Tambourine At Mass?

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I love weekday Mass. 😃

No noise, and the people attending are there for the right reason, not just going through the motions.

On Sunday, give me plainchant and polyphony.

If I want to hear a band, I’ll go to a bar.
 
I_Believe said:
I love weekday Mass. 😃

No noise, and the people attending are there for the right reason, not just going through the motions.

On Sunday, give me plainchant and polyphony.

If I want to hear a band, I’ll go to a bar.
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I like your signature line!

Dominicans can get the job done.

Too bad the Jesuits did not.

(all in fun, please do not flame me for that, but prayerfully consider my words)
😃
 
At the Easter Vigil the choir was accompanied by the organ and the flute and also the clarinet. Now, the flute sounded really nice and I am not just prejuduced since I played it in school, but it really did add to the moment. The clarinet was a little iffy and squealy…

…but I just cannot get my brain around a tambourine at Mass. It just doesn’t work for me.

IMO…there is just something special about the sound of an organ at Mass.

:heart:Blyss
 
m134e5 said:
There are notes that all 4 voice categories can sing (from about the Bb below middle C to the D an octave and a third above it). It shouldn’t be difficult to transpose the music into a key that all the notes fit within everybody’s range. I can’t think of any hymns that are too high (then again I can sing pretty high- I’m a tenor), but I know a good number of them that are too low…and they are all post-1965 hymns. It would be nice if composers of church music would stick to normal voice ranges, and realize that not everyone is a professional singer- and those who are may not be able to sing the part they are writing for (at least not without being loud and sounding like they are showing off).
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Our church organ has a switch which allows you switch the tuning above or below A440. Our organist, just at this one Mass, switches to one step above A440.

Anyway, our parish is very small, so having anyone willing to play, which she does for free, is a blessing, even if the singing is left up to her and the choir.

Jim
 
maciejk60 said:
Dear ltbpoe43,

Might I respectively suggest that the music, for that matter, the entire celebration of the Mass, is not for us to be entertained. It is for the Thanksgiving and Adoration of GOD.

All my life I loved folk music and guitar music, just not in church.

God Bless

Matt
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I am in complete agreement with you maciejk60. Everything in the liturgy, including music, is focused on the eucharistic celebration. And my term “moving music” was meant to convey adoration for worship not entertainment. The power of one voice and classical guitar picking “Come to the table, all who are able, come to the table, of the Lord…” is very powerful, very reverent, and focused on the purpose of the celebration and adoration. Thanks.
 
Psalm 150

1 Praise the LORD. [a]
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.

2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.

3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,

4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,

5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.

6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.

Dear me. Not just tambourines, but trumpet, harp, lyre, dancing, strings, flute, cymbals. According to Hellisreal, the psalmist must have been Protestant 😉
 
Potato1 said:
I like some rap, country, heavy metal and even a little polka. and some of these songs can praise God so should they be at Mass. You see, a tamborine and the music it brings with it envoke a pain in my head such as a electric guitar and an incomprihensible primordial scream would for you. Everyone has thier own tastes so maybe the Church should be uniform and consistent, ya know like the Church claims to be. While music is a matter of taste and we can praise God with all kinds. A reverence and historical Tradition should be held at Mass so that we may not get caught up in some Fad that a few people may enjoy… Lets not have the priest say peace out yo or the processional to disco out. Lets have some respect for ancient timeless music that adds to the mass and is practiced uniformly.
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Good Morning All,

I posted a reply yesterday and based on the comments I received may have been unclear. My point was that I like many different types of music outside of the Mass. I do not think it has a place in the Mass. Unfortunately, since Vatican II there seems to be a movement to make the Mass more appealing to the general population by “watering” it down or making it appear like a concert. Or even like a Halloween party, see thread on Mass at Corpus Christie in Aliso Viejo, CA. I disagree with all of this non-sense!

