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Prometheum_x
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I am aware of where the term came from, but it is still a rather vacuous one. I would agree that the term “praise and worship” does seem to refer to a supposedly *freer, more spontaneous time within a service or even a stand-alone event of that nature (as you’ve noticed on church signs). I’m fine with that term, though I still think it silly. What I have a problem with is “praise and worship music”. The initial response might be that it is simply music played at a praise and worship session. The problem with this is that any sort of music can be played at a praise and worship session. Sure, it has significant representation from the styles you mentioned, but not to the exclusion of others – there is an increasing emphasis on incorporating hymns, for example. Within the protestant “praise and worship” circles there has been a lot of discussion in recent years about these issues, obviously not from a strict Catholic liturgical perspective, but despite their ignorance of these things, they have been unwittingly moving closer to a Catholic understanding of Liturgy.
At my parish we have a couple times of “praise and worship” every week (that we advertise as such, to my chagrin). Some of the music that we might use during those times might also be used at Mass, but not all of it, because not all of it is appropriate for use during Mass. And there is a blurring of lines – if I do a harmonized version of “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” with piano, guitar and violin in a non pop/rock/etc style, what precisely is that? Is it “praise and worship music”? Or if we do Holy, Holy, Holy with similar instrumentation, what is that?
The fact is that not all “praise and worship music” can be painted with the broad brushstrokes that people wish to use. Some of it is liturgical/sacred. Now, I suppose if you define praise and worship music as necessarily involving pop/rock style, then I would agree with you, but that isn’t how most people use it.
*Re: supposedly freer and spontaneous. Perhaps many of them were written in that way, but my experience has been that an individual song will get performed the same way, every time. Even in charismatic circles, patterns of songs and behaviors emerge. Even whole praise and worship events tend towards a predictable structure, even when they began being spontaneous and free-flowing.
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Sarika
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stephraim
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We’re currently using the “Stuffed Mass” format: all Propers plus hymns to cover the liturgical action and allow congregational singing. It seems to work, but it does make more work. At least we’re getting the Propers in.
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Prometheum_x
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The function of the piano and guitar is different than the function of the organ, although a skilled pianist can approximate some of the sustaining effect of the organ with some pieces (perhaps I feel that way because piano is my primary instrument). However, I will agree that the organ is much better at leading singing all by itself. The use of contemporary instrumentation requires a skilled cantor who can promote congregational singing with their voice, even without accompaniment. Used that way, those instruments need to have a much less prominent role, and accompany rather than lead. They can of course be used to introduce the key and tempo of pieces, but once they have accomplished that, they should recede in importance. Yes, it is easy to have this instrumentation fall into easy-listening style, but it is not a necessary occurrence.
Another use of these arpeggiating instruments is to accompany psalm-tone style chant, in a way that is reminiscent of the harpsichord accompaniment of recitative. The piano can also be used to good effect as counterpoint in some chants - a post-modern recasting of medieval organum, I suppose.
My general contention is that trying to use contemporary instrumentation with a contemporary sacred style has been found difficult and therefore left largely untried. Perhaps this makes me a renegade progressive, but I am trying to make it work. After all, the organ was converted from its use in pagan rituals to the service of the Liturgy. I believe that the same can happen again.
P.S. Your comment on contemporary Mass music played on the organ is pretty amusing, I must say, because in general, it is quite true! I’ve found a few pieces that can be readily adapted to the organ, but I don’t usually even make the attempt.
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Sarika
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I appreciate your response. My only question is about the pagan history of the organ. Since it was eventually adopted by the Church, in essence, it was baptized, and eventually grew to be primarily associated with Sacred music. Even though it is used in Classical music, and now ,in some jazz derived from Gospel styles, the organ
style/sound that we are talking about is still mostly associated with church.
The same cannot be said for piano and guitars. Even if it were possible to “render” them
in a suitable sacred manner, they would still be immensely used in the secular sphere as well. In fact, they are among the most common instruments used in secular music. It would not be possible to consider them instruments that are primarily “set aside” for
worship.
Piano is also my major instrument,so much so that I’ve pursued all of my degrees in that area (probably you as well), but I CRINGE on Sundays when I hear it at Mass…perhaps because I hear it all week long (whether it be classical ,jazz or rock), and it just seems like so much of the same on Sunday - so non-sacred.
I appreciate your attempts to try to sanctify it all, but why try to re-invent the wheel?
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Prometheum_x
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Well for one, I’m a much better pianist than organist!
More seriously, my response to “why try to re-invent the wheel” is that the same could be asked of attempting anything new in the sacred arts. Why does the Church encourage ongoing artistic endeavors when it already has such a rich treasury of music? As Blessed Pope John Paull II wrote in his letter on the 100th anniversary of Tra le sollecitudini, using Gregorian chant as the supreme model of sacred music does not mean merely doing imitations of it, but to be inspired by the same Spirit which inspired its authors, and to compose music that has the same aims and goals of Gregorian chant.In regards to whether they can be rendered suitable for sacred worship, I agree that they cannot be regarded as set aside for sacred worship. As you mentioned, the organ itself is not exclusively used for that purpose (more on that in a bit) – the only instrument that I can think of at the moment that has a chance of fitting that description would be handbells. In Musicam sacram (which is citing earlier documents, I believe), there is a key passage on which this entire discussion rests:
Is the piano suitable for secular music only, and does the answer to the question meet the criteria of “by common opinion and use”? To be honest, if you were to ask that question 100 years ago, I would say, absolutely. However, the piano has become so prevalent across all genres – including sacred ones – that I have difficulty with saying that this applies now. How this transition took place I don’t know. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, but I think there are many things that are now a part of the tradition of the Church (such as the organ) that at one point had common opinion arrayed against them.
