Liturgical Musicians: when not at Mass

[SMHW]

This thread my seem slightly out of place in this forum but if it were anywhere else I don’t think it would get the target readers.

Do you sing, play, teach, and/or listen to sacred music on your own time?

Do you think your training and personal music preferences impact the type of music you sing or play at Mass or the type of music you prefer to sing or play at Mass?

Disregarding the appropriateness for said music for Catholic liturgy, do you like contemporary Catholic music?

I’m personally only going to answer the last question. I DO like much contemporary Catholic music but I will add that it is like much popular secular music. It’s meant to be PERFORMED by a band and unless it does have all the instruments and amplification it sounds as disappointing as bass guitar played on a kazoo.

 

[Sarabande]

Do you sing, play, teach, and/or listen to sacred music on your own time?
Sing: I either cantor hymns and/or sing as a soloist in sacred choral motets or sacred solos.
Teach: I used to teach music in a Catholic grade school and part of my responsibilties were teaching the hymns for weekday mass, running the children’s choir and an afterschool sacred music club.
Listen for pleasure: I listen to sacred music of various eras on my own time.

Do you think your training and personal music preferences impact the type of music you sing or play at Mass or the type of music you prefer to sing or play at Mass? I would say more so my training and studies impacted the kind of music I either sing or prefer to sing at Mass. I’ve studied music since I was four. As a child, I was made to believe that classical sacred music and chant was no longer “en vogue” for Catholic mass. It was just a nice reminiscence of our past. So I always separated the two and didn’t associate it with mass. I didn’t really listen to music of my time growing up. I always either listened to classical music or oldies - 50s-70s. (My parents had no influence in that regard. I just didn’t like 80s/early 90s music back then. Since college, I can’t get enough of the 80s bands and groups and have gotten into bands from my generation.) It wasn’t until college and really started to take my training seriously and began to take a more active part in planning liturgies that I saw what should and should not be played during mass.

Personal music preference - well although I’m classically trained and mostly perform classical music, I do enjoy various other styles and genres of music. So, personal music preference isn’t really a direct impact, BUT my musical training has had an impact on my personal preference and what I consider as the most spiritually uplifting and/or appropriate for mass based on interpretation of the rules. And there seems to be basically two interpretations on what is appropriate and what is not.

That said, I do like Gospel music on occasion, especially when I’ve attended mass African American Catholic Churches. I also enjoy the music played for Filipino masses. In mostly “caucasion” churches, though, that style of music just doesn’t work. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t fit in culturally? I don’t know.

Disregarding the appropriateness for said music for Catholic liturgy, do you like contemporary Catholic music?

It depends on what you define as contemporary Catholic music. If it is meant by musical styles like “On Eagles Wings” or “Here I am, Lord”, I’d say no. I’m not going into if the style of the music is appropriate for liturgy, but even if they were treated as secular pieces of music, I wouldn’t listen to them. If you mean P&W, although it is a legitimate style of music which people appear to enjoy, I just don’t like it. I did try to get into contemporary Christian music in college, borrowed tapes, tried to “jam” at Catholic conferences or retreats. It just didn’t do anything for me. Perhaps it has something to do with my background and training, but (after a short period when I couldn’t listen to anything but classical music) I really love rock/pop music, cafe music and enjoy folk music, so my training hasn’t had a lasting effect on my preference in that sense.

I’m personally only going to answer the last question. I DO like much contemporary Catholic music but I will add that it is like much popular secular music. It’s meant to be PERFORMED by a band and unless it does have all the instruments and amplification it sounds as disappointing as bass guitar played on a kazoo.

I would agree. I wouldn’t want an organ playing those songs nor would I want a band playing traditional sacred pieces of music. Also wouldn’t want a classically trained singer trying to perform those songs just as I don’t want a popular singer trying to sing “Ave Verum Corpus” or “Panis Angelicus”. Either way would be a disappointment. But again, that just might be my background and training talking.

 

[Guitar]

Do you sing, play, teach, and/or listen to sacred music on your own time?

Sing, play and listen. Used to sing a lot at early music workshops and suchlike. Play sacred organ music, mostly at home now due to a hand injury. Listen – loads of it, choral and instrumental, everything from mediaeval stuff to Maddy Prior & the Carnival Band. Teach only in the sense of assisting other musicians with a voluntary rehearsal service on request.

Do you think your training and personal music preferences impact the type of music you sing or play at Mass or the type of music you prefer to sing or play at Mass?

