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Daniel_Lysinger
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Gregorian chant certainly sounds a whole lot better than the other options - I sing chant every Sunday mass. Of course, I do go to the Latin Mass, so I suppose that would be expected. 
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Monkey1976
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All of the back-and-forth regarding chant has led me to this thought, and Iâd like to know if others agree: Hymns (Haugen, St. Louis Jesuits, etc.) - for lack of a better term - fit words into the structure of the music. Chant fits music into the structure of the words.
For hymns, everything structured around the meter of the music. To emphasize a particular word, it has to be fit into a musical point where there is (or can be) emphasis. If the text doesnât fit the tune, the text must be changed in order to stay within the metered structure. For chant, the core is the text itself. If a particular word or phrase needs to be emphasized, then it is - the music doesnât need to fit a particular beat or meter.
Thatâs why I see the advantage to chant - the core is the text, not the tune.
For hymns, everything structured around the meter of the music. To emphasize a particular word, it has to be fit into a musical point where there is (or can be) emphasis. If the text doesnât fit the tune, the text must be changed in order to stay within the metered structure. For chant, the core is the text itself. If a particular word or phrase needs to be emphasized, then it is - the music doesnât need to fit a particular beat or meter.
Thatâs why I see the advantage to chant - the core is the text, not the tune.
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Daniel_Lysinger
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I agree with you there 
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Sarabande
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I agree with you, but I do think people have always preferred âlow browâ liturgical music. Itâs one of the reasons why new forms of music were brought into the mass throughout the centuries and one of the reasons why the sacred music debate has been going on for centuries. Polyphony was once a low brow form of secular music and early on what they brought into the liturgy with the original ways of singing it before it was rendered appropriately to make it acceptable (and actually more high brow) at mass.
Weâre still in the infant stages with all of this new music. Iâm confident that the Church will put a âsmack-downâ where and when needed as she always had when it came to music through the decades and centuries. The composers and musicians will either refine the music to make it more appropriate for mass, or it will eventually die out all-together. I mean, how often does the 1920s hymn, âMother, At Your Feet is Kneelingâ get played anymore?
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CharlesinCenCA
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Your point is taken.
However, as a composer of sung music, this is an issue about âdeclamationâ of the text. Any good composer worth their salt will always take into account the issues of pronunciation, enunciation, accentuation, stressation (and their opposites), rhythmic value and construct, etc. and all other techniques before releasing a piece into the repertoire. Not all composers, however, do these well or thoroughly.
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Sarabande
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Monkey1976
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Very true. Palestrina, Mozart, Bach - they all did this very well. The question then becomes why weâre allowing substandard compositions into our liturgy.
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gspmcc1
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Speaking as a professional organist with a Masterâs degree in organ performance, one of the major problems is that most Catholic churches simply do not pay as well as Protestant churches! I could never live on a salary like that.
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Phemie
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And there you have it folks.
I have found it very upsetting that in my own parish there is the expectation that any parishioner with an expertise in anything will do any work in that field for nothing. So an electrician should volunteer his time to do all the electrical work, an accountant should volunteer to do the parishâs books, and quite obviously any musician worth his salt will donate playing. Now if said experts wish to do so, more power to them, but the idea that itâs OK to go ask someone to put in hours and hours of work for nothing really rankles.
And just to be clear, Iâm on the finance committee and Iâm not an expert in anything that would help the parish.
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Cat
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Our ancestorsâand when I say that, Iâm referring to the ancestors who lived a few generations agoâworked hard together to pay, through their weekly offerings, for organs for their parishes and churches. That is something that many of us are suggesting on this threadâthat once again, the parish members work TOGETHER to come up with practical solutions to the musical needs of the parish.
I donât agree that many families in the U.S. had organs in their homes. They may have had simple pump organs, and in more modern days, the âfunâ organs. These organs donât have a peddle board, and many only had one manual and very few stops. They could be used to play hymns and other pieces, but the pieces would not sound like the large church pipe organs that many people on CAF think of when they think of âorgan.â
These instruments were used in the homes for secular music as well as sacred musicâand that makes me wonder if the simple pump organ that people had in their homes would have been considered âsecularâ by Catholic authorities back then, and therefore never allowed in the church.
I also think that your comment about âsupposedly lower-IQ ancestorsâ is incorrect. Do you know of studies that indicate that our ancestors (a few generations ago) had lower IQs than us? I highly doubt that, as many of the greatest inventions, works of literature and art, and many other innovations were conceived by people who lived then.
Our ancestors were as intelligent as we are, but they lived in a different time when playing the organ was something that more people did and were able to do. Itâs hardly realistic to say that because they did it, we should do it.
I beg of you not to denigrate the beautiful song, âYou Are Mineâ by David Haas. This song was my daughterâs choice for her wedding five years ago, for reasons that I will not discuss on this forum, but it has to do with trusting that her husband will always care for her just as God always cares for us. The song has a lovely, flowing, soaring melodyâI donât understand how you can possibly consider it âscreechyâ unless the people you have heard sing it are singing it with a bad intonation. And the words are very meaningful to many of us, even if they are not meaningful to you.
