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PetraG
Guest
If it weren’t appropriate to have a guitar in church, there would have been no guitar in church, organ or no organ.
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Wesrock
Guest
Not all parishes can afford organs, and not all parishes can support having even a consistent piano player at mass.
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PetraG
Guest
True. Organists are relatively rare at present.
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Sarcelle
Guest
Yes
If one doubts this, please search for Concierto d’Aranjuez.
Look for a performance by Narciso Yepes.
It is definitely not rock.
If one doubts this, please search for Concierto d’Aranjuez.
Look for a performance by Narciso Yepes.
It is definitely not rock.
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Sarcelle
Guest
Organ repairmen are also getting rarer.
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PetraG
Guest
You and me–I remember when the news of this acquisition came out. The good news is that all it will need is an inexpensive annual cleaning until some of the leather parts need replacement in about 60 years. (They already employ a music director who is an accomplished organist.)
Luckily we are in an age when documentation, communication and education for the sake of the craft are easier than in the past.
I think appreciation for pipe organs is growing, as well. There isn’t an electronic substitute.
Within the ranks of volunteer musicians, people who have learned guitar at the level of strumming a limited number of chords are more common than, say, pianists who do accompaniment when their mastery of the instrument is at such a rudimentary level. It is a good thing they’ll step in, though, because there aren’t a lot of churches that are better when asked to sing a capella than they are when asked to sing with a guitarist who hasn’t advanced in the art yet. (Which is to say, with a guitarist the people will at least sing something.)
There aren’t as many people learning to play an instrument in order to accompany singers as there were back when it was live music or nothing. Those who do learn are as likely as not to go in the “garage band” direction.
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JimR-OCDS
Guest
Years ago, PBS had a documentary on an Episcopal Church, which had a Tracker Pipe Organ refurbished and reinstalled at their church.
It took a year for the company to do the job. They disassembled it in the church, brought it to the factory for the rework, then brought back to the church to be reassembled.
Each pipe had to be retuned by an expert using tuning forks.
It cost the church $2 million dollars and this was back in the 1980’s
It took a year for the company to do the job. They disassembled it in the church, brought it to the factory for the rework, then brought back to the church to be reassembled.
Each pipe had to be retuned by an expert using tuning forks.
It cost the church $2 million dollars and this was back in the 1980’s
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StephieNorthCo
Guest
Having had some organ experience in my past, yes they are complex. There are many, many factors involved. I think you will so find there are church sites that, for one reason or another will not support (in the sense of successfully operating) a church organ. If the environment is unstable (hot/cold, moist/dry, etc), the organ will not sound very good.
Having said that, a well installed pipe organ, properly controlled and properly operated, is simply magnificant. Setting up and maintaining the Celeste (that beautiful undulating sound so vital on some musical scores) is as much art as it is science. The right voicing for the physical environment is vitally important for that beautiful instrument.
Having said that, a guitar, as others pointed out, can indeed be quite beautiful. Very reverent and inspiring. The guitar, given a g o o d performer is wonderful.
Having said that, if the goal, as stated previously in this thread, is to reproduce the wide range of the human voice, modern keyboard synthesizers are an even better answer. Today’s technology can almost equal all but the best 2 or 3 church organs, at a mere fraction of the cost. The fear is that it is also sooo powerful, musically, that it is open to abuse even more so than a guitar.
A wonderful, highly trained choir, is a beautiful answer as well. Unfortunately, it is beyond reach of many, if not most, parishes.
Having said that, a well installed pipe organ, properly controlled and properly operated, is simply magnificant. Setting up and maintaining the Celeste (that beautiful undulating sound so vital on some musical scores) is as much art as it is science. The right voicing for the physical environment is vitally important for that beautiful instrument.
Having said that, a guitar, as others pointed out, can indeed be quite beautiful. Very reverent and inspiring. The guitar, given a g o o d performer is wonderful.
Having said that, if the goal, as stated previously in this thread, is to reproduce the wide range of the human voice, modern keyboard synthesizers are an even better answer. Today’s technology can almost equal all but the best 2 or 3 church organs, at a mere fraction of the cost. The fear is that it is also sooo powerful, musically, that it is open to abuse even more so than a guitar.
A wonderful, highly trained choir, is a beautiful answer as well. Unfortunately, it is beyond reach of many, if not most, parishes.
