Music at mass?

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Margarite

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I would like to know what everyone’s favorite type of music at mass is. Do you like Eagle’s Wings, Ave Maria, Gentle Woman, or Cumbya (forgive the spelling if it is wrong):rolleyes: ? What type of instruments? Do you like organ, piano, drums, or guitar? Where do you like the choir? What type of congregation involvement do you like? Do you like the cantor to sing for you or with you?
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Please note that the above lists are not limiting I am just giving examples. After a while I will give my opinion. I hope it did not show in these questions.:confused:

May Mary keep her mantle around you and protect you always.
 
I like all types of music well enough, so I went with middle-of-the-road because its in the middle.

You consider On Eagle’s Wings liberal? Or am I thinking of a different song?

I’m thinking of the one where the refrain is like “And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn…”

Not trying to disrespect your opinions, just wondering about your reasoning.
 
I like traditional & middle of the road – although my middle of the road doesn’t include anything by Carey Landry including ‘Gentle Woman’.

I prefer organ for traditional hymns, but for recent ones I prefer the piano since that’s what most of them were composed for. I would prefer to never again hear a guitar strummed at Mass and although I love percussion I don’t think it has a place at Mass.

My ideal ‘cantor’ sings the psalm. That’s it. No flapping arms directing traffic, no ‘please open your hymnal…’ – there should be a hymn board or order of service for that – and please, no invitation to sing. If it’s on the hymnboard I’ll sing if it’s within my capacity to do so.

My last experience of a choir in a loft dates back to the mid 70s. I’d like to hear them from there again. The sound was nicer. It wouldn’t stop me from joining in as a member of the congregation if that were called for.
 
Margarite said:
After a while I will give my opinion. I hope it did not show in these questions.:confused:
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I suspect that many will take your inclusion of “Kumbayah” as a bit of a give-away. 😉

(And there’s another big give-away on another thread. 😉 😛 )

(A song which, BTW, I hear a lot of people complaining about and which I have yet to hear at Mass or anywhere in fact other than by a campfire and I’m not that young. Maybe I’m just lucky.)

I’m having trouble answering your poll. How many hundreds of Ave Maria and Salve Regina settings are out there? Some I like, some I don’t and in any case it depends on whether they are used appropriately. Marian music is not appropriate in some places in the Mass. I also have trouble thinking of Immaculate Mary and Gentle Woman as being in the same category, if I’m thinking of the same hymns you are … although the Immaculate Mary words are simple and straightforward and in English so perhaps I can see what you’re getting at.

I always have trouble answering questions about what I “like” because for me it always comes down to how something - be it a colour, a food, a type of cloth, a style of music or an instrument - is used in a given context. In many cases I can’t separate the two. I would not, to give an extreme example, “like” Mass music that I might personally prefer if it is used to beat a congregation unused to it over the head in a spirit of “correcting all error overnight” by a zealous music director.
 
Guitar said:
I suspect that many will take your inclusion of “Kumbayah” as a bit of a give-away. 😉

(A song which, BTW, I hear a lot of people complaining about and which I have yet to hear at Mass or anywhere in fact other than by a campfire and I’m not that young. Maybe I’m just lucky.)
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Guess you’re just lucky, I’ve heard “Someone’s Hungry Lord” more times than I care to remember, although, praise God, not in the past 5 years.
 
Phemie said:
Guess you’re just lucky, I’ve heard “Someone’s Hungry Lord” more times than I care to remember, although, praise God, not in the past 5 years.
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And I don’t live in North America - maybe that helps too!
 
Why does it have to be one of the three music genres? All churches I have been to actually take material from the three options above at different times of the year. Music is not a one-size fits all matter.
 
Margarite said:
Where do you like the choir?
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Again, another “it depends” answer, based on the acoustics of the building. (It has been said that the most important stop on the organ is the building!)

On the cantor question, I’d rather sing myself, with the exception of the tropes and psalm verses that belong to the cantor. (But bear in mind that 98% of the time I am the cantor, so my reply might not be typical.) I thoroughly agree with Phemie regarding cantors’ “traffic directions”. I know where to sing and how to open a book, thanks, I took my thumb out of my mouth on a permanent basis about forty years ago. 😃
 
Guitar said:
And I don’t live in North America - maybe that helps too!
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I do live in North America, I’m in my late 50s, have attended many many guitar Masses, and I’ve still never heard Kumbaya at Mass.

I did, however, hear Immaculate Mary at a TLM on New Year’s Day, and it wasn’t very good. That’s an easy song to turn into a bad song. Hit that second note good and hard…Im MAC u LATe MA ry, Your PRAIses we sing. It’s been in my head that way since 1958. The people sang that as the processional and Hark the Herald Angels as the recessional. The entire rest of the Mass was chanted by the choir. A girl sang Schubert’s Ave Maria at communion too. Being me, and since they gave me the Latin words and I’ve been chanting since 1st grade, I sang anyway. A couple old ladies around me picked up after a while, but in general, this was a choir thing. I felt like a spectator. I guess things have changed, but I was taught that Schubert didn’t belong at Mass.

I don’t like lifting my arm to invite the people to sing either. Most people barley lift this limp paw as inconspicuously as possible, only to look uncommitted. The parish where I sing does a mix of all kinds of songs…oldies, contemporary, the occassional patriotic or gospel (Soon and very soon, we’re going to see the King). Maybe I like it because I’m used to it, but it does work for me. Except Lord of the Dance, may it be banished from all hymnals everywhere!
 
daeve said:
I do live in North America, I’m in my late 50s, have attended many many guitar Masses, and I’ve still never heard Kumbaya at Mass.

