What do you think about guitars during mass?

[CTA1967]

One would need to be an expert guitarist and musician to make this assertion.

I would agree with this. While I suppose I am more proficient than many self taught guitarists, I definitely would not want to tell someone with a degree in music performance what they can and can’t play accurately on guitar.

 

[Cat]

I would agree with this. While I suppose I am more proficient than many self taught guitarists, I definitely would not want to tell someone with a degree in music performance what they can and can’t play accurately on guitar.

I’ve heard some beautiful classical pieces (e.g., Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring) done on the harp. I’m surprised that this instrument hasn’t come up in the discussion. I don’t know if it could ever be used to accompany congregational singing, but I’m inclined to think that it depends on the harpist. It’s amazing how talented some people are. I personally love the harp and would love to hear it more often in Mass.

 

[Cat]

Sarabande makes an important distinction. People who are learning are supposed to be practicing outside of the performance venue. Accompanying is hard even when you know the music already. The kids at school Mass will experiment with chanting the psalm and that sort of thing, so maybe there is a precedent for making it a learning experience. A Singspiration would be a wonderful thing, and a good chance to gain familiarity with hymns outside the usual repertoire, too.

I’m glad you like the Singspiration idea. This year, assuming that we all stay well, I’m planning to have a few “Carol Singing Parties” at my house during the holidays. I’m not sure if I want to mix people, or invite people in separate circles (e.g., our neighbors, our skating friends, our church friends).

But I will definitely invite church friends and acquaintances, and I’m hoping that they will have fun just singing along and will say, “I wish we could do this more often.” And then perhaps we can get the idea off the ground.

I’m an excellent sight reader, and I would really enjoy playing piano for an hour or so at church outside of Mass for a group of Christians who just want to go through the hymnal and pick out old favorites and try pieces that they’ve never heard before. I used to do this monthly at my C&MA church, and those services were quite packed.

Once when we were in Michigan, we visited a church where, as soon as Mass was over and most of the people had left the nave, the pianist, who was excellent, returned to the piano, and a small group of about 20 people gathered around him, and they started singing hymns and spiritual songs. Most were contemporary, the type of contemporary hymns that even people like me would question for Mass (Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, etc.). But there were also some beautiful traditional hymns in the mix. When we asked what was going on, the people told us, “We just love to sing, and the pianist is willing to stay and play, so we’re just enjoying ourselves and worshipping God in music.”

Such a great idea!

 

[pnewton]

Let me explain. The “Attende Domine” is chant, but, it translates well into the organ. But, when strummed on the guitar (and I have heard it), it sounds really bad. I had told the youth leader at the Cursillo to not play the guitar for that particular hymn because it sounds better either with the organ or without. Ditto for “O Sun of Justice” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.

Two of those examples we use as a seasonal entrance. I have not been able to do anything on guitar that was appropriate. I thought about just a strum once a phrase to keep us on pitch, but settled for just hitting a single note and going acapella. However, I have found that Dona Nobis Pacem and O Sanctissima work well on guitar.

“Strumming” on the guitar is key, here. Too many people, in a number of settings, think that if they can strum a dozen chords, they know how to play the guitar. Makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

You are right one must be able to strum 15 chords to play well.

 

[chrisb]

Grace and Peace,

Personally, I don’t like instruments accompanying our Divine Liturgy but I must admit that within the Psalms we are asked to take them up and dance for the glory of God.

I think that for many of us such activity is not ‘reverent’ in our estimation and so seems offensive to our sensibilities. We might even find individuals within the Church who have agreed over the years and thus feel justified in barring such things. Ultimately, I don’t personally like instruments accompanying the Divine Liturgy but when don’t well and with care has, in my experience, brought a sense of intimacy within the Liturgy which I and my family greatly appreciated.

 

[CTA1967]

You are right one must be able to strum 15 chords to play well.

And you get bonus points if you actually know what intervals they consist of! :newidea:

 

[pnewton]

And you get bonus points if you actually know what intervals they consist of! :newidea:

Every two hours?

 

[CTA1967]

Every two hours?

