Musical Instruments in Mass

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What’s with all the pianos lately? I recall they were not allowed in worship not very long ago, right? Why are so many churches using them now instead of organs? Cost? Current taste in music?
 
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We have several instruments used at the 5 pm Sunday Mass, but all the other Masses, the organ is the most used instrument. I don’t mind the pianos; so long as you remember, that, in the west, organ and Gregorian chant is supposed to take place of prominence.
 
Same feeling here! It’s just that many parishes in my diocese don’t seem to have an organ, or at least not one in use.
 
Traditionally, stringed instruments — of which the piano is one — were not used in Catholic churches. The idea was that the organ more closely resembled the human voice, which is the “instrument” par excellence, in that it used air being vibrated (“vox humana”).

Personally, I find pianos and guitars in church to be jarring, and much prefer the organ, but on the other hand, the Judica me from Traditional Latin Mass contains the verse from Psalm 42, “Confitebor tibi in cithara, Deus, Deus meus” — “I shall yet praise Thee upon the harp, O God, my God”.
 
Pianos are inexpensive and have been used in worship for at least 5 decades as I remember them used when I was a child.

The past objection to pianos was on the basis of them, at an earlier point in history, being associated with light entertainment, as were a host of other instruments now used in worship today. We no longer have this association in today’s society.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
Traditionally, stringed instruments — of which the piano is one — were not used in Catholic churches. The idea was that the organ more closely resembled the human voice, which is the “instrument” par excellence, in that it used air being vibrated (“ vox humana ”).

Personally, I find pianos and guitars in church to be jarring, and much prefer the organ, but on the other hand, the Judica me from Traditional Latin Mass contains the verse from Psalm 42, “ Confitebor tibi in cithara, Deus, Deus meus ” — “I shall yet praise Thee upon the harp, O God, my God”.
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I agree fully. And I’m someone that loves the piano and can play. I just find the piano in a liturgical setting to be really jarring. The organ seems to be much more appropriate for myriad reasons (of course, I’m an organist, so I’m probably a little biased). I do think the argument that the organ most closely resembles (and can best accompany) the human voice holds up.

Some stringed instruments are quite nice for the Liturgy, particularly the bowed instruments. Popes in the early 20th century said as much. And as someone who has been to a Mass in which the harp has been used, that can be quite nice as well.

It’s funny that you bring up Psalm 42. I have both Protestant and some Catholic friends that use that as a justification for guitars at Mass. Of course, there’s the question of antiquarianism which I won’t get into. But I mean, how do we get guitar out of harp? If we’re going to be biblical literalists about it, why don’t we advocate for the harp, not the guitar?
 
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Autoharp!
Or Jews harp (is it still okay to call it a Jews harp?)

The harmonica is also called a mouth harp…but I won’t go there even though I am sure the great classical harmonica virtuosos like John Sebastian Senior could do wondrous things with it.
 
I am a big piano lover and have never really cared for them in mass. I do not think it is, in general, a great instrument to accompany a choir. Around here, I would guess pianos are used twice as much as organs. Perhaps one of the reasons why is that good organists are rarer and rarer as time goes on.

I will say this much, I do prefer a piano to guitars in mass, by a long shot.

The organ, per Vatican II, is supposed to be the primary instrument used. Like a lot of Vatican II, that got ignored by those folks espounding “the spirit of Vatican II”. It will come back.
 
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As an organist, you must know the answer, but a question that has often occurred to me in this context is how much it costs to keep an average-size two- or three-manual organ in full working order, year after year. Whatever it is, I would guess it’s a cost a cathedral could afford easily enough, but maybe not the typical parish church, particularly now that congregations are shrinking.
 
The initial cost is undoubtedly high. But I do not believe ongoing maintenance would be so much. It would not surprise me if in a typical year, it would be less than the cost of keeping a grand piano in top shape. I think our parish gets it tuned twice a year. That’s not much, but a pipe organ might not need that (I could be wrong, I am guessing).
 
Sometimes it is not the cost. In my church, the piano and a large set of drums stand next to the organ. I have not witnessed the use of the drums (mercifully) and rarely the organ. The organist plays the piano at most occassions.
 
Part of the aspect of the cost is also that more people can have a piano at home. That means it’s much more common to be able to get a trained pianist (or maybe even 2 or 3) than a trained organist.
 
The odds are, he/she is a trained pianists and is not a trained organists. I think this is often the cause of the problem. My grandmother was an organist and pianists, I remember her talking about how they are really different instruments.
 
Yes, the two instruments are different.
No, the organist has no difficulty playing the organ. I have heard her play.
 
Organs do require maintenance and pipe organs require specialized maintenance as no two instruments are the same. It is quite expensive and in some communities, it’s hard to even find anyone that can do the work. Piano tuning and repair is cheap and easy by comparison. It’s also increasingly more difficult to find anyone who can play the organ. Most music stores offer piano lessons, but organ teachers are rare and its hard to find an instrument for a student to practice on.
 
When I listen at home to instrumental music, I find that I do not usually care for pieces in which the piano dominates.

And I was somewhat disheartened when my church got a piano in addition to the organ.

As time went by, however, I realized that certain pieces just simply sound better on a piano than they do on an organ. I don’t recall which songs, nor would I know enough about music to explain why. They just do. At least, to my sensibilities.
 
I like strings better (not guitar), but they are not appropriate for Mass. Plus it takes a lot of work and the instruments are expensive and more personal than a keyboard instrument.
 
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At least at my Novus Ordo parish, I would desperately prefer a piano to the guitars, endlessly high-pitched flute that encourages similarly high singing, and actual bongo drums that we usually have!

But yeah, generally, not the most orthodox of instruments for mass, the piano.
 
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