You’ve never heard this?? Lucky you.

Someone’s hungry Lord,
Come to him (or Kum by ya, depending on the parish)
Someone’s hungry Lord,
Come to him,
Someone’s hungy Lord,
Come to him,’
O Lor-ord come to him.

Now, repeat with homeless, crying, lonely,

I did, however, hear Immaculate Mary at a TLM on New Year’s Day, and it wasn’t very good. That’s an easy song to turn into a bad song. Hit that second note good and hard…Im MAC u LATe MA ry, Your PRAIses we sing. It’s been in my head that way since 1958.

Now CUT THAT OUT! I’ll have that in my head from now on. 🙂 I learned that in French and it was never sung that way.
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daeve said:
I did, however, hear Immaculate Mary at a TLM on New Year’s Day, and it wasn’t very good. That’s an easy song to turn into a bad song. Hit that second note good and hard…Im MAC u LATe MA ry, Your PRAIses we sing. It’s been in my head that way since 1958.

A girl sang Schubert’s Ave Maria at communion too. Being me, and since they gave me the Latin words and I’ve been chanting since 1st grade, I sang anyway. A couple old ladies around me picked up after a while, but in general, this was a choir thing. I felt like a spectator. I guess things have changed, but I was taught that Schubert didn’t belong at Mass.
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To be honest, you would swear that every single well-known congregational Marian hymn in my neck of the woods (none contemporary, BTW, aside from Gentle Woman) was written with the sole intent of ensuring it would be sung badly, either bawled and bellowed or sounding like a tune for a dancing bear. Honestly, one tune for Mother of Mercy (19th or early 20th c.) is a dead-ringer for a merry-go-round steam organ waltz … just laughable … except it’s too painful to be funny.

Your Schubert is a classic example of why I hedged my bets in my responses above. Sarabande and I have written about this on other threads (she from a greater level of expertise than I) - it is lieder, was written as a performance/recital piece, not a liturgical piece, and the original words were not the Hail Mary and were in German, which language (unsurprisingly) suits the melody best. To me the melody and Latin will always sound like a forced marriage and piece will always seem rather out of place in church. Especially at communion! None of that has anything to do with whether I “like” it or whether it’s “good music” but even if I did like it, I can’t “like” it at Mass when I feel it is being misapplied.
 
Personally I prefer the more traditional music/hymns at Mass. In my parish, the organ is in the back of the church (in a loft) and the organist is the only singer (except for Christmas and sometimes Easter). There is one later Mass on Sunday mornings with a folk group, but I prefer to go to the earlier Mass with the organist - that’s just my opinion, though.
 
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Phemie:
I didn’t mean I’ve never heard Kumbaya. I was a Girl Scout! I meant I never heard it at Mass. I never heard a lot of the songs mentioned here. I did, however, attend a Mass back in about 1966 or 1967, where bread and wine were replaced with potato chips and Coke. And yes, that priest got in trouble. A different priest took over the CYC after that. That’s about when I stopped going too.
 
daeve said:
I did, however, hear Immaculate Mary at a TLM on New Year’s Day, and it wasn’t very good. That’s an easy song to turn into a bad song. Hit that second note good and hard…Im MAC u LATe MA ry, Your PRAIses we sing. It’s been in my head that way since 1958.
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Shouldn’t it be “Your PRAIses WE-hee sing”? And “AHH-ve, AHH-ve, AHH-ve Mah-REEEE-ya”? 😉

(I’m not fond of that hymn for the same reason. It was taught badly to me and most of my acquaintance, and thus every congregation sings it as demonstrated above.)
 
I would prefer no music at more masses. I have been to Masses where there is no music and it was better than the five singers being drowned out by a pipe organ.
 
SeekerJen said:
Shouldn’t it be “Your PRAIses WE-hee sing”? And “AHH-ve, AHH-ve, AHH-ve Mah-REEEE-ya”? 😉

(I’m not fond of that hymn for the same reason. It was taught badly to me and most of my acquaintance, and thus every congregation sings it as demonstrated above.)
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As a matter of fact, on the drive home last night I realized I was thinking in the wrote time signature. And just to end the quote, “Ma REE EE EE a”.
 
Depends on what you mean by “traditional” and “middle of the road.” If by traditional you mean Latin hymns, then I would prefer middle of the road, but as “traditional” middle of the road as possible. I don’t necessarily have a problem with other types as long as they have good theology though.
 
Sorry for the confusion. I was trying to come up with the options and I just couldn’t find the right ones. Is there any way for me to change the poll? or add another poll?:o :confused:

-For traditional I would say it means Latin

-For middle of the road I would say songs like Faith of Our Fathers, Sing of Mary, O Lord I am not Worthy, Come Holy Ghost…

-For liberal I would say On Eagle Wings, Amazing Grace, Here I am Lord, Let There be Peace on Earth, Gift of Finest Wheat, I am the Bread of Life…

Also if you want you can write that you are a mid-trad or a mid-lib.🤷

Now if anyone looked at any of my other posts you will know that I am a trad/mid-trad.😉
 
All music at mass is good, so long as it worships God.I don’t understand why some people make a fuss about ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ and argumentative stuff like that.:cool: At the moment my favourite hymns are ‘Fairest Lord Jesus’ and ‘When the roll is called up yonder’ and ‘Ding dong merrily on high’ (even though thats for Christmas.)
 
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