 

[Sarabande]

I’ve heard some beautiful classical pieces (e.g., Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring) done on the harp. I’m surprised that this instrument hasn’t come up in the discussion. I don’t know if it could ever be used to accompany congregational singing, but I’m inclined to think that it depends on the harpist. It’s amazing how talented some people are. I personally love the harp and would love to hear it more often in Mass.

I’ve often worked with harpists for weddings, special masses, voice/harp recitals and with trios that incorporated the harp, violin, flute and voice. All of them have been excellent musicians. I love singing with them, especially for the more ethereal pieces which sound perfect for the harp.

Some harpists bring a little amplifier especially if the room is very large or if it is outside so that it can be heard. (An amplifier for a harp does not sound like an electric instrument at all.) For one mass, I sang with a vocal quartet which also entailed a harpist, flutist and organ. It was special mass celebrating the 150th anniversary of the parish. They used the harp and flute with the quartet and then the congregational singing, they used the organ. The harp and flute - even though the harpist did bring an amplifier would not have been able to support the congregational singing.

That said, a harp can be used for a choir or maybe a small congregation.
youtube.com/watch?v=fb6GMv0ZJ1Y

thorpemusic.com/harp.html

youtube.com/watch?v=txQmbJXRh00

 

[Guitar]

Let me explain. The “Attende Domine” is chant, but, it translates well into the organ. But, **when strummed on the guitar **(and I have heard it), it sounds really bad. I had told the youth leader at the Cursillo to not play the guitar for that particular hymn because it sounds better either with the organ or without. Ditto for “O Sun of Justice” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.

Conversely, as much as I cannot stand “They’ll Know We are Christians”, it was meant for the guitar. Played on the organ, as I heard it Saturday night, it sounds terrible, as does an equally bad song, “Pan de Vida.”

Note my emphasis. Who said anything about strummed?

I don’t doubt you have heard it. And I repeat, I have heard tenors make a complete hash of Nessun Dorma.

I frequently use my guitar-based arrangement for Veni Emmanuel with optional oboe, violin and cello and it works very well indeed - even in the opinion of professional traditional choir director colleagues and priests from the local cathedral.

What I have pointed out many times before is that you have heard bad renditions by players with insufficient skills (or taste) to make that piece work on their instrument. And I can produce any number of equally bad renditions of just about anything else you can name.

The hearing of a bad rendition of piece A on instrument B is not proof that piece A cannot be played appropriately on instrument B. You have heard Veni Emmanuel done badly on guitar. I have accompanied it many, many times very well on guitar. Along with many other traditional pieces.

I note your point re guitar music on organ - if I hear one more organist turn City of God into a whump-two-three fast waltz (which it is not) I will scream. Musicians should observe that rule that doctors profess to go by - first, do no harm! It is bad enough without being made worse.

 

[Guitar]

To a certain, significant extent, this is true. There were many compositions (hymns and certain organ instrumentals works) written specifically for organ, but many others had been transcribed for organ and sometimes for other instruments. For instance, people tend to think that the popular piece used for weddings “Trumpet Voluntary” was written for organ and trumpet, when in actuality it was written for orchestra and later transcribed for organ or organ and trumpet.

A minor correction - it was originally a simple little harpsichord piece, to the best of my knowledge, entitled “The Prince of Denmark’s March”.

It is material for another conversation but I spent quite a bit of time going through traditional hymnals and noting how much of the music was emphatically NOT originally organ music, being either thoroughly secular in origin (Playford dance tunes etc) or, even if originally from church, from traditions that forbad the organ or from unaccompanied singing practices.

I think a major component of something sounding “right” with a different instrument depends on the transcriber. For instance, I have a number of vocal scores that have reduced accompaniments from orchestra to a piano or an organ. Some of the reductions you can tell was not done by someone who understands how to play the piano or organ. The musician who did the reduction is talented and able, but he/she might have been a string musician. Now if the musician understands the instrument he/she is transcribing for, you will be able to tell. It’s sort of like someone who writes for the voice, but doesn’t have enough experience to know how the voice works, the different vocal ranges, how something would sound with various intervals, etc. When my husband first started composing art songs for me, he didn’t understand this either and so I helped him with this, especially for my specific vocal range and fach.