As a professional pianist who has worked with many singers, choirs, etc., under many directors, I disagree with your statement that Gregorian chant is not overly-difficult. I think that considering the state of music education over the last several decades, Gregorian chant is quite difficult for most people, since most people do not read music (or neumes) and most people have never been taught proper singing techniques.
Gregorian chant does NOT sound beautiful when it sung through the nose, or off-pitch, or scooping from neume to neume. If you want to do Gregorian chant incorrectly, with poor vocal technique, and guessing at the pitchesâwell, I agree, thatâs easy. Any music is easy when itâs done incorrectly.
Call me a snob, but I think that if we are going to do Gregorian chant in the Mass, it had better be done with excellence, not poorly just for the sake of doing Gregorian chant. Of course, some Catholics might say that poorly-done Gregorian chant is better than well-done Haugen and Haas. I disagree.
Exactly.
There are people who have the free time and desire to volunteer their expertise to their parish and I think they can and should do so. **
But parishioners have a responsibility to use their time and talents on their own families before they spend that time and talent on the parish as a whole. That is part of the principle of subsidiarity. **There are parishioners who sin against their own families by doing things for their parish for free when they should be earning money for their family or spending time on and/or with their family.
The families of musicians, parish employees, and married clergy typically have to live without their loved one(s) on the days when other families get to spend time together. Parishes need to be careful what they ask of the spouses and children of parishioners with desirable talents.
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Elizium23
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You can argue all you want about the quality of a certain type of music and its difficulty to sing and the assemblyâs taste and whether or not they want to sing, but at the end of the day, these are insignificant things in comparison to the preferences of the Church. Read the documents and you will see: Organ. Gregorian chant. Sacred polyphony. Pride of place.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Church has been ignoring these preferences for decades, and the least-preferred choices are now firmly ingrained in Catholic culture. Priests and bishops in particular have been lax about it, allowing OCP/GIA/WLP to not merely gain a foothold in the industry, but to flourish, to (using a term from the software industry) âembrace, extend, and extinguishâ sacred music until it is something unrecognizable.
The particularly difficult problems are illicit settings of Mass parts and songs with obvious theological ambiguities or errors. Publishers should never have been able to get away with these things: parishes use them often in good faith, because they invested in a particular publishing house or hymnal, and suddenly one day they select a piece, and itâs completely unsuitable for Catholic liturgy. THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN IF WE USED THE PROPER ANTIPHONS IN THE FIRST PLACE. It would not happen if we used time-honored traditional music. Unfortunately, proper antiphons and time-honored traditional music do not command huge license fees. Unless they are significantly tampered with, they canât even be copyrighted by the publishers who want to resell them for big bucks. Therefore, it is in the best interest of OCP/GIA/WLP to push new material, to sell their in-house creations, and to treat the other stuff like an afterthought, an unpopular option.
The likes of Corpus Christi Watershed and Illuminare Publications are fledgling businesses, and nobody there is getting rich from licensing original material. They are selling a distinctly different kind of product. Much in their repertoires of chant is public domain, or Creative Commons licensed, and they make money by editing and printing hymnals and missals and selling the result. So itâs quite a different business model than the juggernaut houses that rule the industry right now. Itâs also faithful to the preferences of the Church. Iâm glad that my bishop, for one, has taken great initiative to turn the tide and sing the Mass as the Church always intended it to be.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Church has been ignoring these preferences for decades, and the least-preferred choices are now firmly ingrained in Catholic culture. Priests and bishops in particular have been lax about it, allowing OCP/GIA/WLP to not merely gain a foothold in the industry, but to flourish, to (using a term from the software industry) âembrace, extend, and extinguishâ sacred music until it is something unrecognizable.
The particularly difficult problems are illicit settings of Mass parts and songs with obvious theological ambiguities or errors. Publishers should never have been able to get away with these things: parishes use them often in good faith, because they invested in a particular publishing house or hymnal, and suddenly one day they select a piece, and itâs completely unsuitable for Catholic liturgy. THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN IF WE USED THE PROPER ANTIPHONS IN THE FIRST PLACE. It would not happen if we used time-honored traditional music. Unfortunately, proper antiphons and time-honored traditional music do not command huge license fees. Unless they are significantly tampered with, they canât even be copyrighted by the publishers who want to resell them for big bucks. Therefore, it is in the best interest of OCP/GIA/WLP to push new material, to sell their in-house creations, and to treat the other stuff like an afterthought, an unpopular option.
The likes of Corpus Christi Watershed and Illuminare Publications are fledgling businesses, and nobody there is getting rich from licensing original material. They are selling a distinctly different kind of product. Much in their repertoires of chant is public domain, or Creative Commons licensed, and they make money by editing and printing hymnals and missals and selling the result. So itâs quite a different business model than the juggernaut houses that rule the industry right now. Itâs also faithful to the preferences of the Church. Iâm glad that my bishop, for one, has taken great initiative to turn the tide and sing the Mass as the Church always intended it to be.
