not sing at all because they can’t. The older people will sing, but many of them have quavering voices (because of the natural effects of aging), and this will make the chant sound unappealing to the younger people in the congregation, and will result in even more dislike of chant.
As for polyphonic music, it simply cannot happen. If people cannot sing back a simple line of music in unison, they are utterly incapable of singing back a part of a polyphonic arrangement in chorus with several DIFFERENT parts of the piece!
No, the only way to sing polyphony is to be able to read music. A few people are gifted to be able to learn complex music parts and remember them, but this ability is very very rare! I’ve seen it ONCE in my lifetime (I’m 57).
Again, some church choirs are doing polyphonic pieces, but look at the average age of these choirs.
Furthermore, most Americans know nothing about music history or music appreciation, and many have grown up with a disdain or even a hatred of any kind of music that is not popular music because they have never been taught by good teachers to understand or appreciate a variety of music.
This means that chant and polyphony are completely unknown by most Americans other than in pop and concert settings, and many of us do not see these musical styles as “religious” because we’ve never heard them in religious settings.
I think this will be the hardest obstacle to overcome. I have been Catholic now for 10 years, and I’ve honestly tried very hard, mainly because of the posters on CAF, to try to appreciate Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony in a Mass setting. It’s hard. I grew up with it in movies, concert halls, and even on the radio (several decades ago, a group of monks produced a CD of chant that became a Top Forty bestseller), and to me, this music is not worship music, it’s “performance” music. I certainly respect Holy Mother Church, and if She says that Gregorian chant and polyphony are good, then I will obey. But I am having a very difficult time changing my “feelings”.
I’m sure there are plenty of others who feel the same way about music that some older people still call, “Long hair music.”
I hope this post helps you to understand why you don’t hear chant and polyphony in Mass very often. Maybe in the cities with thriving universities with good music programs, but in most cities and towns in the America, the people have never been taught “music”. It’s ignorance, not disregard. You should pity them, not be angry with them.
And if you have a good idea for improving the situation, go for it! From what I’ve seen on CAF, most Catholics are upset with the music in Mass, but back away from any attempt at making changes. What I say to this is, if you can’t or won’t do anything about it, learn to live with it and appreciate what you have. Bitterness and resentment will not help the situation or help your soul.