Also, certain works just don’t transcribe well for the new instrument(s). It’s sometimes because the timbre of the instrument just doesn’t sound right or if the transcriber has to change the key it was originally in to work with a certain instrument, the key just doesn’t work. I love Albinoni’s second movement from one of his Oboe Concerto in D minor. It’s one of my favorite works, but transcribing it for organ and trumpet wouldn’t provide the right textures and sounds that you would hear with the oboe and orchestra. One could even try it for oboe and organ, but then the organ would have work hard at playing soft enough to not drown out the oboe, that you would lose the intricacies in the “orchestral” accompaniment that Albinoni intended for the listener to hear.

All agreed - I do a lot of arranging and transcribing and there is a lot of tinkering under the bonnet that most people have absolutely no idea about.

In regards to what is often heard at mass, though, is that the tendency is not hearing an accomplished guitarist play. Many of the ones I’ve experienced had little or no training and they were not able to successfully transcribe a piece of sheet music written or transcribed for piano or organ without making it sound “cheesed out”. I think this is what benedictgal might be referring to. (If I’m wrong, Benedictgal, please correct me.) She has probably heard untrained or little-trained guitar players make a dog’s breakfast out of organ/piano sheet music for hymns or a poorly transcribed piece of sheet music for guitar. If there were more well-trained guitarist musicians like you playing at mass, it would be a different story, because there is that reality in certain parishes and areas where a parish doesn’t have an organ or piano, or an organ out of commission, or an accomplished organist/pianist in their parish.

Awww, thank you for the compliment. This is absolutely true, but it is not a logical basis for some of the blanket statements frequently made here.

It is a reasonable basis for expecting a guitarist in church to be a bad player till proven otherwise, on the basis of statistics, but not for saying that it is not possible for any traditional church music to be played well on guitar.

I have frequently violins and recorders played execrably by children. This does not prove that either violin or recorder is a terrible instrument or that the pieces I hear these children attempting cannot be played on those instruments, as the Andrew Manzes and Dan Laurins of this world prove they can.

 

[Sarabande]

A minor correction - it was originally a simple little harpsichord piece, to the best of my knowledge, entitled “The Prince of Denmark’s March”.

Yes, this is true about it being “The Prince of Denmark’s March”, although there is confusion and some questioning of who actually composed the work. Some believe it was Purcell because of his ensemble arrangement of it that included brass, winds and strings. Clarke had an arrangement for keyboard as well. Purcell was about 20 years older than Clarke and died in the late 1600s and I believe Clarke’s keyboard arrangement came out in the early 1700s. So, I guess depending on which one you believe… Either way, though, I always just refer to it as Clarke’s “Trumpet Voluntary” because that is how most people know it as, I think due to Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding.

It is material for another conversation but I spent quite a bit of time going through traditional hymnals and noting how much of the music was emphatically NOT originally organ music, being either thoroughly secular in origin (Playford dance tunes etc) or, even if originally from church, from traditions that forbad the organ or from unaccompanied singing practices.

I agree with you here in regards to many hymns in general. I think we’ve been in discussion before on previous threads regarding this. Many of the melodies were taken from other sources and refined to fit in for service or mass. But there is a lot of organ repertoire out there specifically written for organ as well as organ arrangements of works not originally written for the instrument.

All agreed - I do a lot of arranging and transcribing and there is a lot of tinkering under the bonnet that most people have absolutely no idea about.

Awww, thank you for the compliment.

You’re welcome!

This is absolutely true, but it is not a logical basis for some of the blanket statements frequently made here.

It is a reasonable basis for expecting a guitarist in church to be a bad player till proven otherwise, on the basis of statistics, but not for saying that it is not possible for any traditional church music to be played well on guitar.

I have frequently violins and recorders played execrably by children. This does not prove that either violin or recorder is a terrible instrument or that the pieces I hear these children attempting cannot be played on those instruments, as the Andrew Manzes and Dan Laurins of this world prove they can.

