PIP Reality
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    Compliments and Complaints you might actually hear

    1. I liked how loud you sounded!
    2. It's too slow.
    3. Why don't you ever play [favorite song]?
    4. That was neat.
    5. I feel so uplifted.
    6. I'm bored.
    7. It's not how it was when I was a kid.
    8. It sounds like you have twice as many singers as you really do.
    9. It was really neat how the text of that song kinda went with the lessons.
    10. Are you ever going to do a folk mass?


    Compliments and Complaints you will not hear

    1. I really appreciate your approach to contemporary liturgical praxis.
    2. Common practice tonal theory just doesn't work within an orthodox understanding of Eucharistia.
    3. I loved those minor 7th chords as you came back into the 3/4 section!
    4. I can't believe you think Vaughn Williams is appropriate to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
    5. I liked how the mode of the vernacular Introit matched the Gregorian original.
    6. Really?! You're still using that out-moded 1-2, 1-2-3 thing?
    7. I was so glad you did that randomly selected song instead of the appointed Responsorial Psalm. The text was really meaningful to me.
    8. When you forced us all to clap, I could really feel the Active Participation filling the room.
    9. Your attention to rubrical precision greatly enhanced my experience of Worship.
    10. Your total disregard for rubrical precision grealty enhanced my experience of Worship.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    Thanks! These Top Ten Lists may never play on the Letterman show, but they're great for here.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    I can't believe you didn't play God Bless America!
  • Chris AllenChris Allen
    Posts: 150
    I've personally encountered #3, along with "Why can't you give us something we can sing?" and "Is it a sin to play more 'modern' [read P & W] songs?"
  • Allan DAllan D
    Posts: 43
    Some questions I've gotten:
    Can you play Phantom of the Opera?
    Can you play Take Me Out to the Ball Game?
    Can you play In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?
    Can you play the Ohio State fight song?
    Can you play that one really spooky Halloween song, I don't know the name but I think it's by Bach...?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    "5. I liked how the mode of the vernacular Introit matched the Gregorian original."

    lol
  • Maureen
    Posts: 675
    First off, there are actually two Ohio State fight songs: "Across the Field" (Trans Agrum, I guess) and "Buckeye Battle Cry" (guess you'd need Greek for that). The school song is "Carmen Ohio" (actual name).

    You know... if you threw enough counterpoint on it, I bet a mix of the Ohio State fight and school songs would make a really nice Mass. Of course, that would be wrong.

    And probably somebody at OSU's done it already, anyway. :)
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    I thought the rubrics demanded that everyone, alums and the rest of us, refer to said institution as "The (thee) Ohio State University."
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    My brother graduated from there, not long after they elected a cow Homecoming Queen.

    His degree was in dairy science.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Adam wrote in another thread: "People do not know what is good for them. They barely know what they like." Which is certainly true! But I think there is room to listen beyond what is said and determine what it is that people were saying:

    (The "actually heard" list, modified for the underlying point)
    1. Your choir has excellent diction.
    2. The meter and tempo do not, in my estimation, well match the acoustic environment.
    3. I want to sing [favorite song], and I believe the liturgy exists to please me.
    4. That made me think about something besides this afternoon's sporting event.
    5. I don't know big words, but that pleased me (see #3).
    6. It's not necessarily your fault, but the music communicated nothing to me. (Or: I wasn't kept busy enough)
    7. Change and young people with cell phones frighten me.
    8. See #1.
    9. Your programming helped me pay attention to the word of God.
    10. I personally like pseudo-folk devotional music. Also, see #3.

    Now, I have parodied some of these. But do we not know how to respond to any of these comments? Are some of them even helpful to us in our programming? Are they helpful for knowing the people in our congregation?

    People do not know how to communicate, by and large, but beneath most poorly-worded rants about what that other church does is an actual statement we can consider and interact with.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,046
    "And probably somebody at OSU's done it already, anyway. :)"
    That does it. "Missa victores" it is. Mode 2.
  • Chris AllenChris Allen
    Posts: 150
    You know... if you threw enough counterpoint on it, I bet a mix of the Ohio State fight and school songs would make a really nice Mass. Of course, that would be wrong.

    I'd throw in having everyone do "Script Ohio" during the entrance, but I don't think most churches would have enough room. :-P
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