Getting Mediaeval
Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been altogether too long since I have been to confession, and boy, do I have something to confess.
It seems that I had the misfortune to read the latest entry of Catholic Pillow Fight, an ostensibly Catholic weblog, apparently written by a modern American Catholic liturgical musician. Apparently, he was
This prompted me to write my own entry, which I put as a comment to his entry, and which follows here:
Hi. I'm Gerald, and I'm here to join the Catholic pillow fight, and maybe land a few muffled blows myself. If you think that your friend’s little tantrum affronted you, try this. (Voice over of Paul Hogan saying: “You call that a tantrum? That’s a tantrum!”)
I'm one of those guys who used to grimace when the guitars came out. I gave up on your little shows a long time ago. I decided to take your advice, and I (1) went to a parish that sang both the music and the theology that healed and nourished my spirit (St. Andrew Russian Catholic Church) and I (2) became both a singer and a choir director leading a small a capella choir singing the riches of Russian, Greek and Arabic liturgical music. I'm very happy here (which is more than I can say for the sort of music or musician who is infesting most RC churches.)
What I won't do is (3) shut up.
While I applaud the efforts of liturgical musicians who are obedient to the actual mandate of Vatican II, and who give Gregorian Chant pride of place at all liturgical gatherings, who preserve the riches of polyphony, and who encourage the music of the people, I have nothing but contempt for those who have decided to provide only the so-called music of the people, which does not include the Catholic folk music of Europe, Africa, Asia, or the Americas for the last six hundred years, but only the well-marketed music of a few white American males who are still (nominally) alive and who have only been writing for the past 40 years.
Allow me to let you in on Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crap. It is therefore inevitable that ninety percent of the so-called "new" music is also crap. The advantage of using old music (be it chant, polyphony, or real folk music), is that time has winnowed out the crap, and left the jewels.
Allow me also to let you in on another secret. Most of your captive audience (courtesy of the concept, "holy days of obligation") are there because they have to be, not because they like most of your so-called music. They are also getting fewer and fewer (in case you haven't noticed), because they hunger for a thing called "holiness", and you're giving them second rate pop tunes instead. After a while, even for the faithful, that gets rather old.
Finally, allow me to let you in on a third secret (you can even call it “The Third Secret of the Fatuous”, if you wish): The prophet Jeremiah once said: “God’s curse is on those who do the things of the Lord carelessly”. The sneaking suspicion on the part of most of those in the pews is that you are taking the most precious things of the Lord (that is, the Divine Liturgy), and that you are treating them carelessly. Don’t expect any big kudus from either the faithful, or the Almighty, when you finally saunter into the Kingdom of Heaven. I suspect that the title, “least in the Kingdom”, is the best you can expect. I also suggest that you start practice gnashing your teeth, just in case.
This is not to say that all those who play guitar in church are damned. One of the best guitar masses that I ever was present at used John Dowland’s “Lord Willowby’s Return” as the instrumental replacement of the introit. The rest of the music was equally good. I would also be okay with the likes of John Fahey or Leo Kottke on guitar at the mass. Hell, I’d be okay if Sister Mary Clarence of Sister Act started programming the music. At least she understood that any true love song truly expressed the relation between the human soul and God.
None of this is the case with most of the pabulum that I had the misfortune to suffer through before I bailed on your shipwreck-in-progress. It’s said in Nashville that all you need are four chords and the truth. Most guitar masses in my experience miss that by at least two chords, and wouldn’t know the truth if it. . . introduced itself to the players. It has gotten so bad that I entirely understand the sentiment of early Christians, and the Orthodox Church, who still have in their Canons the instruction that a cleric who learns to play the cithara (early predecessor of the guitar) is to be deposed from office and excommunicated.
Confession, hell: at this point, I’m going to have to do a couple of hundred rounds of the Jesus Prayer to keep myself from killing something/someone.
posted by Bernard Brandt at 11:18 PM
6 Comments:
You make some good points. Now that we've both hopefully gotten it out of our system, the question is:
What do we, in the American Church, do about it?
