Does anyone here besides myself like the contemporary music at mass

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Joe_5859 said:
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Tis_Bearself:
The only problem with drums is that they can be really loud for the people sitting anywhere near them.
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I’ll say that the volume is the number one consideration for me. I have been to Mass where the drums were way too loud (probably the acoustics of that particular church). I’ve been to another where they actually had erected a plastic, half-wall in front o the drum kit to help muffle the sound. It wasn’t so bad there.
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I play drums on occasion although my main instrument is guitar and in church I am usually a cantor and singer in the choir. We have one drummer who is uncertain and shy and plays almost too softly and another who feels he has to punish the drums for some long forgotten sin. It is possible for a drummer who is not too shy, nor too full of himself to control the volume to an appropriate level for any particular piece.

It is the musician who makes the instrument appropriate or inappropriate for worship. It is not the instrument.

Michael Hager
The Bible Catholic
 
towheadedmule said:
I’ll take the traditional music. Contemporary does not help me enter into a proper frame of mind.
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Oceans, Lord I Need You, Holy Spirit, Revelation Song, How Could You Say No??
I use these at adoration.
Contemporary doesn’t necessarily mean loud or fast. There’s some really great contemplative contemporary music out there.
 
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I’d love to be singing How Great Thou Art…it was one of my wedding hymns before I converted so I was really pleased to see it listed in Laudate…but I guess my hints will have to get more pointed lol!
Other contemporary songs do feature at Solemn Mass OF - like Be Still so there’s precedent.
I play bass too btw. One day perhaps even in the Cathedral…
 
Interesting topic as one of the most popular Christmas Carols is “The Little Drummer Boy.” It speaks of the poor giving the only gift they have. Seems some “stick in the mud” Catholics would toss him out on his butt.
I think most stuff I hear at Catholic masses sounds like glorified funeral dirges. There is no life or joy to most music approved for Mass. ON the other hand, music of a contemporary nature should be reverential at least as to lyrics and melody. Songs like “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban, “Angel” by Sara McLaghlan, possibly “Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison, and others in the same vein would be welcome where I attend Church. And at this time - not goin’ happen.
 
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I think there is life in the music for mass. Just not every musician plays it as written
 
michaelhager said:
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Loud-living-dogma:
All of it is beautiful to the Lord? Hmmm, maybe. How do you know this for sure? I am serious - - how do you claim to know this? How do you reconcile the pop style with the instructions from the Church herself? You know, the instruction that say that chant and sacred polyphony should have pride of place? I look forward to your answer! 🙂
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While I greatly respect the traditions of the church, there are some that may not transcend contemporary society. In all of these scriptures, it is evident that joyful, glorious, but holy music is loved by God. This is “how I know”.

Michael Hager
The Bible Catholic
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Thank you for your long and thoughtful answer. That was lot of typing! So, I get that you are The Bible Catholic, I wonder though, if you know that the Catholic Church has a document called the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/, which is how the Mass is run. Not the Bible, not even the NABRE.
So, for the traditions that you think do not “transcend contemporary society”, do you just kind of ignore them? Do you feel comfortable with the fact that Catholics are deprived of certain part / chants of the Mass (the Propers - - scriptures “proper” to that particular Sunday), which are generally ignored in most American parishes?
 
YES.

'70s-'90s Contemporary and 2000s on Contemporary are two completely different things
 
I love the stuff that a lot of people here on CAF apparently don’t care for. Here I Am Lord and On Eagles Wings are two of my favorites. If it wasn’t for some of the poster’s disdain for Dan Shutte, I never would have known he was one of my favorites…thanks haters!😀

I also love City of God, Be not Afraid, and One Bread One Body. I love the piano. I don’t really like the organ.
 
The thing is (as I see it) that much of the music you mention is perfectly Scriptural, perfectly ‘tuneable’, but simply not AS suited for Mass.

So it’s not as though people are saying “Ew, I don’t like that music”. Some of us are old (I’m 61). Think about it, we’ve been hearing much of the music you like for more than 30 or even 35 or 40 plus years in some cases. Heck, if I had to hear “Now Thank we all our God” (a good old traditional hymn) at about 2/3 of every Mass every year for all those decades, I’d get a little tired of it, too. Again, it is not simply ‘contemporary music’, or even, as another poster noted, "contemporary 70s-90s’ and ‘contemporary 2000s on’. It is decades and decades worth of the same type of music and nothing else.

If Gregorian chant is considered say filet mignon, and “On Eagles Wings’ is a cheeseburger”, you will find that first, some people simply dislike ‘fancy food’ (their personal preference), and others dislike ‘fast food’ (their preference). Both acknowledge the other as acceptable food, just not ‘their preference’. And there are some who don’t like meat at ALL and would not care either ‘style’ (going for either something wholly instrumental, or no music at all, for example).
 
And at various points in our lives we can need different nourishment. A busy young person who likes to be surrounded by friends and who has strong but simple tastes will love the cheeseburger, often through his or her entire life. The cheeseburger comes to mean more than a ‘fast food’; it is the symbol of his youth, it is ‘plain and simple’, it’s permeated his memories, it’s a taste that ‘transcends the years’, etc.

