What type of music would you like at Mass?

[VociMike]

I don’t know the answer to mediocre church singing. I don’t think it’s ever going to be like it was when I was a kid or when your parents were kids. It’s too bad, but we have to work with reality. What’s the answer?

Maybe the culture just has to hit bottom. No slide goes on indefinitely.

I have seen what you might call the other side. I have seen a boys choir, made up of local children, sing both chant and polyphony after a few months. I have seen a small-college choir (comprising from 10-15% of the students) sing as well as might be expected from a school five times larger.

If we can’t fix everything, we need to make centers of excellence and let the word (or music) spread out from them. Just because we can’t do everything is no excuse not to do anything.

 

[Sarabande]

We do a Latin Novus Ordo mass twice a month for our high mass. It’s usually very well-attended and participated in very well. The visitors are the ones who may have more trouble in chanting the Latin, but for the most part it is well-chanted along with choir. They always do an English Hymn for the processional and recessional and sing the psalm in English. I agree that it is the musicians jobs to teach the chant to all Catholics so that when they do travel to different parishes, they can participate, but that is some place where it is lacking.

 

[Sarabande]

Most children have been so inundated from birth with rock music that they have a very difficult time hearing a melody or staying on pitch. Many children are so used to “fun” learning and having their “self-esteem” bathed, that they don’t have the guts to stick with something difficult like learning to read music. And often their parents support them when they whine that it’s “too hard.”

But it’s a different era. Parents and kids are so busy. Parents “invest” in activities that will lead to college scholarships, like sports. Or they “invest” in activities that will lead to a career, like computers. Music is a good investment, and this is where our sight readers come from. But not all parents get their kids involved in music.

I don’t know the answer to mediocre church singing. I don’t think it’s ever going to be like it was when I was a kid or when your parents were kids. It’s too bad, but we have to work with reality. What’s the answer?

I know exactly what you mean regarding the state of music for children today. I also taught music at a Catholic school from age 3 to 14 for a couple years before I got married. I also directed their children’s choir and handbell choir. The younger children (3-8) learned much faster than the older ones because they had not yet been inundated with just listening to certain genres of music. Most of the older children listened to mostly rap and pop, and as we know rap doesn’t really have any real melodies, mostly just rhytms. So, it was a challenge trying to teach the older children how to sing an actual melody line. I found that the handbells really helped in a fun way for them to learn how to read music and to learn rhythm well.

It takes a lot of dedication and more work than usual to get children of this generation to learn music because of all the things you mentioned. Some parents also make it difficult because in one breath they claim they want their children to learn music, yet in another breath they don’t want their children to put in the work.

In regards to teaching chant to children. I am proud to say, I was able to teach my students how to do all the chant acclamations in Latin. You have to do it over and over with patience and with love. If you treat them like they are capable of anything, they will respect you and they will learn almost anything. Once they learned it, they usually couldn’t wait to chant it during our choir practice and were all there at my wedding chanting their little hearts away since we used Gregorian chant for our acclamations. Their parents said they sang louder than the adults around them. So, it can be done and if learned early, it won’t be considered strange or foreign to them. It just takes time. It took me about a year.

I don’t know the answer to mediocre singing as well. We just need to do the best we can do with what we have and pray. But maybe if we start them young, these young ones will grow up and hopefully pass on their traditions, morals and what they learned to their children. We had a couple of decades where things went off-kilter really badly and my generation, I think, got hit with it the worse, but it looks like there is starting to be a balance.

 

[Sarabande]

Would you like something worse?

Sing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme. Or sing the Gilligan’s Island theme to the tune of “Amazing Grace.” They match exactly.

Thank you! Thank you!

Unfortunately, though, I can’t get that into my head since my sweet, little, Filipina grandmother has requested me to sing that for her funeral. Although, that might keep me from crying through the entire hymn.

 

[MusicMan]

RE: Be Not Afraid.

Umm, did Schutte write a version of Be Not Afraid? I thought the well known version with the unusual rhythm (which I had beat into my head back in the early eighties so it bugs me to no end when it’s sung incorrectly) was by Bob Dufford.

I stand corrected. Be Not Afraid was indeed the rhythmic masterpiece of Bob Dufford.

Unfortunately, to verify this information, I had to dust off my copy of the Glory and Praise book from my first organist job. You guys on this board gripe about Haugen and Haas. Anyone remember Reverend Carey Landry? At least Haugen and Haas aren’t afraid to stray from I-IV-V-I progressions. Or better yet, Peace is Flowing Like a River goes I-V-I-V-I. Yeah… 'cuz that’s high musical art. Sheesh.

 

[SMHW]

I stand corrected. Be Not Afraid was indeed the rhythmic masterpiece of Bob Dufford.