Matt
 
maciejk60 said:
Good Morning All,

I posted a reply yesterday and based on the comments I received may have been unclear. My point was that I like many different types of music outside of the Mass. I do not think it has a place in the Mass. Unfortunately, since Vatican II there seems to be a movement to make the Mass more appealing to the general population by “watering” it down or making it appear like a concert. Or even like a Halloween party, see thread on Mass at Corpus Christie in Aliso Viejo, CA. I disagree with all of this non-sense!

Matt
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Duly noted… sorry if I didn’t understand. And I also felt bad about forgetting to do this. WELCOME!!!👍
 
1.) Did they use the tambourine to take the collection?
2.) Were there people up front in blue suits, almost like uniforms?
3.) Did the altar seem to be out for cleaning, and only a lectern available?

If so, you were not in a Catholic church. You were down the road at the Salvation Army.
 
Eddy said:
Psalm 150

1 Praise the LORD. [a]
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.

2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.

3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,

4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,

5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.

6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.

Dear me. Not just tambourines, but trumpet, harp, lyre, dancing, strings, flute, cymbals. According to Hellisreal, the psalmist must have been Protestant 😉
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Or maybe they simply understood that not everything, even everything that is good, is automatically suitable for the liturgy. The topic is not music and instruments for praising God. The topic is music and instruments suitable for the liturgy.
 
If Sagovia could play Classical on a 13 string Geetar…Well I suppose Classical would qualify for secular music? Organ music was just so reverant back in time that we finally had to stop banning them from our Churches. Dear me but I do hate innovations. Bring back the well played Clavier.
 
Context, context, context. I sang in a cathedral choir for over 18 years. In Advent each year we sang an acapella arrangement of “The King of Glory Comes” accompanied by a tambourine played by our organist/choir director. The instrument fit the liturgical and ethnic context and was utterly appropros.

It would be no worse than using a bodhran and tin whistles to accompany “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” (tune: Star of the County Down) [a traditional Irish song]. One of our televised diocesan Masses had a choir from St. Patrick’s here which did this and it was awesome.

And, I grew up in New Orleans. I’m not gonna tell you that we had brass bands in church when I was a kid 😃 :rotfl: But, I tell you what, I saw many a jazz funeral when I grew up. Our PBS station filmed a Creole Mass in St. Louis Cathedral with Apb. Hughes present. I could have done without the liturgical second lining but the sound and instruments were purely New Orleans.

I go back to what I said at the beginning…context.
 
My husband and I have the same exact complaints (no tambourines, though, just full drum set, a guitar, a bass, a bongo player, and a piano :rolleyes: ). The music has gotten so bad that we are literally unable to keep our mind on the Mass, but rather the “choir show”. Sadly, we’re thinking about changing parishes over this, which breaks our hearts, but the musical program at the church has taken over. Every week a different Mass setting, or a solo by one of the choir members- last week it was, I’m not kidding, a Christian rock song that is on heavy rotation at KLOVE.

My Protestant sister-in-law changes churches to find bigger and better sound systems and musical programs. We’re changing parishes to to get away from that!
 
VociMike said:
Or maybe they simply understood that not everything, even everything that is good, is automatically suitable for the liturgy. The topic is not music and instruments for praising God. The topic is music and instruments suitable for the liturgy.
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Yes, but the psalmist begins with ‘praise God in the sanctuary’, and Jewish liturgy did included tambourines and (at some of the festivals) dancing. The organ didn’t exist in the early church - I’m fairly sure tambourines, or some other form of drum, did. The organ is the imposter then, not the drum.

It’s as brotherhrolf put so well, all about context. Sometimes organ fits and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes tambourine fits, and sometimes it doesn’t. But your deciding on whether it’s ok or not should not be your preference, but whether the outcome, as the psalm is all about, is the praise of the Lord.