I totally agree. But, most people aren’t musicians and I think when they hear just bad playing in general week in and week out, it’s hard not to think otherwise. I know people who think that the organ is just a darn-awful instrument just based on the “organ players” that they hear at mass who don’t know how to play the instrument in the first place. Or they spent most of their Sundays just hearing a bad electric organ or a pipe organ that was severely out of tune or didn’t have all of its stops for whatever reason. For most people who don’t spend their time listening to organ repertoire or never really heard a good organist play or heard a good organ, it is easy for them to assume that organs are horrible instruments and nothing sounds good on them. Friends/Family who would come to my parish and never really heard a good organist playing a spectacular instrument tend to be floored when they hear it for real the first time.

So I think this is where we as musicians, as well as those in charge in the parishes and the Church need to be aware of. It all goes back to education, as frequently discussed by musicians on both sides of the discussion and, in my opinion, parishes that can afford it, putting their money where their mouths are and providing the funds to produce the right musicians and music to create musical prayer and reverence for the liturgy.

 

[kalt]

I am a big fan of the organ. I feel this is a very good way to celebrate the mass. I wish the organist at my Church would play it more instead of the piano.

What do you think about pianos, guitars, and etc. in place of the organ?

Could anyone see these instruments as dangerous?

Some opinions that I have heard is that the guitar symbolizes a sinful musical genre (rock-and-roll) and the instrument is simply not reverent enough. I personally cannot see any problem with using these for worship as long as the tabernacle is not in the same room!!!

God Bless

Since most people aren’t **very **good at it, I dislike the quitar at mass. All that strumming is a distraction and doesn’t put me in a pensive mood the way other instruments do. The way most people play (the technique), it sounds like campfire music or 1970’s folk music. I know some fabulous guitarists who play classical music and whose playing would add so much to a Mass, but they aren’t the ones volunteering to play.

Stringed instruments, imo, are the most difficult to play, and only the very best should play at a Mass. When someone who isn’t excellent plays, the sound is grating. We have a young violinist who plays at Christmas and Easter. To be honest, the sound disrupts the mind. The young woman is good, but not so good that the sounds she creates are pleasing. We’re left waiting for the next not-quite-right but not-too-bad note.

Thumbs down to strings at Mass unless in the hands of a professional.

 

[4Squarebaby]

Thumbs down to strings at Mass unless in the hands of a professional.

So its your opinion that a badly played organ is two thumbs up? Or any/all music should be banned unless you have a professional volunteers or a massive music budget to hire pros?

 

[Cat]

Since most people aren’t **very **good at it, I dislike the quitar at mass. All that strumming is a distraction and doesn’t put me in a pensive mood the way other instruments do. The way most people play (the technique), it sounds like campfire music or 1970’s folk music. I know some fabulous guitarists who play classical music and whose playing would add so much to a Mass, but they aren’t the ones volunteering to play.

Stringed instruments, imo, are the most difficult to play, and only the very best should play at a Mass. When someone who isn’t excellent plays, the sound is grating. We have a young violinist who plays at Christmas and Easter. To be honest, the sound disrupts the mind. The young woman is good, but not so good that the sounds she creates are pleasing. We’re left waiting for the next not-quite-right but not-too-bad note.

Thumbs down to strings at Mass unless in the hands of a professional.

You do realize that the commonly-understood definition of “professional” is someone who is PAID?

And BTW, being a professional does not guarantee quality or skill of the musician. I know a lot of amateur pianists, teenagers, in fact, who play much better than me or many other adult “professional” pianists. What they lack is experience, especially at accompanying.

We have a teenaged string quartet in our city that is booked almost every weekend to play at weddings, church events, community concerts, etc. They are all quite amazing and more experience under their black concert dresses than many adult quartets! They get paid, so I supposed it would be considered a “professional” quartet. But they’re just teens.

I am a huge advocate of “training” our replacements. I personally think that children and teenagers ought to be encouraged to play at Mass (in our city, it would be piano, since there are no organ students that anyone knows about). What I would do is ask the young pianist to play just part of the Mass, assuming that the Mass is an easy-to-sing and play Mass, like People’s Mass, or Creation. I would probably have the student play the Alleluia, the Mysteries of Faith, the Great Amen, and the Holy Holy. Most people in the congregation know these parts, and if the pianist makes a mistake, they can keep singing. I would probably ease the student into playing hymns–perhaps allow them to play one of the slower, traditional hymns (e.g., Come Holy Ghost) to begin with, and then initiating them into the livelier contemporary hymns (e.g. City of God). I would sit nearby and help with any page turns, etc., and help the student to know when it’s time to start playing (when the priest stands up, when the Sign of Peace is over, etc.) I would also make the student mark their introduction on any hymns so that they would give a good, solid intro for the congregation.