Unfortunately, to verify this information, I had to dust off my copy of the Glory and Praise book from my first organist job. You guys on this board gripe about Haugen and Haas. Anyone remember Reverend Carey Landry? At least Haugen and Haas aren’t afraid to stray from I-IV-V-I progressions. Or better yet, Peace is Flowing Like a River goes I-V-I-V-I. Yeah… 'cuz that’s high musical art. Sheesh.

I have one good thing to say about* Peace is Flowing Like a River* . It’s better than Abba! Father! I actually like a lot of the St. Louis Jesuits music from Glory and Praise I and II. But Carey Landry had a talent for picking great words and putting them to terrible melodies.

I tend to prefer Bob Hurd’s music to that of Haugen and Haas.

 

[Sarabande]

Unfortunately, to verify this information, I had to dust off my copy of the Glory and Praise book from my first organist job. You guys on this board gripe about Haugen and Haas. Anyone remember Reverend Carey Landry? At least Haugen and Haas aren’t afraid to stray from I-IV-V-I progressions. Or better yet, Peace is Flowing Like a River goes I-V-I-V-I. Yeah… 'cuz that’s high musical art. Sheesh.

I’m just thankful we don’t have to do most of that. It seems to have finally worked its way out of the hymnals or at least people aren’t doing it any longer.

 

[Cat]

SeekerJen, I apologize for offending you.

I was only trying to say that neither of us has the authority to pronounce something inappropriate for liturgy if it has already been approved by the Church.

Forgive me if I didn’t phrase it in a respectful way.

 

[Cat]

Sarabande, I agree that kids like to be taught “up” to, rather than taught “down” to.

When I was evangelical Protestant, I taught children’s ministries and choirs. I always had great success teaching the children the old hymns. I think a lot of the sucess has to do with the teacher and the approach. If the song is done at a funereal tempo, it will be difficult to sing because of the breathing, and kids will hate it. If the hymn is done to tempo, kids like it.

Also, I think explaining the words and letting them discuss the words makes a difference. If the kids can learn the relevance of the hymn to their lives, they get excited.

And frankly, I think they rise to a challenge. Once I challenged kids to learn all five verses in one week to “And Can It Be” for a small prize Lots of kids took me up on it!

And yes, I agree with the poster who said that requiring choir in the parochial schools is a good plan. Music helps kids develop their brains.

But there are so many kids that don’t go to parochial schools. Oh, well, like someone else said, establish a “center of excellence” That’s a good place to start.

 

[Cat]

I’ve wondered often why, even though our church has a great school and choir program, the kids don’t sing out more during Mass?

It occurred to me that perhaps the parents or grandparents give them the message, either overtly or covertly, that there is something “improper” about singing out with a full voice during Mass. Is this possible? Or am I judging incorrectly?

Even if the parent doesn’t come right out and tell the kids to “hush up,” is it possible that the parent is conveying the message to the child that they shouldn’t sing?

I see so many people that don’t even open the hymnal during Mass. If a child sees this, won’t they get the idea that “since Mommy and Daddy don’t sing, I shouldn’t sing either?”

Last Sunday, I attended a morning mass, and I heard a delightful child’s voice singing at full strength throughout the entire Mass. Every response, every hymn, even the prayers–I heard that nice, enthusiastic voice, and I could understand every word.

It wasn’t always in tune, but it was certainly not monotone, either. It was a typical child’s voice, singing with joy and abandon.

I couldn’t see who it was, but I assumed it was probably one of the choir kids, probably a boy. (I play piano for the church-school choir.)

During the last hymn, as most of the people left before the hymn was finished, I could finally see who it was.

It was a girl, probably about 12, who had Down’s Syndrome.

She was reading the hymnal, holding the hymnal right up to her eyes so she could see better, and just blasting away at the closing hymn. It was beautiful! Very uplifting.

I met her in the lobby and told her how nice she sounded, and her mother and I talked for a few minutes. The mother said that her daughter just loved to sing. I told her I wish everyone sang so enthusiastically during Mass!

Certainly that mother wasn’t hushing up her child, thank goodness. I hope that other parents with singing kids encourage them when they sing out, even if people turn around to see who the Pavrotti or the Fleming behind them is!

 

[agapewolf]

I am a music director at a parish with a Catholic School. I play for their Masses. They really sing loud there.

I can tell you why…from experimentation. I teach them chant, I teach them old hymns, I teach them Jesuit style, and I teach them contemporary Christian.

NOTHING and I mean nothing succeeds like the singable melodies of contemporary praise and worship. I try…really I do. They just don’t get into it.

