Posted on 08/12/2006 2:13:24 PM PDT by Carolina
Catholic Ping!
Featuring our most favorite liturgical musician! Not!
I think the dinosaurs sense the approaching meteorite . . .
Yes, initialed BXVI, Pont. Max.
Gee, considering the audience, I guess Mr. Haas thinks musicians, liturgists and clergy need a big ol' attitude adjustment.
A good article on Heretical Hymns by George Weigel
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/137/story_13758.html
This is really funny, thanks!
How was liturgy at your church today?
Were it not for the Eucharist and the homily which was brilliant, today's was especially trying for me. Opening song: Gather Your People (Bob the Other Hurd); Psalm: Here I Am (Cooney); Mass setting: St. Louis Jesuits; Presentation: Look Beyond (Ducotte); Communion: Taste and See; Closing: I am the Bread of Life.
Hardly anyone sang. The choir and cantor, sensing that no one was singing, sang ever louder and louder into the mics. I actually had to cover my ears, that's how painful the sound was. To top it off, the music director forgot that he was in church and his accompaniment improv was more fit for a barroom. Really depressing.
I'm thinking of having a Sunday after-liturgy thread...how was liturgy at your church today. Maybe those of you with better experiences can help cheer those of us who have no other choice.
I have sung in my church choir for 11 years. I never knew there was such disdain for what we are singing! I have to say that our director does a good mix of the old and the new. We sing a lot of "Panis Agelicus", "Ave Verum", and "Veni Jesu". Not to mention during Lent, much of the Mass itself is done in latin. We use chants during Holy Saturday mass. But everything is mixed with the new as well. I will have to keep my ears open, to see if anyone is complaining at our church!
Currently, the bishops are working on a compendium of liturgical songs. They have actually asked some very good questions about the state of our liturgical songs. If you're interested, here's the Powerpoint Report by the Subcommittee on Liturgy and Music. They actually studied some of the most popular songs to see where they are on the theological spectrum. With the new mass translations and the pastoral letter that the Pope has written about liturgy and music (it's in the translation stage), people like Haugen/Haas/Schutte/Foley et al are trying to head off being supplanted.
"....during Lent, much of the Mass itself is done in latin."
Why during Lent?
I don't think I would like to hear this at a mass, but for good listening with an even better message ...
KAZKILL is an alternative for folks seeking to broaden their scope beyond traditional Gospel & CCM that offers modern Blues with a Jesus message.
KAZKILL doesn't deny the Blues, we embrace the Blues for it proves - God's grace is sufficient.
http://www.ontimeradio.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=79
ps - I am not KAZKILL - I just like their Blues!
Memo to Music Convention:
Stop with the boom-shaka-la-ka-boom-shaka-la-ka shake-your-boootie happy-clappy hootenany shlock and use music proper for a Mass! Dust off pre-1960s hymnals and open them for further instructions and examples. And quit with 95% of the "cantoresses" being Sopranos that either sing off key, use the cantor slot to show off their "talent", or sing so loud and shrill that dogs in a five mile radius start howling. To say nothing of said "cantoresses" (and a few "cantors" I've endured) waving their arms like the batmen on the USS Lexington trying to land an F6F in 1944. Take away all guitars, tabourines, etc. from all musicians upon entering the building and return them to the owners AFTER the Mass is ended.
The problem is that much of the contemporary church music is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not a performance event.
The music is to accompany and support the Mass, not to entertain or to show off the vocal abilities of the choir.
The singers are not performers.
Unfortunately, much popular music is written with entertainment in mind. It redirects the congregation from the altar to the choir and the singers. And many of the "modern" hymns redirect the singer from God to self -- look at how many times "I, me, mine" appear in things like "Here I Am, Lord."
Aside from that, much of the modern stuff is banal musical dreck. As our music director says, "the first time I heard the Haugen Mass of Creation, I knew it was AWFUL and everybody was going to LOVE it . . . "
I'm not anti-modern music, some of it is very good. Almost anything by the serious modern English composers is going to be o.k. - Tavener, Rutter, and going back a little further Vaughn Williams, Howells, S.S. Wesley, etc. Some of the Americans like Ned Rorem, Gerald Near, etc. are also splendid. This is all serious liturgical music - composed with an eye to setting the text and integrating with the Mass. (You can tell I'm an ex-Anglican, but there's nothing to touch English choral music except German chorales and the old Italian polyphony.)
Exactly what kind of music are you singing?
My children were perturbed when they saw their first cantor in the Catholic Church. "Why is she waving her arms? Did someone score a goal? And why is she blasting our ears?" They were used to cantors being in the choir loft, unseen, unmiked, singing straight tone. The congregation knew that after a big pause, they were supposed to come in and respond. I want to know if that arm-waving thing is in the GIRM somewhere and I missed it?
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