 

[Bluegoat]

I do think that at times it might be best to have a Mass with no music if the available choices are going to be a real problem. Or maybe if there is a simple Mass setting that the congregation can sing, then someone can just play a few notes to get them started off if there is no strong singer to do it. Usually my church uses the Merbecke setting when the choir isn’t available, like when they take a break in the summer and the organist goes on vacation. It is quite easy and has been around long enough that most know it.

I’m sure there must be something with similar qualities suitable for the Catholic Mass liturgy.

 

[Cat]

I do think that at times it might be best to have a Mass with no music if the available choices are going to be a real problem. Or maybe if there is a simple Mass setting that the congregation can sing, then someone can just play a few notes to get them started off if there is no strong singer to do it. Usually my church uses the Merbecke setting when the choir isn’t available, like when they take a break in the summer and the organist goes on vacation. It is quite easy and has been around long enough that most know it.

I’m sure there must be something with similar qualities suitable for the Catholic Mass liturgy.

When our organist resigned last January, there were several weeks of no music at many of the Masses, especially the Vigil Masses. I couldn’t help out much as I was playing for other venues in the city, but when I finally was able to play, even the priest spoke up and said, “It’s so good to hear music again!” And after the Masses, people thronged up to me to say, “Thank you! I never knew how much I loved the piano and organ until we didn’t have them!”

I think so many Americans are used to singing (or at least listening to singing) with instrumental accompaniment. I know that several posters on this thread have mentioned that their congregation does well acapella. Well, that’s good, but for the last 20 years in our city, the schools have been decimated by a deseg lawsuit. To save money, most of the public schools have music classes once a week, and many of these classes are just “sing-a-longs,” often done with popular recorded music, often African American (the teachers are tired of being accused of racism and emphasizing white, European composers).

So now we are seeing the results–people who cannot sing. It’s so sad.

I work with several choirs, and it’s amazing how many of the children have no concept of singing an actual tune. They can chant in rhythm (rap) or they can dance very nicely (hip hop), but they cannot sing a simple song like Mary Had A Little Lamb and hold onto the melody. They cannot match pitches–really really sad. And they cannot sing without “sliding” up and down to the notes–OK with a lot of pop music, but dreadful for any traditional music.

Add to this the U.S. culture in which singing together for pleasure is virtually unheard of. Gone are the days when families sang together after dinner. Gone is the time when men sang in the fields, and women sang while sewing a quilt, and children sang while playing games during recess.

We are a nation of spectators. We don’t read poetry to each other anymore, we attend Poetry Slams and listen to other people read. Our children don’t make up plays anymore and put them on in the garage–they join Children’s Theater Projects (which I’m not criticizing, BTW). Our teenagers don’t form basement or garage rock bands anymore–they play Guitar Hero.

Even Christians don’t sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with each other anymore–we attend concerts and load up our iPods, and expect our church music to be of professional quality.

So perhaps in your cities, acapella singing is doing well. That’s not the case in all cities. We are pretty poorly off here, and I think that having some kind of instrument, including the guitar–even if it’s strummed–is very helpful for people.

That’s what I do on the piano, BTW–I help people. I am not grabbing glory or doing a “show”–I’m helping people to worship through song.

 

[Sarabande]

I do think that at times it might be best to have a Mass with no music if the available choices are going to be a real problem. Or maybe if there is a simple Mass setting that the congregation can sing, then someone can just play a few notes to get them started off if there is no strong singer to do it. Usually my church uses the Merbecke setting when the choir isn’t available, like when they take a break in the summer and the organist goes on vacation. It is quite easy and has been around long enough that most know it.

I’m sure there must be something with similar qualities suitable for the Catholic Mass liturgy.

