MERGED: Music in Mass/Sacred Music

[snowlake]

Prometheum_x:
refer to post 277, it’s too long to include here.

PrometheumX, at first I couldn’t put my finger on the exact problem with your response. I knew it reminded me of a process that I had learned about in some courses on aesthetics.
After checking out some sources, I found that, indeed , it is the perfect example of:

                        "POSTMODERN DECONSTRUCTIONISM"

Yes…that process of analysis which extracts a part from a whole and treats it individually w/ no connection whatsoever to the whole from which it was extracted, thereby eliminating
“meaning” , and calling everything into question in a fragmented , dis-associative manner.

My analysis of “On Eagles’ Wings” took parts from the whole, only to be re-inserted and classified as a work (a specific unit) in a particular genre. It was not a work on “Major 7ths for Major 7ths’ sake”, nor was it a treatise on “non-chord tones for non-chord tones’ sake”. Each part was viewed individually as part of a group of traits that comprised the whole.

In contrast, your response took each individual trait mentioned as a topic unto itself. Each tiny fragment was extracted and compared to other instances of its use in the history of music, giving examples of a beat or two from this or that piece. This was done in order to show that the this or that stylistic trait spoken of in the first analysis is not necessarily found only in secular pop music.

You wasted your breath.

No one ever said that the first analysis depended on the the existence of each individual trait belonging to the secular-pop style alone. The thesis was that this style of music has a GROUP of traits, that when present together, can help identify the genre of a piece of music.

If a simple listening test were given to any group of people who were asked to check A(a secular -style religious song) as opposed to B (one of the examples you gave, be it a few measures of Bach, Beethoven or Scarlatti,) you know as well as I what the results would be. Everyone would get an “A”. The conclusion of the first analysis is obvious for anyone who has ears to hear with, or eyes to see. The response seems to be arguing just for the sake of arguing, not for the sake of truth.

You gave no examples of the Palestrina, Beethoven or Scarlatti. Were the examples of the last two of sacred music? That is the topic at hand. If not, it only serves to solidify my position that these traits are secular. I’m only familiar with the keyboard music of Scarlatti, and was unaware of any of his sacred works.

Your example of the Bach tonic major 7th was not an extended tonic M7th, and it did not start the piece off w/ it on beat one. Your Scarlatti example of the acciaccatura doesn’t really apply either, because it is so quick.

As I said, I used a guitar lead sheet that I found on the web for my impromptu analysis, so that probably explains why I had a Maj. 7th chord at the refrain and you didn’t.

I never said that the piece was an example of jazz, only that the harmonies of some pop music are derived from it. (You said you would have expected more jazz progressions, etc. - but that wasn’t the point).

These individual traits that were nit-picked and applied to a vast array of other styles cannot be isolated in the manner that you used them and still retain meaning. In my analysis, each individual aspect listed depends on the whole for meaning. The inquiry
was done in the exact opposite manner as yours.

The deconstructionist analysis, taken to its logical end, would end up by grouping all
forms of music into one big blob. This is due to the fact that, if one looks hard enough, one will be able to find instances of any style (in this case “pop”) for a beat or two in just about any other style.

To be continued.

 

[snowlake]

continuation of response to deconstruction response.

By the way, the Bach example was from The Well-tempered Clavier, another secular work.

An analogy to using this approach w/ language could be something like this: Any secular
piece of poetry or prose could be inserted into the Mass because it contains individual words that are the same as some found in the liturgy. The priest could say “Be my Baby”
instead of “The Lord be with you” because the word “be” has been found in liturgical texts
for centuries. The same with the word “my” and the word “baby”.

Forget about the words depending upon one another for meaning. Each word will be extracted from the whole and treated as an entity in itself.

The problem with this is that nothing would mean anything anymore. Since all music has
notes (in the sense of ‘pitch’), it could all be blobbed together, and "anything goes"would have to be the attitude of all.

An example from the art world might be something like this: A certain suburban parish
wants to erect Stations of the Cross painted in the style of Andy Warhol’s pop pieces, say, the ones w/ famous characters (like Marilyn Monroe) in that cartoon-esque style
that consists of many dots. If protested, their deconstructionist response could go like this: “We looked at art works from different ages in Church history, and we found that
Fra Angelico also used some dots.” Or, “The color blue is also found in some works of Cimabue”. Forget about how all of the elements of Warhol’s pieces work together to form a recognizable style.
To be continued.

 

[snowlake]

part 3, response to deconstructionism.

Followed to its end, the conclusion of deconstructionism would insist that objective reality does not exist, and a thing cannot be known in itself. Everything would be “opinion”.
But the beginnings of metaphysics (and all Catholic philosophies) contradict this.

