With our metrosexual worship leaders, two-guitars-and-a-drum praise bands, and “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs, I assumed we evangelicals had a monopoly on messing up church music. But at the always intriguing Catholic literary journal Dappled Things, Jeffrey Tucker argues that music in the Mass is also broken—and offers a proposal on how to fix:
If I were to pick one word to describe the present state of music in the Catholic world, I would choose tedium. Nothing new ever happens. The repertoire is mostly from the 1970s, with some 1980s elaborations, but in a style that is dreadfully dated by popular standards. It is particularly pathetic that much of this music depends heavily on the sound and feel of people who want to be inspired by the “groove”—yet the music demonstrates a chilling lack of inspiration. Most of this material does not play itself; it sounds unusually boring in the hands of bored musicians.
The hymns are chosen before Mass from the usual standbys, as if there were nothing more to Catholic music than flipping pages and pointing. Why even bother to rehearse? It’s no wonder that pastors don’t want to spend any more time or resources on the music program than what they currently spend. What do they expect to get that they aren’t getting now? Is there anything to be excited about? Anything to learn?
Inspiration is precisely what the discovery of the Gregorian tradition provides. You only need to know one antiphon and feel the way the Latin works so beautifully for the singing voice in order to gain this inspiration. This music touches something deep within all Catholics and all the more so when we come to realize that this is the music that developed alongside the Catholic liturgical structure as an integral part of it.
January 17th, 2010 | 7:17 am
Yes…the music I hear at Mass is conventional, boring stuff that was frozen into the liturgy in the 70s after Vatican II. Mass on Saturday afternoons is still the guitar hootenanny variety popular in the mid sixties from those old black and white tv shows.
Boring and uninspiring…I long for either the old style Latin hymns from the fifties…or no music at all. The words of the mass are enough…as is the eucharist…they don’t need pumping up. I also miss the Maryknoll fathers who used to run our parish. They never pretended to be sociologists…just men of God.
January 17th, 2010 | 8:17 am
I certainly agree that recovery of the Gregorian tradition, or plainchant, will be a great blessing.
One place where the chant will be recovered is my own funeral. Unfortunately, that event is closer today than it was yesterday. I am insisting that a person or schola chant the “Dies Irae” in its traditional setting as part of the celebration.
As a pre-teen altar boy serving at funeral masses, I heard this chant time and again. Its haunting melodies and messages are forever in my soul.
I’m blessed with, at least, two sons and a son-in-law who are capable of performing this chant. Soon, God willing, I will also have a daughter-in-law with a lovely soprano voice to add to the group.
January 17th, 2010 | 8:51 am
The first sentence in this post is priceless, and more than makes up for the Bob Seger quote in the title.
January 17th, 2010 | 10:26 am
I don’t recall any of the gospel writers mentioning Gregorian chant at the Last Supper.
Yes, much of contemporary Catholic liturgical music is little better than nursery rhymes or advertising jingles, but the idea that Gregorian chant is the only kind of music that should be used is plain silly. There are plenty of examples of excellent, uplifting modern worship music, though much of it is to be found in evangelical churches.
I have to say that some of the worst liturgical music I’ve heard has been at St Peter’s in Rome and some of the big Masses I’ve attended here in England.
And the Catholic world you speak of is not simple North America and Europe. African or Latin American Catholics, for example, need a music that grows out of their particular cultures, not one from an alien culture.
January 17th, 2010 | 12:55 pm
Lovely article. The good news is that you can even say such things – that liturgical music should start with and spring from Gregorian chant – and not get laughed out of the room.
2 things: one of the ironies of modern Catholic liturgical music is that, not only is it hopelessly dated – it was hopelessly dated when it was implemented. News flash: the cool kids were not listening to the Mommas and the Papas in 1975.
Further, after having been in a number of ‘contemporary’ music groups during the ’70s, one little hurdle could have saved a lot of trouble and, frankly, embarrassment: You can only play at Mass once you’ve gotten paying gigs to play someplace else. In other words: don’t *tell* us you’re music is contemporary and what the kids want to hear – *show* us, by packing them in when Mom and Dad aren’t making them show up Mass.
2 local parishes where I attend Mass do use the chant Angus Dei and Kyrie and Pater Noster once in a while – funny, but more people sing those, and louder, than sing any of the contemporary stuff. I think we unfortunately need to let the hippie-dippy generation die off, so that people who hear with their ears rather than with their social philosophy can pick the music.