I love chant and polyphony. Matter of fact, I would sing it exclusively were I in a parish that supports it. Alas, I'm not.
So what to do? Heap derision on musicians who are volunteering to pray that music they know? Boycott the music ministry in my parish because I don't prefer what I have to sing?
No. The way to affect change is to take it a little step at a time. It took us 40 years to get into this mess, it's going to take us a little more time to get out of it. This "Spirit of Vatican II" bullshit is indeed the "Smoke of Satan". I don't think the Devil could have come up with a better, incremental and insidious way of destroying our Church.
And sitting up in your lofty perch of orthodox music heaping derision on us is not going to help us. Dealing with us in a charitible manner might.
So what do you suggest? If we go to complete Latin chant and polyphony, we'll empty half the seats. If we play contemporary pap all the time we'll empty the other half.
Ideas?
(BTW, thanks for the link :))
Dear Tony:
Thank you for your good and charitable posting. I also hope that we've gotten the bile out of our respective systems. Perhaps the best advice that an outsider could say to us at this point would be, "Put down the poison pens, both of you, and no one will get hurt!"
I think that you are absolutely correct that the question is: "What do we, in the American Church, do about it?"
What I did was to leave a church in which I was unhappy, and to enter one in which I could learn the riches of worship and song. Obviously, however, this is not available to most RCs.
I agree entirely with you that the way to effect change in the American Church is to take little steps. I think it would be a good idea however to have a clear vision as to the direction which those steps would take.
I personally think that the original advice of the Second Vatican Council on sacred music, Musicam Sacram would be a good beginning. To repeat it in truncated form, the call of the Council was for chant, sacred polyphony, and recent modern folk music.
That said, I have several thoughts as regards each of these types of sacred music.
Chant
-It doesn't have to be in Latin. One of the things I have learned from St. Andrew's and the Orthodox Churches is that you can adapt different styles of Christian Chant quite effectively into English.
-It doesn't have to be ornate. You can start by having dialogue between the priest, deacon, choir and congregation on a single sung pitch (or recto tono. Gradually you can start including more nuanced chant melodies.
-It doesn't even have to be Gregorian. There are a wealth of chant traditions, including (for the West) Ambrosian, Mozarabic and Sarum, and (for the East), Byzantine, Znamenny, Serbian, Carpatho-Rusyn, Ukrainian, and Romanian. Many people have been adapting these as well into English. Each and all of them would be well worth examining, and perhaps using.
Polyphony
-Again, it doesn't have to be in Latin. A number of people have adapted a lot of polyphony into English. Their works are well worth examining.
-It doesn't have to be in four or more parts. There has been plenty of polyphony in two or three parts which is available.
-It doesn't have to be latin based. There is a wealth of Orthodox music which has been put into English, and is available on the Internet. I have written in this weblog about sources for such music.
Modern Folk Music
--It doesn't have to be Haagen-Haas frozen yogurt all the time. The Cyber Hymnal provides thousands of hymns in pdf and midi format. Certainly some of them could be used.
--It doesn't have to be post 1960s American music. There is a wealth of world folk hymnography which is worth looking at and even singing.
--Some moribund white male music may actually be worth it. Haas' "And Holy is His Name" (based on both the folk melody and the Magnificat) is good liturgical music, as is "Gift of Finest Wheat" and some other rare gems. It is only when one is given a constant diet of mediocre food that food allergies set in. Just a word to the wise.
That said, you and your church seem to be in a better position than most to implement these changes. My last recommmendations are: dump the organ and the sound system; make use of singers who love the music, and are willing to find and learn new things; and most importantly, do simple things well.
You have a good point. Where can I find the "Cyber Hymnal" and possibly get recommendations for some chant and polyphony sheet music (latin or otherwise).