I’m sure a better piece could be selected than the one I chose, and a true music scholar
would have done a better job. I hope to find some of these music theorists and historians
at my university soon, and ask them if they would agree to assist us in this quest. As far as I can tell now, they’re all on summer break.

I found a good quote that is worth considering: “Deconstructionism in music is the ultimate form of musical subjectivity and anarchism”. (Abeln) Hmmm.

The type of illogical false analysis that comprises deconstructionism can be used to justify anything. In my opinion, it is used to justify the use of any kind of music whatsoever
in Mass. After all, in order for music to be music it has to have some semblance of pitch, rhythm, harmony, etc., etc. These can always be disected for the sake of disecting, in order to disprove any kind of objective conclusion that one does not happen to like.

continued.

 

[snowlake]

final part of response to deconstructionism.

If this type of analysis is used at your local music CD store, everything would be jumbled together. You’d never find what you were looking for. The sacred works of Gabrieli would be
mixed in w/ the Frank Sinatra CDs - after all, they both used syncopations.

Now I’m off to listen to some Ella Fitzgerald. However, I prefer to call her “Maria Callas”
because both of them wore really nice evening gowns. And I do not refer to the style as
swing, with scatting. I prefer to call it mariachi (because both employ trumpets) with
tongues. Forget about linking the parts to the whole. I’ll do whatever I want, and if you don’t agree, well that’s just you own opinion!

 

[snowlake]

And yet you know that if a modern composer borrowed the melody of, say, “Oops . . . I Did It Again” and used it as a cantus firmus for Missa Oops I Did It Again, we’d never hear the end of how disrespectful a thing that was. And yet, how exactly is that different from Missa L’Homme Armé?

By the way, if you’re curious how Missa Oops I Did It Again might sound, this could give you some idea. )

This a good question for someone who has much more knowledge than I. I do know the Mass which you are referring to. My guess is that (I think) the cantus firmus was borrowed as a compositional technique, and again, as only a part of the whole. The whole thing would have to be considered, and the parts in relation to it. Plus "Beware the armed man"might have been associated only w/ a folk type tune that ended up (with all of the other parts considered) quite different than it was originally? I really don’t know.
I do know this: the Pope and those in charge are well aware of the history of sacred music
and still insist that the secular has no place in it. There must be some reason, and I’m sure there is a good answer to your question.

Today, along w/ various forms of traditional or folk music, we have a vast array of other
non-sacred styles as well, just think of commercial and movie music as examples. Some things are more offensive in sacred setting than others. For instance, heavy metal would be worse than a chant or polyphonic piece that borrowed part of a melody from a folk tune.

 

[Sarabande]

And yet you know that if a modern composer borrowed the melody of, say, “Oops . . . I Did It Again” and used it as a cantus firmus for Missa Oops I Did It Again, we’d never hear the end of how disrespectful a thing that was. And yet, how exactly is that different from Missa L’Homme Armé?

By the way, if you’re curious how Missa Oops I Did It Again might sound, this could give you some idea. )

Funny you brought that up. The songwriter may have been aware of la Folia, which is an old classical music progression known in western music and often used by composers, especially in earlier music like in Renaissance music. You can find a lot of music based on the musical theme - variations, improvisations, etc. Because of the repetitive nature, you will also hear this kind of progression used in rock music. It was also used in jazz and blues improvs.

The progression, itself, is neutral. To say otherwise is like saying B-flat is a secular note and B natural is a sacred note. But how the progression is used for entire piece of music is different and one could make a distinction of it sounding “secular” or “sacred”. ALTHOUGH, I can see how some would argue that since the very beginnings of this particular chord progression it has carried the name “La Folia”, it has always been “secular” since “La Folia” was actually a dance. I own a cd of Renaissance dance music using the theme of la folia. Sort of like how the tri-tone used to be banned for use in sacred music. Not anymore of course because you lots of tri-tones in a lot of sacred music old and new, but I wonder if this chord progression was also discouraged for use in sacred music at one time.

 

[Canto]

Charity would suggest that we give the benefit of the doubt.

Indeed, but I still find it humerous.

 

[snowlake]

part 3, response to deconstructionism.

These can always be disected for the sake of disecting, in order to disprove any kind of objective conclusion that one does not happen to like.

Sorry, I meant “dissected/ing”.

 

[Prometheum_x]

final part of response to deconstructionism.

If this type of analysis is used at your local music CD store, everything would be jumbled together. You’d never find what you were looking for. The sacred works of Gabrieli would be
mixed in w/ the Frank Sinatra CDs - after all, they both used syncopations.

Now I’m off to listen to some Ella Fitzgerald. However, I prefer to call her “Maria Callas”
because both of them wore really nice evening gowns. And I do not refer to the style as
swing, with scatting. I prefer to call it mariachi (because both employ trumpets) with
tongues. Forget about linking the parts to the whole. I’ll do whatever I want, and if you don’t agree, well that’s just you own opinion!