I’ve been to cathedrals where competent organists are employed who are only nominally Christian, and the high-church music felt like a total performance. The music was more in praise of the organist and cathedral than of God. I’ve been to tiny congregations where the music group have had more enthusiasm than skill, but loved God so much, there was no sense it was anything but worship, and God was very defininately being praised.

As a good friend of mine puts it, we’re allowed preference in worship styles, but not prejudice.
 
What is suitable for Mass and what is not is relative to the culture of the people celebrating the Mass.

Heck one Pope hated the violin, so he banned it from liturgical celebrations. His successor, who played the violin,(poorly, which is probably why the former Pope banned them) removed the restriction and even had full string orchestras at Mass.

Should Chinese Catholics be restricted from using instruments and music that are created for worship, based on their culture?

Jim
 
Eddy said:
Yes, but the psalmist begins with ‘praise God in the sanctuary’, and Jewish liturgy did included tambourines and (at some of the festivals) dancing.
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The psalm is not saying that all praise must include all of the elements listed. Did Jewish liturgy (as opposed to other forms of praising God) include all of the elements listed? Did God further command that the Mass must be identical to Jewish liturgy?

Look, the Church has had this psalm for all of its 2000 year history. Can you show me any time or place where the celebration of the Mass called for trumpets, harp, lyre, tambourine, dancing, strings, flute and cymbals? Show me when and where Mass was ever celebrated that way.

The Church is not stupid. They know of this psalm. And yet they have determined for 2000 years that it is not a recipe for the celebration of the Mass. To wave this psalm around now as justification for bringing profane instruments and practices into the Mass (in opposition to clear Church documents, no less) is a very Protestant-like “hey, look what I found in the bible!” notion. It is an exercise in proof-texting in opposition to the teachings and traditions of the Church.
 
VociMike said:
The psalm is not saying that all praise must include all of the elements listed. Did Jewish liturgy (as opposed to other forms of praising God) include all of the elements listed? Did God further command that the Mass must be identical to Jewish liturgy?

Look, the Church has had this psalm for all of its 2000 year history. Can you show me any time or place where the celebration of the Mass called for trumpets, harp, lyre, tambourine, dancing, strings, flute and cymbals? Show me when and where Mass was ever celebrated that way.

The Church is not stupid. They know of this psalm. And yet they have determined for 2000 years that it is not a recipe for the celebration of the Mass. To wave this psalm around now as justification for bringing profane instruments and practices into the Mass (in opposition to clear Church documents, no less) is a very Protestant-like “hey, look what I found in the bible!” notion. It is an exercise in proof-texting in opposition to the teachings and traditions of the Church.
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I was going to spend some time rooting around in my history of liturgy text books to find some references for you, but since I think we all know that positions are not going to change here, it really wouldn’t be a useful investment of my time, would it? If you go to a site like ‘Bible Gateway’ and look up ‘tambourine’ or ‘dancing’ you’ll find plenty of evidence for use of instruments in worship.

As for Mass being identical to Jewish liturgy, well of course it isn’t, but Jesus, and the apostles, were all Jewish, and studies of early liturgy show that it had a decidedly Jewish element - why wouldn’t it - people saw Judaism as being fulfilled in Christianity.

What they history of liturgy clearly shows in a process of adaptation and evolution. Otherwise, if the church had always clung to tradition, the organ woulld never have been used, and music would sound distinctly North African.

As for ‘profane’ instruments. Fascinating. Please tell me how you know what is a ‘profane’ instrument, and what is not?
 
Our choir director used to play the piano for Broadway type plays, so she is really REALLY good and keeps the tempo (when appropriate to the hymn) at a quick sort of pace. She plays two out of the three Masses.

The third Mass on the other hand almost puts me to sleep. Pastor is tired, people are distracted and then there is the music:eek: Guitar instead of the piano played very slow. Almost impossible to follow along with and for me, nothing spiritually uplifting about it.

I will stick with the piano, notice though I said piano and NOT organ. To my untrained ears, nothing sounds good on an organ.:rolleyes:
 
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