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thistle
Guest
I am always happy to be corrected so please show me in the CCC where it states what musical instruments are to be used or not used.
Remember a Church teaching is something that Catholics are bound by.
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PetraG
Guest
The special place of the pipe organ in the musical tradition of the Roman Rite is written in the Church’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium.
120. In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man’s mind to God and to higher things.
But other instruments also may be admitted for use in divine worship, with the knowledge and consent of the competent territorial authority, as laid down in Art. 22, 52, 37, and 40. This may be done, however, only on condition that the instruments are suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, accord with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful.
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tafan2
Guest
Is the catechism the only source of Church teachin? Vatican 2. And yes, I consider myself bound by that teaching.
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po18guy
Well-known member
My advice is to stop looking left and right and picking apart what is offered to God. Rather, focus like a laser on the Tabernacle, and on Christ at the elevation. As long as an ordained priest is celebrating, it is wheat bread and grape wine, and the words of consecration are there, it is a valid mass. We lose faith, we become cynical, judgmental, disillusioned and discouraged if we concentrate on anything other than Christ.
Word.
Made Flesh.
Word.
Made Flesh.
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tafan2
Guest
Good advice, but let’s not pretend the entire liturgy is not important.
po18guy
Well-known member
Not pretending! Just trying to reduce the amount of carping, grousing, murmuring, complaints and discontent. All of this - all of it - is intended at some level to distract us from Christ. Who desires that? I choose not to cooperate with him.
Others are judged for their sin - we for ours. If that is not enough, then leave that parish for another!
Others are judged for their sin - we for ours. If that is not enough, then leave that parish for another!
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otjm
Guest
The last doctor of the Church died several or more centuries ago, so they had nothing to say about what has occurred in the last century.
“Guitar Mass” is an undefined term. If a guitar is used at Mass, it may be as unobjectionable as a piano or organ, or it may imply a number of instruments normally associated with a band. And even then, depending on how they play, it may appear as something obnoxious or something far more subtly providing instrumental music to a choir.
Some people detest any guitar as an instrument at Mass.
Some people detest multi part harmony of professionally trained voices singing a work of Palestrina, as sounding far more like a concert than a Mass.
Both of these are matters of personal taste - and as the wag said, some people’s personal taste is halitosis.
“Guitar Mass” is an undefined term. If a guitar is used at Mass, it may be as unobjectionable as a piano or organ, or it may imply a number of instruments normally associated with a band. And even then, depending on how they play, it may appear as something obnoxious or something far more subtly providing instrumental music to a choir.
Some people detest any guitar as an instrument at Mass.
Some people detest multi part harmony of professionally trained voices singing a work of Palestrina, as sounding far more like a concert than a Mass.
Both of these are matters of personal taste - and as the wag said, some people’s personal taste is halitosis.
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otjm
Guest
If by “bound” you are referring to Sacramentum Concilium, that document did not “bind” the Church to using the organ; it raised the organ to the most favored instrument. Even at the time of Vatican 2, the majority of churches world wide did not have an organ, let alone a pipe organ and while the organ is still the most favored instrument, it is not “binding” on any parish to have one; additionally , since Vatican 2 there are fewer and fewer individuals capable of actually playing one, let alone well.
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stpurl
Guest
You have a point if the liturgy were only about ‘rock bottom validity’. But the thing is, it’s not.
Until I moved (Deo gratias) the liturgy I experienced for close to 6 years may --MAY! have involved wheat bread and grape wine and the literal "this is my body’. Aside from that there were such egregious abuses --yes, for a priest to constantly omit a penitential rite, the Gloria outside of Advent and Lent, ANY kind of creed EVER, and to ad lib the Eucharistic prayers to the point of adding words of his own as if they were God’s own, these are TRUE abuses–and all fostered in a spirit of complete disobedience. The priest constantly brought up examples of how HE (such a ‘real’ Christian) refused to be bound by ‘petty rules’, including the rubrics of the Mass, and encouraged people to question or disregard teachings because, "Jesus was wrong and had to be corrected by the Samaritan woman, “Mary and Jesus’ brothers were disobedient and distrustful of Jesus”, “Paul’s speaking about women in church was his personal misogyny and I look forward to women serving as priests some day” (LOUD applause on that one.
