Is there anyone that actually likes the guitar at Mass?

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Sarabande, thank you for your excellent explanation of vocal training and the lack thereof. It makes a huge difference!

As far as liking any particular instrument or not, much depends upon how it is played. Any instrument can sound wonderful, horrible, or anything in between depending upon the musical skill and aesthetic taste of the performer. As a flutist, for example, I hated the oboe as a student…until I went to a nationally-known summer music camp and heard one played by a competent player. My esteem of the oboe did a complete 180-degree turn, but hearing a mediocre oboist makes me cringe even to this day, some 35 years later.

Skilled, tasteful organ music would be my first choice for Mass, but that isn’t so common these days. So given my choice of tacky organ playing or beautiful guitar playing, I’ll take the guitar hands down. But I’ll pass on the electric guitars, synths, and drum machines, thanks.
 
I live for the day when I. Never. Hear. Another. Guitar. At. Mass.

Never again.

Never again.

Never again.

Never again.
 
Cat said:
I would rather listen to an old gentleman with a quavering voice who has a beautiful Christian testimony than listen to an operatic singer who disgraces Christ with their lifestyle.
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That’s a good point, but I would rather have no cantor at all, if we were only given an old quavering voice. 🙂 And, since most cantors are volunteers, an operatically trained cantor who volunteers at his/her church most likely is not the kind who leads of disgraceful life. They are probably doing it because they love their Church and want to give something back to it and the congregation (at least that’s in my experience - and I have a paid position, as well as a volunteer position.)😃
 
CarrieH said:
Sarabande, thank you for your excellent explanation of vocal training and the lack thereof. It makes a huge difference!

As far as liking any particular instrument or not, much depends upon how it is played. Any instrument can sound wonderful, horrible, or anything in between depending upon the musical skill and aesthetic taste of the performer. As a flutist, for example, I hated the oboe as a student…until I went to a nationally-known summer music camp and heard one played by a competent player. My esteem of the oboe did a complete 180-degree turn, but hearing a mediocre oboist makes me cringe even to this day, some 35 years later.

Skilled, tasteful organ music would be my first choice for Mass, but that isn’t so common these days. So given my choice of tacky organ playing or beautiful guitar playing, I’ll take the guitar hands down. But I’ll pass on the electric guitars, synths, and drum machines, thanks.
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Hey! You’re welcome!!! 🙂 I’m totally with you on what you said as well.
 
Light_Seeker said:
I wondered about this also after Aramis posted … so I searched.

The Tra le Sollecitudini (Instruction on Sacred Music) :
Thanks Aramis !
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So should my choir director get rid of the parts that may be written for the timpani? For example, If we ever did a piece from Mozart’s Requiem, would the part that Mozart wrote for the timpani be banned?

Using that Motu Proprio was really reaching. Motu Proprio’s aren’t infallible statements, though and St. Pius X was referring to the Tridentine Mass.
 
If you are going to play the organ, I think you need a full fledged choir, with all three octaves to accompany it.
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Well, I certainly think it sounds much better that way.👍
 
pprimeau1976 said:
So should my choir director get rid of the parts that may be written for the timpani? For example, If we ever did a piece from Mozart’s Requiem, would the part that Mozart wrote for the timpani be banned?

Using that Motu Proprio was really reaching. Motu Proprio’s aren’t infallible statements, though and St. Pius X was referring to the Tridentine Mass.
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I’m not sure if you are serious or not here.

Regardless, its obvious from other Motu Proprio documents they had a hard time with compliance until the Musicae Sacrae in 1955 acknowledged other instruments.
 
RichT said:
I’m a guitar player, so of course I love guitar at mass. The guitar is a very versatile instument, and there are times when strumming it and playing rythm are important. But I really like it when played fingerstyle. I am actually working on an arrangement of Ave Maria right now on my steel string and it sounds really beautiful. I also prefer acoustic guitar over electric.
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I’m another guitarist that loves guitar music at mass. Some songs I strum, but I love playing fingerstyle, incorporating the melody into the picking on occasion.
Because I alternate between these 2 styles, I find I get better tone playing my Strat through an acoustic amp. It’s a very clean sound, no distortion.
So although my sound is much mellower than that of the “Music Director” guitarist who plays an acoustic and only strums (…easy chords with the capo halfway up the neck, which destroys tone in my opinion…) at the mass she leads, I still get questioned about playing an electric guitar, (even by her:confused: )
I also want to point out that many acoustic guitars have the built in ‘electric’ component. So the gap lessens between electric and acoustic.

Anyway, Rich, I’d absolutely love to see that “Ave Maria” tabbed out (to save much time and energy of arranging it myself:D ) unless you’re planning to copyright it
 
I think the issue is not the instruments but the quality of the musicians and the choice of hymms. I prefer good guitar over bad organ, good organ over bad guitar, if both are bad, I opt for the organ. If both are good, I prefer the guitar.
 
I’ve experienced it all, and I would have to say:

Yes, to classical guitar, if it’s solo and the guitarist is very, very good. I don’t care for strummed guitar or the folk music that comes with it. If I want to listen to Simon and Garfunkel, I will put the CD on in my car or at home.