My training and tastes made me aware of the church’s musical traditions - I had little exposure to them in church growing up, though my father talked of them often. I like nearly all of it (can do without a few of the 19th c. hymn tunes!). When “working”, my tastes are there in the background but my focus is on marrying what’s appropriate to what can be done well with the resources I’ve got (often complicated by the constraints of what the “customer” wants). Left to myself I try to promote traditional music and while liking it makes it easier to appreciate why it should be kept alive, “liking” is not my primary motivation. (I seem to have a far broader exposure to musical genres and historical styles than most others I know and being able to appreciate a really broad range of music makes it easier to accept that what works over here doesn’t work over there and there’s a time and a place and therefore playing or not playing my favourite style at Mass is not an “emotional” issue for me.)

Tastes and training don’t much affect my choice of music but they do affect how I might perform that music once it is chosen. I often have to arrange it for particular “non-standard” ensembles, which I can do thanks to my musical exposure. Because of my early music background, I am aware of and dislike some anachronistic practices such as accompanied chant (in many cases the organ accompaniment and metrical settings imposed on it IMO overloads it till the axles bend and/or guarantee it becomes a dirge by bogging it down with different-chord-every-syllable harmonic rhythm so that it can’t flow naturally).

Disregarding the appropriateness for said music for Catholic liturgy, do you like contemporary Catholic music?

I haven’t heard a lot of it, but what I have heard doesn’t grab me. It never seems to stand up to the best of R&B, pop, blues, folk, whatever style it is in. There is so much really good music in those genres and if in the mood for that kind of music, I’d rather have the best. I’m not knocking it, I just don’t relate to Christian rock/pop/blues/folk/death metal as a recreational concept.

I’m personally only going to answer the last question. I DO like much contemporary Catholic music but I will add that it is like much popular secular music. It’s meant to be PERFORMED by a band and unless it does have all the instruments and amplification it sounds as disappointing as bass guitar played on a kazoo.

Qualified agreement. I’ve made a bit of a “career” out of arranging music to work with a different line-up to that for which it was written and it’s amazing how you can turn some music on its ear that way, but that aside, the point is valid.

 

[Guitar]

Teach only in the sense of assisting other musicians with a voluntary rehearsal service on request.

… amendment to that, I have occasionally presented workshops and written articles on arranging church music for instrumental ensembles and how to play some kinds of “traditional” church music where the “standard” organ + SATB style resources are simply not to be had.

 

[m134e5]

Do you sing, play, teach, and/or listen to sacred music on your own time?

Yes (all of the above).

Do you think your training and personal music preferences impact the type of music you sing or play at Mass or the type of music you prefer to sing or play at Mass?

Definitely

Disregarding the appropriateness for said music for Catholic liturgy, do you like contemporary Catholic music?

I’m very picky about what I like to listen to. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I don’t like anything written in the last 50 years, but the older it is, the longer it has stood the test of time, and the more likely I am to enjoy it.

 

[NetNuncio]

Do you sing, play, teach, and/or listen to sacred music on your own time?

Yes. I sing on occasion, teach voice and listen to sacred music daily.

Do you think your training and personal music preferences impact the type of music you sing or play at Mass or the type of music you prefer to sing or play at Mass?

Certainly. While I know the proper place of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony, my college choral teacher was Anglican and studied the Anglican School. So, that has heavily influenced me.

Disregarding the appropriateness for said music for Catholic liturgy, do you like contemporary Catholic music?

Yes, and I listen to it on my own time. I also like to drink and carry on with my friends…but I don’t do so at my Grandma’s house. There is a time and a place for everything. Just as I don’t party at my Grandma’s house, I don’t allow rock music in the liturgy.

Adam

 

[PaixGioiaAmor]

This thread my seem slightly out of place in this forum but if it were anywhere else I don’t think it would get the target readers.

Do you sing, play, teach, and/or listen to sacred music on your own time? Yes. I listen to good sacred music in the car and at home. Think Vittoria, Byrd, etc.

Do you think your training and personal music preferences impact the type of music you sing or play at Mass or the type of music you prefer to sing or play at Mass? Personal preference is just that; and yes, when one studies music that has stood the test of time, they will come to appreciate it for what it is, over and beyond the banal garbage that we often hear at mass. Does that mean I hold the parish hostage to my choices? No.

Disregarding the appropriateness for said music for Catholic liturgy, do you like contemporary Catholic music? What is “contemporary Catholic music?” Do you mean Haugen, Hass, et al? Some of it is ok, most of it is junk.

I’m personally only going to answer the last question. I DO like much contemporary Catholic music but I will add that it is like much popular secular music. It’s meant to be PERFORMED by a band and unless it does have all the instruments and amplification it sounds as disappointing as bass guitar played on a kazoo.