But something as passionate as someone’s prayer put to a simple melody and simple chord structure, and voila, my kids belt these songs out louder than anything. I do use instruements that gathers momentum into the next chorus, so they know to take a deep breath and let it go. Its beautiful

 

[Cat]

agapewolf, please forgive me for my confusion.

Are you saying that kids like the contemporary songs or don’t like them?

Thanks.

 

[agapewolf]

They love them

 

[Cat]

Thanks, agapewolf.

The kids in our choir love these songs, too, and do a nice job singing the melodies in a good voice without shouting. Our choir director also takes the time to talk about the words and the kids are usually pretty sharp and can answer all her questions!

I love playing piano for the children’s choir. It is such a blessing to me to hear these young people sing the hymns.

 

[Sarabande]

I’ve wondered often why, even though our church has a great school and choir program, the kids don’t sing out more during Mass?

It occurred to me that perhaps the parents or grandparents give them the message, either overtly or covertly, that there is something “improper” about singing out with a full voice during Mass. Is this possible? Or am I judging incorrectly?

Even if the parent doesn’t come right out and tell the kids to “hush up,” is it possible that the parent is conveying the message to the child that they shouldn’t sing?

I see so many people that don’t even open the hymnal during Mass. If a child sees this, won’t they get the idea that “since Mommy and Daddy don’t sing, I shouldn’t sing either?”

Last Sunday, I attended a morning mass, and I heard a delightful child’s voice singing at full strength throughout the entire Mass. Every response, every hymn, even the prayers–I heard that nice, enthusiastic voice, and I could understand every word.

It wasn’t always in tune, but it was certainly not monotone, either. It was a typical child’s voice, singing with joy and abandon.

I couldn’t see who it was, but I assumed it was probably one of the choir kids, probably a boy. (I play piano for the church-school choir.)

During the last hymn, as most of the people left before the hymn was finished, I could finally see who it was.

It was a girl, probably about 12, who had Down’s Syndrome.

She was reading the hymnal, holding the hymnal right up to her eyes so she could see better, and just blasting away at the closing hymn. It was beautiful! Very uplifting.

I met her in the lobby and told her how nice she sounded, and her mother and I talked for a few minutes. The mother said that her daughter just loved to sing. I told her I wish everyone sang so enthusiastically during Mass!

Certainly that mother wasn’t hushing up her child, thank goodness. I hope that other parents with singing kids encourage them when they sing out, even if people turn around to see who the Pavrotti or the Fleming behind them is!

I think you may have a point to this. My parents always loved to sing during mass, at home, outside, (the Filipino side of my family loves to do karaoke and has even gotten the European side to get into it) so they set a good example of singing all the time. I also notice that if the older members of the family don’t sing, the children won’t either.

I think it also depends on the parish and the musicians. If you have good musicians who can lead well, the congregation will sing well. I also find that if the organ plays with fullness, the congregation will sing very well because they don’t feel like they are the only ones singing with the organ behind them. Although I work at a Cathedral, the parish is actually small, with lots of visitors. Some weekends we have really good singers, other weekends we don’t. The regulars do sing, though. At a little rural parish where my family’s vacation home is, the people up there SING! SING! SING! They mostly do older hymns and used to sing the Latin chants with all their hearts. I haven’t been up there since the new pastor came, so I don’t know if they still do the Latin, but I was so impressed with the last pastor (a young man between 35-40), I asked him how he did it and he told me patience and always the belief that they can learn more. So I took that to my students.

I also believe you are right with teaching the children the meaning of the words for the Latin. That’s what I did, and also found a fun way for them to learn it. I had a music club called “The Palestrina Scholars” where we basically had games and listening to our history of Catholic music liturgy from chant to 20th century. Like I said in my previous post, my students loved the Latin chant and would always asked if we could practice singing it during choir rehearsal. Their other favorites were Mozart (although, we didn’t get to that level of learning yet by the time I left the school) and the Schubert Deutsche Messe in English. It was a German parish in the city. The congregation did really well singing the Deutsche Messe as well. If it is approached in the right way, many children and adults will enjoy and love it, so you are right about that.

 

[MusicMan]

“It’s what we grew up with” is often a case for why people end up liking the music they like. Unfortunately, many of us in our 30s came through Catholic schools when the Hi God! series of children’s hymnals were at their height. Glory and Praise was at it’s height too (having just released their third volume), and OCP hadn’t yet started meddling with the texts of the old hymns.

We liked the folksy stuff when we heard it in school (we weren’t knowledgeable enough to know the difference), and so when we sang Rev. Landry’s stuff out of G&P on Sundays at Mass with our folks, we belted it out. Other music, like On Eagle’s Wings, Gather Us In, Here I am Lord, and Be Not Afraid just sounded like grow-up versions of the music we were singing for School Masses.