January 17th, 2010 | 5:01 pm
Joe, you left out ‘leading’ the music in a low semi-growl with which almost no one can sing along (or perhaps that is a burden only the members of my church must bear). My pastor is an amazing expositor of the scripture, but the music service at the evangelical church I attend is just this side of unbearable. It is almost literally painful.
It makes me sad, because as you know the shelves in the storehouse of Christian music must bow under the weight of the thousands of the truly marvelous songs that have been written over the centuries. It is as if our contemporary music leaders drive by the lot marked “Free Rolls Royces! – Just Drive ‘em Away!” in favor of the used ’88 Yugos they offer up Sunday after Sunday.
January 17th, 2010 | 5:34 pm
I sometimes think that if I hear “On Eagle’s Wings” one more time I will go screaming out of Mass. But where would I go?
January 17th, 2010 | 6:47 pm
One nice thing about chant is that it doesn’t require a large or particularly gifted choir — good news in my smalltown parish, where we had four people singing today (one of them me, with a cold) — or much musical support.
On the fourth Sunday of Advent we had snow, and our organist, who does not drive in weather, was absent. Fortunately what we’d planned for the day included the Rorate Coeli for the introit plus various chant-inspired or other traditional hymns (Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, Creator of the Stars of Night, etc), and Latin chant for the Mass parts. We’d planned to do some of it a capella, though not all of it; as it turned out, it was a solemn, reverent, quiet, and very moving Mass.
The other thing about chant is that, like Latin itself, it’s culture-transcending. It’s the Church’s music, not the music of any one culture. Our parish is heavily Hispanic; one thing I notice is that the Thursday Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form) attracts English and Spanish speakers in equal parts, partly because it’s just the Mass for the day, but also because it’s both nobody’s Mass and everybody’s. I think the same holds true of chant and other traditional church music — an increasing number of Spanish speakers have been attending the English Mass on Sundays, and while I don’t know why that is, the traditional music does not seem to be alienating them.
January 17th, 2010 | 10:42 pm
What a fabulous article. While I agree with the person above who said that Gregorian chant isn’t the ONLY type of music that can be used in liturgy, the fact is that the majority of what you hear in parishes today is NOT suited to iturgy. And I don’t think that songs written in the style of “real” popular music would be suitable either. Plus, it would get dated just as fast as the dated stuff we have now. While Gregorian chant isn’t the only answer, it’s great that people are starting to work on improving the junk we have now. I would love it if my parish followed these directions, even if all we did was the first few things he suggests, it would be a rest for the ears and my patience!
January 17th, 2010 | 11:20 pm
As a Hispanic Catholic who grew up in Colombia and only relatively recently moved to the United States, allow me to entirely agree with Sally that Gregorian chant does have a culture-transcending power, against Greg Watts who — no doubt with good intentions — seems to suggest that we Latins can’t handle chant. If anything we should be able to handle it much better than North Americans. After all, our societies have a predominantly Catholic history and Gregorian chant is very much a part of that history. My mom tells me that, as little kids, my uncles used to play around singing the Tantum Ergo. But all that was wiped away and replaced with banal music every bit as bad, if not worse, than “On Eagles Wings,” except in Spanish (and that is if we were lucky to have any music at all).
I love Salsa and Merengue and all sorts of Latin dances, but it was only when I came to the United States that I had to encouter them at Mass (to my dismay). Who can possibly pray to that music? It’s very entretaining, no doubt, but it makes you want to spin someone around, not kneel and meditate. And, as I say, I never ever attended a Mass like that in Colombia, only when I got to the States — I imagine because the pastors wanted to give us a liturgy that was “culturally appropriate.” Well, I’ll tell you, even as much as the Colombian equivalent of “On Eagle’s Wings” was unsatisfying, I would take it any day over the typical Salsa Mass that one seems to find for most Spanish language liturgies.
To sum up: there is beautiful sacred music that has been a part of Latin culture and it deserves to be recovered. Some of it can be Gregorian chant, some of it can be truly sacred music in Spanish. I honestly appreciate your desire to be respectful of my culture, Mr. Watts, but your approach actually verges on the patronizing.
As for me, I say: que viva el canto Gregoriano!
January 18th, 2010 | 6:31 am
I would guess that all generalizations are problematic. I don’t think that Jeff Tucker is necessarily right when he says that Gregorian chant “touches something deep within all Catholics” — how does he know that? It may touch something deep within the Catholics he knows, but his pronouncement seems rather sweeping. Likewise, Joe’s characterization of evangelical worship leaders as “metrosexual” also seems rather generalizing and sweeping.