Others enjoy the cheeseburger but in time find themselves craving something ‘more’. Some will go for vegetarian (see above), or will ‘balance’ themselves by having cheeseburgers some of the time, and steak other times. Most people I think fall into this category --they have fond memories of the music of their youth but also start to develop an interest in something that strikes them as deeper and richer. It might be instrumental music of any style; it might be Gregorian chant, it might be polyphony, classical, etc. It doesn’t make the cheeseburger less ‘worthy’. Sometimes there is nothing, nothing, so satisfying as a perfectly cooked burger on a fresh bun, oozing the perfect amount of cheese and with one’s favorite condiment/garnishes.

Sometimes people have had bad cheeseburgers (just as apparently people have had bad filet mignon --perhaps over or undercooked, or served in an atmosphere that was deeply distressing, or during events that were painful.) Sometimes it happens with cheeseburgers. Instead of being the warm comfort of many, for some they are memories of gallbladder attacks, of being starved and only subsisting on half-rotten cold slabs of greasy gristle and rubber cheese. Again, it’s the fault of the sandwich maker far more than the sandwich itself.

I think that’s what happens with a lot of people who say they ‘hate’ a genre. They have suffered the equivalent of food poisoning and the whole idea of that food is anathema to them.

When I say that I’m tired of certain songs, I don’t mean that the genre is bad, or that the songs even are bad in and of themselves; I’m suffering from a surfeit of cheeseburgers only, and poorly prepared ones at that. Give me a well-prepared burger and some ‘breaks’ for steak and/or a nice veggie casserole or salad, and even the songs that have begun to ‘grate’ on me I will probably, in a less jaundiced state of mind, find perfectly fine, especially when they’re sung with taste and feeling. I kind of hope people would feel the same about any music at Mass, no matter what their ‘favorite’ might be.
 
stpurl said:
If Gregorian chant is considered say filet mignon, and “On Eagles Wings’ is a cheeseburger”, you will find that first, some people simply dislike ‘fancy food’ (their personal preference), and others dislike ‘fast food’ (their preference). Both acknowledge the other as acceptable food, just not ‘their preference’. And there are some who don’t like meat at ALL and would not care either ‘style’ (going for either something wholly instrumental, or no music at all, for example).
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It’s like all things on here. If people express a preference for organ music, veiling, TLM, etc. I think that’s fine. I sometimes prefer those things too.

The problem is that people go beyond just a “preference” and want to argue that all contemporary stuff, from Sister Janet Mead right up through the Newsboys, is terrible, violates the GIRM or some pronouncement of Pope Pius X, and doesn’t belong at any Mass, even if it’s a Mass they personally will not be attending.

The main problem I have with church music, all church music, is that it all sounds pretty bad when it is badly played. I liked all of that St. Louis Jesuits stuff when our high school guitar group was playing it because it sounded good with eight girls and two teachers all singing vigorously and playing guitars skillfully. When it’s one person with medium piano skills and a couple of singers who may or may not know what they’re doing dragging the pace, I can’t stand those songs.

One of the great things about the old fashioned church organs was that the organist was generally competent, because you had to know what you were doing to play that organ at all, and it also drowned out a multitude of vocal sins such as people being a little offkey, etc.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
…The problem is that people go beyond just a “preference” and want to argue that all contemporary stuff, from Sister Janet Mead right up through the Newsboys, is terrible, violates the GIRM or some pronouncement of Pope Pius X, and doesn’t belong at any Mass, even if it’s a Mass they personally will not be attending…
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That’s just it. It’s not about preference. Why do people think thst they can dismiss or ignore the actual instructions for how Mass is supposed to be conducted? (The GIRM).
 
When it’s done well, I love it. When it’s not done well, is shallow, repetitious, insipid, not so much. If you’re a good Bass, your music must be good.
 
The older Latin hymns forom a certain time period are a bit more extravagant so I like those. I can sort play the keyboard but not for the choir.
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
I play electric bass at mass and I feel that a lot on caf don’t like contemporary music in mass. I’d like to hear from people that do like the contemporary stuff from Matt Maher and others in mass. I know you guys exist because people come up to us after mass and tell us we sound great
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I more than like it. I prefer it. I like what poster Tis_Bearself said about his or her church offering a variety of Masses and attendees can go to the one that most speaks to them.

I wish more parishes did so.

At least not many Catholic parishes do so in my area.

I’ve never been but the local Episcopal church does. They offer 2 traditional services on Sunday mornings. Then late Sunday morning a contemporary service and on Saturday evening an acoustic guitar and piano service.

There are a couple Catholic parishes not as close by that offer Lifeteen.

One Catholic parish does have a contemporary choir or did at their 9 am Sun Mass. I haven’t been to that parish in quite sometime. But I enjoyed the music. I will take that over an organ or cantor anyday. There was no guitar but a keyboard and I still remember one Easter the contemporary choir singing “Shout to the Lord”. At the end of Mass they received a standing O!

So I am not surprised people come up to you to express their appreciation for the music ministry you provide to them.

Mass may have the Eucharist as the focal point but it certainly is not the whole Mass. The homilies and yes the music all play a part in one’s worship experience. Different strokes for different folks. May God bless you for what you add to the Mass goers experience at your parish.
 
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