This has happened a couple of times when I was cantoring - once when there was a storm and lightening struck the church which made the pipe organ go totally haywired that we had to turn it off and sing everything a capella. Other times when weather was very bad and we didn’t have an organist. Since they had a cantor (me) I just had to lead the singing on my own and fortunately, I could be there to keep everyone in the same key and the right notes.

In the rural parish that I’ve frequented growing up (which has no town - just mostly farmers and other people from all around the mountains), when the organist was lost due to much confusion with parish closures, etc., the little parish still sang hymns and mass parts on their own. Some brave person in the congregation would just start it off and everyone would follow suit. Once in a while a girl would play just the melody line of the hymn on the organ. The Franciscans I mentioned in previous threads who helped out during the summers encouraged the chanting during this time as well and they were the ones who led the chanting.

Cat is right that the younger generations, especially, don’t really know how to sing as well as in the past. They can’t hold tunes as well. I experienced that when I first started teaching and running children’s choir. My students listened to mostly rap, some R&B and some pop music. A lot of the newer types of music doesn’t really promote “singing” or a healthy way of singing for the vocal chords. I had to work extremely hard to teach them what an actual melody was along with all the other basics in elementary music theory. The kids who were interested in and open to different kinds of music learned pretty quickly and were able to hold tunes and I could even get them to chant as well as sing some two-part harmony. But it was a challenge getting the older kids, especially, to break down their pre-conceived notions about music.

BUT, if you don’t have dedicated people determined to teach the kids with love and openness, it will be hard to get this generation going.

At the same time, I think being content with having poor musicians or poor musicianship at mass is also doing a disservice. I have found that if the instrumentalist can’t play something well, with lots of screw ups, etc. people in the congregation won’t sing. It’s hard for anyone if the instrumentalist can’t keep a steady rhythm, can’t play the right notes, or just can’t play well, etc. Family and friends who aren’t musicians have mentioned things like this to me. I’ve also had to deal with this personally because I have been hired to cantor for funerals without any kind of accompaniment due to the organist/guitarrist/pianist, etc. at the particular parish was not good and the family didn’t want them to be at the funeral mass. Some parishes do not permit outside musicians, so the family rather pay the bench fee of the instrumentalist to not come in and sing with just a strong singer-musician leading the rest of the congregation/mourners without an instrumentalist screwing up the hymns and the rest of the music at mass. And it’s at those funerals where the congregation usually does sing strangely enough.

 

[sauce]

Since most people aren’t **very **good at it, I dislike the quitar at mass. All that strumming is a distraction and doesn’t put me in a pensive mood the way other instruments do. The way most people play (the technique), it sounds like campfire music or 1970’s folk music. I know some fabulous guitarists who play classical music and whose playing would add so much to a Mass, but they aren’t the ones volunteering to play.

Stringed instruments, imo, are the most difficult to play, and only the very best should play at a Mass. When someone who isn’t excellent plays, the sound is grating. We have a young violinist who plays at Christmas and Easter. To be honest, the sound disrupts the mind. The young woman is good, but not so good that the sounds she creates are pleasing. We’re left waiting for the next not-quite-right but not-too-bad note.

Thumbs down to strings at Mass unless in the hands of a professional.

Or the “feet” of a professional. How about Tony Melendez? He plays with his “feet.”
He has no arms. He played for the pope. Check out Tony Melendez Ministries.

What’s wrong with Contemporary Christian Music? We’re supposed to praise God with cymbals and strings. We are supposed to live and develop and “invent” and inspire.
The deaf at a deaf mass praise God with their hands and whatever other expressions they can make. I’ve seen them. They are so “happy” to be at mass.
Are people who can hear happy at mass?

 

[CTA1967]

Thumbs down to strings at Mass unless in the hands of a professional.

I play clarinet at mass with two other clarinetists, a violin, a viola, and a flute. We’re all in high school or college, except for one who graduated. We are not professionals (okay we get paid for playing at Triduum masses, but we usually play as volunteers), but we have played in various high level youth symphonic groups in our area. We can sight read the music at mass easily and play in a manner that I think is suitable for mass. Just saying.