Our church, over the last 28 years, has had a rich history of Latin choral singing, from Panis Angelicus (with that horrible non-translation of "oh Lord most holy") to Ave Verum Corpus to Alleluia Chorus... The trick would be to have music that could be participatory in nature.
How do you present 3 and 4 part to your congregation to allow them to participate, or are these pieces only "meditation pieces" (I'm loath to say "performance pieces" but you know what I mean. :)
My original anger was fueled by the link that appears in my original entry. "Gerald" is not a ficticious member of my parish. I have never seen one of my fellow parishioners or even guests react negatively to any of our music. This seems to be a st-blogs-traditional-or-bust blogger thing.
I love traditional. We have an indult mass here in town that I have yet to go to (I want to bring my daughter), but I figure 2-3 masses a week fulfills my obligation for right now. My job is to help bring music back to my parish. That is the way Spiritus Sancti is speaking to me.
BTW, we have a Maronite mass at our parish on the third Sunday of the month presided by a traveling priest and deacon. I attended. It was an awesome experience for me. I was welcomed by the community, and I had a missalette with "facing pages", but the original was in Arabic, so I had to watch for the described ecclesiastic gestures.
Can I offer a suggestion? Gregorian chant had been translated and arranged in English *generations* ago: by the Anglicans. Even more: they kept its theology intact while endowing it with the full beauty possible in English: and excellent music to boot.
And - a criticism (though not towards Bernard). Musicians are cranky little egos. I know, I'm one too. However, for anyone to suggest that chant is more difficult than contemporary praise choruses is both unrealistic and dishonest. I know: I was a Charismatic praise leader/musician long before I learned how to chant. The 'Why don't you come here and Chant then' thing is just throwing a "snit". Any musician capable of playing a musical instrument and/or singing on key could just as easily chant.
Dear Tony:
Again, thank you for your kind posting. I'm almost sorry that I had the tantrum, save for the fact that I was further introduced to both you and the Orthodox Okie. Thank you for linking to my weblog. I have also linked to yours, and Aristibule's as well, as you can see from my sidebar. I intend on keeping a close eye on you two: you both write beautifully.
You have also asked a couple of questions which deserve answers. The Cyber Hymnal can be found here: http://www.cyberhymnal.org.
It has a wealth of hymns, together with MIDI and scores. Do not discount the MIDI. Quite often, you can use music notation programs to import them into such programs, and then isolate the individual melodic lines. You can then reconvert them back to MIDI, and have tracks that you can use to teach the individual parts to your choir.
Although you have not asked, there is also a wealth of polyphony to be found at the Public Domain Choral Music website. That can be found here: http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
As you can see from the "wiki" in the web address, they've been doing a wealth of work as regards giving reference information for the music they are providing. This resource is well worth using.
As regards how to use multi-part music so that people will participate, my suggestion is three-fold: first, repeat the music often enough so that it will enter into the people's memory; second: provide the words so that they can follow along; third, spare no effort to speak to the people personally and encourage them to sing. At St. Andrew, when I was choir director, I would often say to people that it did my heart good to hear them singing along. I would also often say that the choir was supposed to be the leaders of the people in prayer, not their replacement.
The point is that I made use of these principles, and the congregation sings everything in the liturgy. On one occasion, I was able to read the Epistle from the tetrapod in the middle of the church, rather than up in the choir (we had enough people so that I was not needed in the loft). It truly did my heart good to lead the Alleluia, and to hear the whole congregation respond in song.
I hope that this may be of some help to you.
Like it says in a favorite film of mine, "If you build it, he will come." Half the problem is that a whole generation of Catholics has grown up deprived of the treasury of good music for liturgy.
I've found, though, that when we do a Latin Mass at the school where I teach and we sing chant and polyphony, kids who've attended LifeTeen since they were ten embrace the traditional song of the Catholic church wholeheartedly. They've commented that it feels somehow holy or special to them. There's a desire for sacred things in the hearts of the faithful that, for whatever reason, the Powers That Be ignore or don't see!
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