Should the guitar be played in mass?

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I really dont like going to mass that has contemperary stile music. Will this be adressed in the new mass?
 
What new Mass? 🙂 The Mass remains what it was, in the age of ages. Our use of musical instruments in the holy sacrifice of the Mass is a passing phase. What are four hundred years compared to sixteen hundred? We didn’t need any instruments at all in worship until around Palestrina’s time, and now they’ve infected every Mass, Service, and Liturgy in the West. It may take hundreds of years for us to shift away from musical instruments, and some may be invented specifically to be used at Mass.

The human experience is such a rich, varied, and beautiful one… 😃 It’s hard to predict what anything will do in 1, 10, or 100 years! Anyway, all actually-existing things are good because The Good made them, Who is God. Even cancer cells are ontologically good. A thing is bad or good depending on the situation. As the acoustic guitar and its ancestors were entirely associated with bawdy songs, peasant dances, and other lewd music thousands of years before the 1960’s, we who hear guitars in Mass today have that conception in our memories. What if, 300 years from now, classical wooden guitars have disappeared from popular interest and the world listens to pop music based entirely on electronics? The acoustic guitar, then, would be a ‘forgotten relic’ of that silly, old, dusty conservative “Catholicism”! 😛
 
I don’t have a problem with guitar music at Mass per se. Guitar music can be extraordinarily beautiful and inspiring. But I’m not a fan of whangalang faux folk songs from the 1970s accompanied by a guitarist.

Strange to tell, one of the regular forms of music at one of my parishes (I have two, for ancestral reasons) is the hammer dulcimer (no kidding) played by a convert; a daughter of a Baptist preacher. Maybe I’m too “hill folk”, but I think it’s extraordinarily beautiful, and I just don’t think a reasonable person can hate this.

youtube.com/watch?v=htc7tymi-2A&feature=related

I think it depends on how good the musician is and what the selections are.
 
I have to say I perfer the organ and Gregorian Chant. I dislike a great deal of the contemporary music, but I know that some can relate to it better than the “Traditional Music.”

So I just avoid the Masses with contemporary music and go to the Traditional Masses.

Little One0307
 
Our children’s Mass has guitar music and clapping. The kids love it. I am not all that fond of it.
 
I personally can’t stand the guitar at mass! Most my life I attended Spanish guitar/folk mass and never enjoyed the music, although I give credit to using what they have and some music was good for worship, but majority just seemed out of place. In my experience one thing leads to another. First guitar, then electric, then Bass guitar, then bongo drums, and then some other innovation. Where does it stop? The eclectic Bass guitar is a secular instrument, in the Hispanic community it’s commonly used for “corridos”. That’s Spanish term for music that sings about/encourages drug trafficking and violence. I personally don’t see why we need instruments at mass, perhaps the pipe organ if played by professional. The Eastern Catholics seem to manage just fine without them!
On a personal note I have nothing against musical instruments and I very much enjoy music with the guitar, and wish I could play, but in saying so I feel they don’t belong at mass. They are also popular in secular music.
 
Another thing I notice with musical instrument choir is that many perform at or near the altar. Why? Most Churches still have the upper blalcony, why the need to place them in front? The mass is not a performance. I know there are some modern buidlings that don’t allow this, but I am speaking about the ones that do.
 
Precisely why I’m fighting to get the 1962 Mass celebrated closer to home. I really get tired a these small performances at the OF parish.
 
Credo_in_Deum said:
I personally dont hate either the guitar or the hammer dulcimer, however, I also dont think they should be played during Mass especially not when we can have a choir do Gregorian Chant.

youtube.com/watch?v=d6S1GEh_xOw

Once again just my opinion
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Beautiful! But that’s a mighty good choir, and a big one too; a lot better than most parishes can muster. Sometimes parishes can only get virtuosity on a small scale.

By the way, I also like Byzantine hymns. How’s this? youtube.com/watch?v=-ndfJiyismM

A smaller (but reasonably good) choir could handle that.
 
corsair said:
Precisely why I’m fighting to get the 1962 Mass celebrated closer to home. I really get tired a these small performances at the OF parish.
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You and me both, hence why I don’t attend mass at my territorial parish. I’ve spoken to the priest about having the EF, but was not too happy about it lol. Luckily the one I go to is only 20 min away.
 
archangel04 said:
I personally can’t stand the guitar at mass! Most my life I attended Spanish guitar/folk mass and never enjoyed the music, although I give credit to using what they have and some music was good for worship, but majority just seemed out of place. In my experience one thing leads to another. First guitar, then electric, then Bass guitar, then bongo drums, and then some other innovation. Where does it stop? The eclectic Bass guitar is a secular instrument, in the Hispanic community it’s commonly used for “corridos”. That’s Spanish term for music that sings about/encourages drug trafficking and violence. I personally don’t see why we need instruments at mass, perhaps the pipe organ if played by professional. The Eastern Catholics seem to manage just fine without them!
On a personal note I have nothing against musical instruments and I very much enjoy music with the guitar, and wish I could play, but in saying so I feel they don’t belong at mass. They are also popular in secular music.
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I have heard a very few good Spanish guitar performances at Mass, but mostly it’s pretty hard to take.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I have heard a very few good Spanish guitar performances at Mass, but mostly it’s pretty hard to take.
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I rememeber when I was a lot younger some of the songs where really good, it seemed to be a mix of chant with guitar, and it seemed good, but as time wen’t by the music became so loud with a lot of rythm to the point where you felt like moving your hips, and dancing seemed more appropirate then to sing lol this did not help me because as a Latino I love to dance lol.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Beautiful! But that’s a mighty good choir, and a big one too; a lot better than most parishes can muster. Sometimes parishes can only get virtuosity on a small scale.
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Thats the beautiful thing about Gregorian Chant is you dont need a big choir for it. In fact you can have amazing Chant like that from just one guy 🙂

I could personally listen to this guy all day and would rather pick him over a guitar.

youtu.be/Wf1td_BJLDQ
Ridgerunner said:
By the way, I also like Byzantine hymns. How’s this? youtube.com/watch?v=-ndfJiyismM

A smaller (but reasonably good) choir could handle that.
Click to expand...
Very beautiful link and music indeed. Thank you for sharing it.
 
1 Corinthians 10:23 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor."

Guitars are permitted, but remain worldly, and this is what the Church has been suffering from over the past decades. Chant is purpose-driven. It is focused. There is no secular use of it. It cannot accomplish anything but to praise and glorify God.

If there is a choice…
 
po18guy said:
1 Corinthians 10:23 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor."

Guitars are permitted, but remain worldly, and this is what the Church has been suffering from over the past decades. Chant is purpose-driven. It is focused. There is no secular use of it. It cannot accomplish anything but to praise and glorify God.

If there is a choice…
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Bolded is mine. I am not to sure of that, chant style has been used for secular music, and IMO it sounds really good lol. youtube.com/watch?v=iOkHpVVAFEQ

But I see what you are trying to say. Also Gregorian chant from its origins was made for the worship of the Lord, that is something that other music in modern time does not have.
 
If you attend Mass in Brazil they commonly use acoustic guitar along with flute and sometimes other instruments and it is quite nice and reverent. It isn’t the instruments that make the music work or not work, it is the choice of song and the approach that is taken. My understanding is that many Diocese will actually be controlling music more closely for the implementation of the new Missal starting this advent, at least at the beginning.
 
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