I’m 30 years old and I can still recall the words to If I Were a Butterfly from Hi God! I haven’t sung it in 20 years, but we liked it, and the teachers pounded it into us. I can still picture practicing it with the “motions” outside my 1st grade classroom at the top of the stairs at the entrance of the school. I remember it like it was yesterday! And boy did everyone think we were cute!

I know a lot of you want to make changes and go back to more legitimate music, but even for someone with a degree in Music Education who sees the value in what you are pushing for, the so-called contemporary dreck is firmly engrained in me. Like it or not (and I’m not sure I do), Hi God! is a part of me.

 

[BobP123]

Some good polyphonic music that was inspired by the old Mass.

For example:

info-poland.buffalo.edu/web/arts_culture/music/Gorczycki/link.shtml

youtube.com/watch?v=_rAwHgopVkQ

Thanks for asking.

 

[Sarabande]

“It’s what we grew up with” is often a case for why people end up liking the music they like. Unfortunately, many of us in our 30s came through Catholic schools when the Hi God! series of children’s hymnals were at their height. Glory and Praise was at it’s height too (having just released their third volume), and OCP hadn’t yet started meddling with the texts of the old hymns.

We liked the folksy stuff when we heard it in school (we weren’t knowledgeable enough to know the difference), and so when we sang Rev. Landry’s stuff out of G&P on Sundays at Mass with our folks, we belted it out. Other music, like On Eagle’s Wings, Gather Us In, Here I am Lord, and Be Not Afraid just sounded like grow-up versions of the music we were singing for School Masses.

I’m 30 years old and I can still recall the words to If I Were a Butterfly from Hi God! I haven’t sung it in 20 years, but we liked it, and the teachers pounded it into us. I can still picture practicing it with the “motions” outside my 1st grade classroom at the top of the stairs at the entrance of the school. I remember it like it was yesterday! And boy did everyone think we were cute!

I know a lot of you want to make changes and go back to more legitimate music, but even for someone with a degree in Music Education who sees the value in what you are pushing for, the so-called contemporary dreck is firmly engrained in me. Like it or not (and I’m not sure I do), Hi God! is a part of me.

I understand what you mean. I grew up in the 80s and 90s as well and had to go through all that too. So, alot of those songs are stuck in my head along with “A Tisket, A Tasket, A Green and Yellow Basket” and “B-I-N-G-O!” They are a part of us in some small degree, but you can find churches that don’t do that music any longer. The turning point for me was studying and living abroad while in college and realizing we didn’t have to have all the music liturgy like what we grew up with. And as a musician, like you, I realized that I wasn’t some weirdo who never really liked what you called contemporary dreck even as a child. But I still have to know this music from my childhood since there are people from our generation and from the '60s who still do and once in a while I’m asked to do something for a wedding or a funeral. And fortunately we don’t have to do this type of music at our normal masses unless it’s for an Archdiocesan event, etc.

 

[goofyjim]

I’m just in different moods each week but for the month of May I wish they would use more traditional Marian hymns. There’s no changing the words for our mother and they are all very easy to sing along with.

BTW, I’m having quite a difficult time switching Amazing Grace and Gilligan’s Island. Will someone please clarify?

 

[lak611]

“It’s what we grew up with” is often a case for why people end up liking the music they like. Unfortunately, many of us in our 30s came through Catholic schools when the Hi God! series of children’s hymnals were at their height. Glory and Praise was at it’s height too (having just released their third volume), and OCP hadn’t yet started meddling with the texts of the old hymns.

We liked the folksy stuff when we heard it in school (we weren’t knowledgeable enough to know the difference), and so when we sang Rev. Landry’s stuff out of G&P on Sundays at Mass with our folks, we belted it out. Other music, like On Eagle’s Wings, Gather Us In, Here I am Lord, and Be Not Afraid just sounded like grow-up versions of the music we were singing for School Masses.

I’m 30 years old and I can still recall the words to If I Were a Butterfly from Hi God! I haven’t sung it in 20 years, but we liked it, and the teachers pounded it into us. I can still picture practicing it with the “motions” outside my 1st grade classroom at the top of the stairs at the entrance of the school. I remember it like it was yesterday! And boy did everyone think we were cute!

I know a lot of you want to make changes and go back to more legitimate music, but even for someone with a degree in Music Education who sees the value in what you are pushing for, the so-called contemporary dreck is firmly engrained in me. Like it or not (and I’m not sure I do), Hi God! is a part of me.

I grew up in the 80’s also, but I took music lessons at that time; so I came to appreciate Bach and Beethoven. My music teacher liked that stuff, and he happened to be a church organist. I never learnt the “popular” music. I was taught to play the classics in my instruction. I enjoy folk, rock, alternative, etc., but not for Mass. I was taught the classic music by my teacher.