Do you really think that the people, especially the children, over the last nearly 10 years at this parish being fed this constant experimenting, ‘do your own thing’, distrust, reject, attitude should just shrug their shoulders with, "well at least it has grape wine, wheat bread, and the words of consecration, among many other ‘ad libbies’, guess I’ll just concentrate on my own self and ignore the hundreds of people, especially children, and what poison they are drinking and eating and absorbing, because they might not be able to discern or ‘focus like lasers’ and might, in fact, accept these things as what they could and should do. . .that they might be brought to think the spirit of disobedience is perfectly fine and Christian, that untruths about Catholic teachings are the ‘real truths’ and that those ‘old fashioned things’ are to be thrown out with the garbage, just as anything they might later ‘not fancy’ can be thrown out too?
I know it’s an extreme case but these extremes exist as I found to my sorrow, and unfortunately as long as people just ‘let it go’, they will continue to exist, will in fact snowball and affect not just the people at this Mass but their families and friends and their children and grandchildren. . .on and on. Abuse doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It doesn’t just start with one person and it won’t stop with one person either.
Until I moved (Deo gratias) the liturgy I experienced for close to 6 years may --MAY! have involved wheat bread and grape wine and the literal "this is my body’. Aside from that there were such egregious abuses --yes, for a priest to constantly omit a penitential rite, the Gloria outside of Advent and Lent, ANY kind of creed EVER, and to ad lib the Eucharistic prayers to the point of adding words of his own as if they were God’s own, these are TRUE abuses–and all fostered in a spirit of complete disobedience. The priest constantly brought up examples of how HE (such a ‘real’ Christian) refused to be bound by ‘petty rules’, including the rubrics of the Mass, and encouraged people to question or disregard teachings because, "Jesus was wrong and had to be corrected by the Samaritan woman, “Mary and Jesus’ brothers were disobedient and distrustful of Jesus”, “Paul’s speaking about women in church was his personal misogyny and I look forward to women serving as priests some day” (LOUD applause on that one.
Do you really think that the people, especially the children, over the last nearly 10 years at this parish being fed this constant experimenting, ‘do your own thing’, distrust, reject, attitude should just shrug their shoulders with, "well at least it has grape wine, wheat bread, and the words of consecration, among many other ‘ad libbies’, guess I’ll just concentrate on my own self and ignore the hundreds of people, especially children, and what poison they are drinking and eating and absorbing, because they might not be able to discern or ‘focus like lasers’ and might, in fact, accept these things as what they could and should do. . .that they might be brought to think the spirit of disobedience is perfectly fine and Christian, that untruths about Catholic teachings are the ‘real truths’ and that those ‘old fashioned things’ are to be thrown out with the garbage, just as anything they might later ‘not fancy’ can be thrown out too?
I know it’s an extreme case but these extremes exist as I found to my sorrow, and unfortunately as long as people just ‘let it go’, they will continue to exist, will in fact snowball and affect not just the people at this Mass but their families and friends and their children and grandchildren. . .on and on. Abuse doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It doesn’t just start with one person and it won’t stop with one person either.
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stpurl
Guest
Leave the parish?
What of others who cannot? The elderly? The children? People who for various health conditions cannot drive? people in rural areas where there is literally no other Mass for a 3 hour’s (one way) drive? People living in poverty who simply can’t afford a car, have no public transport (most places don’t run buses on Sundays assuming one lives where buses or trains actually are available)?
Until my vision decline reached the point that I could no longer drive safely, and having had 30-35 years of experience as a driver where just ‘trying out a different parish’ was as easy as getting behind the wheel and ‘going’, I would have been incredulous that people could NOT just ‘for heaven’s sake, just go to another parish’. Now I know that for a LOT of people, it just isn’t that easy.
What of others who cannot? The elderly? The children? People who for various health conditions cannot drive? people in rural areas where there is literally no other Mass for a 3 hour’s (one way) drive? People living in poverty who simply can’t afford a car, have no public transport (most places don’t run buses on Sundays assuming one lives where buses or trains actually are available)?
Until my vision decline reached the point that I could no longer drive safely, and having had 30-35 years of experience as a driver where just ‘trying out a different parish’ was as easy as getting behind the wheel and ‘going’, I would have been incredulous that people could NOT just ‘for heaven’s sake, just go to another parish’. Now I know that for a LOT of people, it just isn’t that easy.
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii
Guest
I have good memories of being a little kid and hearing guitar mass . Those teenagers with guitars were so cool. (To me, anyway)
Cue “Day By Day”
Cue “Day By Day”
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