Thank you for your thorough response. First of all, I completely reject the overarching thesis of deconstructionism, though I suppose it is possible that I may have a tendency towards some elements of it. I have not previously suspected myself of it, and I will have to ponder that further. However, In my defense, I must say that I responded to your initial analysis the way I did because it seemed to me that you too were focusing on the individual parts to the exclusion of a consideration of the whole. I perceived your analysis as this:

1. The music contains some elements that can be found in jazz/pop music
2. Therefore, it is an example of jazz/pop music.

Rather than trying to argue that everything is indiscernible or unclassifiable, I was trying to argue that merely containing these elements is insufficient to label it as jazz/pop. I did say that I didn’t think that it contained a high enough density of these elements to warrant that classification. As well, there are songs that can be clearly identified as jazz/pop, and at least to my ear, this song sounds quite different. I believe it has a very different character . I gave my examples of Bach and Scarlatti actually to argue against a deconstructionist conclusion, namely that even though they have tonic major 7th chords, it would be difficult to argue that they the belonged in the same section in the record store.

I think that the song in question is instead an example of popular (not to be confused with mass market pop) religious song, having its genesis in folk music.

Rock and commercial pop are clearly inappropriate for the Liturgy. I am uncertain about folk music, as there seems to be some leeway for religious song of that nature.

Since it is easy for me to get distracted by such fascinating topics, I installed a browser add-on that automatically locks me out of sites such as this after a pre-set time limit each day, and I’m almost out of time, so this will be all I can post for today. I look forward to your response.

 

[snowlake]

Thank you for your thorough response. First of all, I completely reject the overarching thesis of deconstructionism, though I suppose it is possible that I may have a tendency towards some elements of it. I have not previously suspected myself of it, and I will have to ponder that further. However, In my defense, I must say that I responded to your initial analysis the way I did because it seemed to me that you too were focusing on the individual parts to the exclusion of a consideration of the whole. I perceived your analysis as this:

1. The music contains some elements that can be found in jazz/pop music
2. Therefore, it is an example of jazz/pop music.

Rather than trying to argue that everything is indiscernible or unclassifiable, I was trying to argue that merely containing these elements is insufficient to label it as jazz/pop. I did say that I didn’t think that it contained a high enough density of these elements to warrant that classification. As well, there are songs that can be clearly identified as jazz/pop, and at least to my ear, this song sounds quite different. I believe it has a very different character . I gave my examples of Bach and Scarlatti actually to argue against a deconstructionist conclusion, namely that even though they have tonic major 7th chords, it would be difficult to argue that they the belonged in the same section in the record store.

I think that the song in question is instead an example of popular (not to be confused with mass market pop) religious song, having its genesis in folk music.

Rock and commercial pop are clearly inappropriate for the Liturgy. I am uncertain about folk music, as there seems to be some leeway for religious song of that nature.

Since it is easy for me to get distracted by such fascinating topics, I installed a browser add-on that automatically locks me out of sites such as this after a pre-set time limit each day, and I’m almost out of time, so this will be all I can post for today. I look forward to your response.

Thanks, PrometheumX. After I posted the response I had to go to my mom’s to help w/ a
huge cleaning out of the garage for two and a half days, and didn’t have time to post another thing that occured to me after I posted it : that you might have just been trying to say that the “jazz/pop” conclusion was incorrect, and that another secular category would be more apt.

I wrote the response because your post was sort of the “straw that broke the camel’s back”. Because your post resembled the reasoning of many objections that are offered
today, (even though that is not what you really meant), it got me to thinking about what
really bothered me about similar objections.

I finally came to the conclusion that many of these arguments follow the line of deconstructionism. Perhaps we misunderstood one another. What I was trying to do,
in an off-hand , impromptu manner, was to show that the perception of a piece of music
as being secular in nature has to do with real features, and is not as entirely subjective and “opinion” based as many claim.

This type of reasoning is applied to many things in order to justify anything.It is often
used to justify things that go against the faith in the many areas of theology.

Many of parishioners that I have met (at least in my area) are so uneducated in music that they are unaware that there are different styles of music to begin with, let alone distinctions between sacred and secular types. To them, if it has “notes”, then it is music, and since “music” has always been used in the Mass, any “music” will do. Music is music is music. Unfortunately, this seems to be the musical level of many priests,
music ministers and , dare I say, Bishops. That is why I tried to show that a particular
song can be shown to have traits that belong to one genre or another.

To me, “On Eagles’ Wings” sounds like James Taylor was the ghost-writer, and I attempted to show why. I tried to show how individual traits, when grouped together, could cause one to have this impression. I probably should have picked a better piece, and should have done a more thorough analysis.

Peace be with you.