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Elizium23
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âDo Not Be Afraidâ is a horrible, insipid song. It is one of the worst and I am still forced to sing it here on occasion. It canât die fast enough. Other than the disgusting, saccharine melody it has two lyrical problems: It breaks right into âFirst person Iâ personifying, ostensibly, the Lord without so much as a âThus Says The LORD:â preamble. And it doesnât mention God by name, ever. No Jesus or Holy Spirit. We are supposed to interpret for ourselves that this is God Himself speaking. Frankly it feels like a sickly sweet love song masquerading as sacred music.
As a man, I feel emasculated by singing this piece. (But thatâs a subject for the other thread over there )
To me it is like a ready-made advertisement for the proper antiphons: âWhy sing THIS when you could be chanting THIS?â
As a man, I feel emasculated by singing this piece. (But thatâs a subject for the other thread over there
)To me it is like a ready-made advertisement for the proper antiphons: âWhy sing THIS when you could be chanting THIS?â
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agapewolf
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There are many communion antiphons that are from Godâs perspective, without saying âthus says the LordââDo Not Be Afraidâ is a horrible, insipid song. It is one of the worst and I am still forced to sing it here on occasion. It canât die fast enough. Other than the disgusting, saccharine melody it has two lyrical problems: It breaks right into âFirst person Iâ personifying, ostensibly, the Lord without so much as a âThus Says The LORD:â preamble. And it doesnât mention God by name, ever. No Jesus or Holy Spirit. We are supposed to interpret for ourselves that this is God Himself speaking. Frankly it feels like a sickly sweet love song masquerading as sacred music.
As a man, I feel emasculated by singing this piece. (But thatâs a subject for the other thread over there
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Monkey1976
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True, but those are generally a specific quotation from Scripture, not a mishmash of 3 or 4 disconnected verses lumped into a single imaginary locution. Iâve got no problem with hymns or antiphons quoting Scripture that is directly quoting God, but Iâm a little iffy about putting words in His Mouth.
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aemcpa
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If I recall correctly, this was one of Pius Xâs main arguments when he restored Gregorian chant.
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pprn
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I was drawn to the Newman Center at my university because of the guitars, violins and other folk instruments. The song choices âfitâ with those particular instruments and were joyful, spiritual and not drab, as the organ can be some times. I come from a Latin background and in small parishes from which I attended as a youth, guitars were a large part of the music team. In fact, if one looks around the world, many small communities do not have organs. Instead they have portable instruments which are easy to carry to Mass.
The Bible tells us to praise God with all types of instruments,all types of voices. We need to encourage participation and include singing which in so many parishes does not happen. The choir sings songs that are beautiful but non-inclusive. With folk instruments it is much easier to sing along because the tunes are usually simpler.
That is my two cents!
The Bible tells us to praise God with all types of instruments,all types of voices. We need to encourage participation and include singing which in so many parishes does not happen. The choir sings songs that are beautiful but non-inclusive. With folk instruments it is much easier to sing along because the tunes are usually simpler.
That is my two cents!
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Cat
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Elizium23, if you canât do it, you canât do it. You canât get blood out of stones.
If there are no organists, there will be no playing of the organ during Mass.
If no one knows how to properly read and sing Gregorian chant, there will be no Gregorian chant during Mass.
And sacred polyphonyâyou have to be kidding?!
When people do not read music, they canât do sacred polyphony. Perhaps some of the country singers in the congregation would be able to improvise, because many of them can harmonize without music. But is that really the best way to do Bach or Palestrina?!So are you saying that since we canât do these things, the Masses should be devoid of all music, and reduced to merely reading the antiphons?
What ARE you saying?
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Sarabande
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Actually, I know of a few parishes in my area where mostly all of the volunteer choir members donât read music, but they sing sacred polyphony⌠and they actually do it pretty darn well. No, they donât sound like the Tallis Scholars, but it sounds beautiful and they are very much appreciated by the parishioners. I belonged to one such choir back in college. My husband and I were two of the very few who read music in that choir and we were so impressed by the dedication and commitment that this 30+ choir gave to learning this music in one two-hour rehearsal a week and an hour before mass. The same choir sang Palestrina, Mozart, Byrd and Faure, as well as chant at our nuptial mass.And sacred polyphonyâyou have to be kidding?!
Granted, the biggest obstacle is getting a music director who is committed and talented enough to teach these people the notes and to help them sing it with the right dynamics, rhythms, etc. But like with organists, you have to pay the music director (usually an organist or pianist anyway) a decent salary, and that is where you will have the problems. The good thing is that there are many more people who have training and experience in classical sacred vocal music and I think you would have an easier time finding people who can teach it. You can probably find enthusiastic younger vocal music majors or vocal conducting majors who would be very interested in doing this at their local parishes just for the experience and to promote this kind of music. On top of that, itâs almost always a capella, so if a church really canât afford to fix their organ or just doesnât have an organ, it can be made to work.
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