I don’t think we advance the conversation about appropriate music in worship by generalizations like that. Some of them are almost defamatory, and others fail to take seriously the concerns of lots of people “in the pews”.
January 18th, 2010 | 9:03 am
I also love Gregorian chant. I believe it should be part of the Mass. However, I do not agree that it is the only inspiring music.
At my parish we have had an outstanding music director and organist for 25 years. We do chant. We do 60′s, 70′s, 80′s, 90′s, 00′s songs and that is from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Of course, we Catholics borrowed a fair number of good ones from the Protestants in the 19th century. At the time, we were doing mainly Latin.
I believe the Church should hang onto the best of the old music and keep reaching for God in the present. We have so much mediocre modern music not because of Vatican II but because it is in the process of being filtered. The older sounds better in general because it has been filtered. The older it is, the more filtering has taken place.
I offer you an experiment. Recast your most hated modern hymn in Latin. Chant it to a pattern that meets its meter. Is it really any better (other than you can no longer understand the words)? Now imagine the hundreds of chants that didn’t make the cut.
And you should hear what our organist improvises before and after Mass. It’s wild.
January 18th, 2010 | 11:54 am
I don’t know how many people have actually read the article, rather than just the quote here, but I think it’s important to point out that this is not the typical let’s-complain-about-music article (which is kind of what we’re doing in the comments), but rather a sort of blueprint for *how* to fix it. Among other things, he suggests doing all this in a spirit of charity and do your best to avoid divisions over this in the parish. That’s kind of the aim of his blueprint, really: to start introducing chant at only certain key points at first, so people can start understanding it, learning it, and getting a real taste for it.
Among other things, you should note that he does not say only to do chant in Latin, but also suggests Anglican chant (chant in English). We had this at my wedding and *so* many people came up to us and said they wished they could have such music at their parish. And no, I’m not talking about conservative Catholics, I’m actually talking about a group that included lapsed Catholics. Many said that they had stopped going to church because the worship seemed so banal, but that they had seen something different and so much more inspiring at our wedding.
In addition, Tucker actually suggests things beyond chant for certain parts in the Mass (like the recessional). Another important point is that he points out that he is not picking chant out of mere stylistic preference, but rather because it is a music that developed alongside the liturgy and is, in a sense, inscribed in it like the prayers are. I think the Orthodox or Eastern Rite Catholics probably have a much better sense of this since their own chants make such an important part of their worship. They are used to “singing the Mass” rather than “singing AT Mass,” which is the approach many of us take.
January 23rd, 2010 | 2:59 pm
i’m a little late to the party, but a few thoughts nonetheless.
i was in dillingham, alaska for mass when suddenly my jaw dropped and rolled off the kneeler. up at the front of the church a lady pulled out an accordion. initially, i didn’t believe it would be used, but sure enough…. (the memory of the whole thing has stuck to my brain like oatmeal to my ribs.)
then i checked my heart. perhaps in the eyes of her maker, the accordion player’s skill and sincerity of heart was perfectly pleasing. perhaps it was my heart that was unbearable, and not the music. then i repented.
my wife and i repeatedly have a conversation about church music that leads me invoke objective differences between such things as gourmet french restaurants and burger king. the analogy is useless to her: she’s deeply suspicious of “snobs” like me.
as for me, all i can say is that i believe in real beauty, true and good beauty with actual standards. to believe in such a thing is, to quote peter kreeft, the only right response to reality. indeed, what is good and beautiful might actually be what i don’t like. truth, goodness, and beauty are not preferences — they are more real than i am.
c. s. lewis writes something germane to this thread in his essay “on church music” that amounts to miguel’s comment on charity — that the person of “high” tastes ought to, if necessary, forget herself and play/sing a “low” piece well and sincerely, if only as an act of love to others whose palates have not had a chance to undergo proper formation. the person of “low” tastes, in turn, ought also to forget herself if necessary and humbly try to enjoy music that perhaps she doesn’t understand. conclusion: for those of us with higher tastes, i propose that it is possible to sing “on eagle’s wings” with true charity.
incidentally, it wasn’t so long ago that i was one of those “metrosexuals” with the guitar leading music at my college’s campus crusade for christ meetings. sap and sentimentality would ooze from every one of my pores. alas, only by the grace of God go i.
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