The other factor is that my priest wants me to use the piano, etc. at Mass. If I eventually work for a pastor that forbids it, I guess I’ll be practicing the organ more, but in the mean time, I cannot see a reason to take some sort of principled stand, or be a “conscientious objector”. In the last few years I did begin to wonder if we were doing everything wrong and looked into this matter quite extensively, but I (obviously) did not come away convinced. I am willing to concede that I am biased and that I might be demonstrating obstinacy in the face of evidence, but I don’t think so.
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Sarika
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Cat
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I disagree that the organ is primarily a “church” or “sacred” instrument.
The organ has many, many uses outside of the Church.
I personally have a hard time seeing a pipe organ as a church instrument. To me personally, it’s a concert instrument. For the first 47 years of my life, I saw pipe organs used more frequently in concerts rather than church settings.
Now I’m not disagreeing with the Church. She says that pipe organ is to be held in high esteem. and I agree.
I’m just saying that the organ, for many, is just as secular, if not more so, than the piano, the guitar, of any other instrument (other than possibly the banjo and the juice harp!).
The organ has many, many uses outside of the Church.
- Concert Stage–this is a huge venue for organ, especially pipe organ. Much of organ literature is NOT suitable for use in Church, especially in Mass. This music is meant ot be played in concerts, and also, of course, recorded and purchased or loaded into iPods.
- Theater organ–keep in mind that this was the norm for a long time in the U.S. We have a theater organ in our city, and it is used for strictly secular purpose, and is very popular.
- Baseball.
- Skating rink
- Movies, especially horror
- Circuses and amusement parks.
- Soap operas–for years, organ music accompanied not only the soaps, but many of the radio shows.
- Rock bands–they don’t use a pipe organ, but they use the organ.
I personally have a hard time seeing a pipe organ as a church instrument. To me personally, it’s a concert instrument. For the first 47 years of my life, I saw pipe organs used more frequently in concerts rather than church settings.
Now I’m not disagreeing with the Church. She says that pipe organ is to be held in high esteem. and I agree.
I’m just saying that the organ, for many, is just as secular, if not more so, than the piano, the guitar, of any other instrument (other than possibly the banjo and the juice harp!).
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Sarika
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I took too long editing my post, hence the quote above with no added comment! Sorry. Later,
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Prometheum_x
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I don’t think that individual musical elements have as much weight as they are often assumed to have. In my opinion, what is more important is the purpose towards which these musical devices are employed. What is the motivation behind the music, and what is the desired effect? If the goal is, to paraphrase from one of Ratzinger’s essays on liturgical music, to achieve a certain intoxication of the senses, and to break down the will and subject it to the base passions, then we are probably dealing with rock music. There are certainly musical elements that, when combined with each other, can be used to achieve this effect, but the individual elements alone are not responsible for it.
For contemporary instrumentation to work in the Liturgy there has to be a rejection of the goals of these secular styles on the part of the musicians. They have to intend to not imitate those styles. They must consecrate in their hearts the music they play during the Liturgy.
On a more practical level, I might suggest a simple exercise. Sit down at the piano and improvise/compose a very brief sacred instrumental piece. It might even be best to stick with a single voice, without harmony. Try the same again, but as a setting for an antiphon, either Latin or English, so as to ensure that you are wedding the music to the liturgical text. No singing yet – just the piano. Then perhaps create a simple harmony for it, playing the melody on the piano, then singing it or imagining it played by a string instrument of some sort. If you want to avoid sounding like easy-listening music, I think this is most easily accomplished by avoiding easy-listening cadences. Reject the cliches; there are other options.
I am curious as to why you include arpeggiation in your list of secular music devices, or perhaps, what precisely you mean by that. There aren’t any examples of this that strike me as particularly sacred, but I’m sure I’m completely overlooking something.
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Sarika
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I’m trying to describe the playing of our church pianist and another one in a nearby parish. The one in my parish claims to not be able to read music, and she basically plays big chords that are sustained by various forms of breaking it up (arpeggiating). It goes something like this (depending on the harmonic rhythm):
LARGE widely spaced C chord immediately followed by a somewhat Billy Joel style arpeggiation for a measure, followed by maybe a G chord with the same treatment, etc.
Right now,the closest thing I can think of to liken it to is Joel’s accompaniment to “Piano Man”.
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Prometheum_x
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I understand what you mean, and I see why you would identify that as a secular device. It’s just a basic chording technique – I suppose you could describe it as the pianists equivalent of only strumming chords on a guitar.
I don’t actually have a problem with strumming per se. There’s strumming and there’s strumming. One provides a nice rhythmic effect, the other turns your brain to mush with its monotonous drive.
It is a challenge dealing with volunteer musicians for that very reason. One of my responses to that has been to focus on “simple but beautiful”. If they are capable of playing it reasonably well, then when I give them instruction in how to play it in a manner worthy of the Liturgy, then they might actually be able to do it.
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