Preference is organ with full choir. That is what we have at our parish, and you barely notice the organ. Our organist is good and she plays it the way it is supposed to be played - accompaniment to the real instruments (voices, the schola). We occasionally have violin or flute up in the loft, but again, they are accompaniments.

We are fortunate to have good cantors, they chant the verses solo or in two-part harmony. I haven’t heard a poor singer yet in the year we’ve been here. Amazing.

I used to cantor and did it to piano accompaniment one Christmas. It didn’t bother me much, but piano isn’t my favorite. I did sing one piece acapella, when the pianist didn’t make it back from the bathroom, and the priest was motioning to start. 😛
 
I’ve heard plenty of guitar at Mass that I don’t like, but then like lots of other posters, I’ve heard some truly abysmal organ playing, some just incompetent and some very competent but with absolutely no understanding of the needs of the person in the pew.

I am both a singer-guitarist and an organist. I specialise in providing traditional music where there ain’t no keyboard to be had, regardless of preferences. My usual group is male and female cantors, acoustic guitar, violin and cello, and occasionally oboe as well. I spend a lot of time arranging and charting. Some traditional hymns can be adapted beautifully to these resources. Some can’t, and they’re the ones I don’t touch. For much of the traditional music we do, I start with a basso continuo approach for the guitar and cello, and work the arrangement up from there. (Funny how a lot of folks can’t explain to me why they don’t have a problem with singing, oh, let’s say chorales from a figured bass edition with a lute and maybe a viol, but it’s somehow a moral issue to use a guitar and a cello instead …)

Making it work depends on a sense of musicianship or musical good taste, versatility on the guitar, and an understanding of what the congregation needs (or doesn’t need) in order to be led/supported/kickstarted in each particular piece. You think about how to use your instruments to support those needs, not how to make the piece fit the way you like to play.

I also do quite a few outdoor things, such as a Mass in the local cemetery every November for a congregation of about 2,000. An inherently transportable instrument such as acoustic guitar does not seem out of place in that setting. The old electric organ + choir on the back of the hay truck thing always made me squirm! Also, the frequency range of a guitar poses less of a challenge to a temporary sound system and in my experience sounds better than most keyboards, provided you have invested in a quality pickup.
 
Eh, I’d prefer piano to guitar personally. I don’t really think guitar goes very well with congregational singing as well as piano and other instruments do. But to be honest the only time I’ve ever heard ONLY guitars was in a church building clearly built pre-Vatican II and acoustically guitars just didn’t work (I don’t think a piano really would’ve either, again, because of acoustics). I don’t think guitar really sounds good with the traditional hymns, which I prefer. There is, however, contemporary music that sounds lovely on guitar. I actually listen to a Christian radio station which plays some contemporary music with guitar accompaniment, and it’s beautiful, not folksy at all.
 
gradstud35 said:
I think I’m about as conservative as they come, with one exception. I HATE organ music. I actually like Masses with no music or where they have guitars, pianos & other instruments.
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Ditto, (conservatism), almost-ditto, (not wild about organs), and ditto, (like pianos, guitars, etc, when used correctly).

I’ve only been to one Mass that I can remember where there was organ music as the Church intends. It was at St. Jean Baptiste in Manhattan. They spent about $750,000 having their HUGE organ rebuilt and draw their choir from among NYC’s music conservatories. It was truly beautiful, but it still made me want to go to sleep. :o
Organ music reminds me of funerals.
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The tinny organs I’ve been subjected to most of my life remind me of bad 1950’s horror movies for some reason.

As to guitars, anyone who has heard Segovia has to think twice before condeming the instrument.

It’s not the instruments that stink – it’s too much of the music. In my childhood, we actually sang folk songs – including the almost mythical “Kumbaya” – in most parishes we attended. It’s not nearly so bad anymore, but a bit more attention to scriptural bases would be nice.
 
THutch04 said:
I don’t really think guitar goes very well with congregational singing as well as piano and other instruments do. But to be honest the only time I’ve ever heard ONLY guitars was in a church building clearly built pre-Vatican II and acoustically guitars just didn’t work (I don’t think a piano really would’ve either, again, because of acoustics). I don’t think guitar really sounds good with the traditional hymns, which I prefer.
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There’s guitar … and then there’s guitar. Most people who have heard guitars at Mass have only heard players of minimal competence who have little exposure to the broad musicological picture and who have never heard, as an example, a lutenist play continuo. I find a lot of people have trouble imagining traditional hymns with guitar and instruments, because they’ve never heard anyone do it, but in my experience even those who are very conservative in their taste respond well to tasteful arrangements that are designed to support congregational singing. (Especially in situations where there are no keyboards so the question, “why don’t you use the organ instead?” doesn’t arise.) And as I said in my earlier post, there are many trad hymns that I don’t touch, if I can’t come up with a way of playing them that makes musical sense.

I don’t “lead” with guitar the same way that I would with the organ, with its sustained sound and ability to “breath” with the congregation. Instruments should be used in idiomatic ways, not in slavish and futile copying of some other instrument. My guitar sets the foundations of pitch, tempo and harmonic support and the actual leading is done by voice in combination with patterns in the guitar accompaniment (or instrumental parts, where I have them) that make intros and gaps between verses very clear.
 
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