Slow compound meter.

I think that in my mind that this phrase indicates a parish in which the people get their way, as their own wants and desires as far as music and liturgy drive the entire show.

Expect waterfalls, banners and even...clowns. And a Barney Mass.

But this is just in my mind. Other's mileage will vary.

Pastoral symphonies are about meadows and sheep. Therefore, pastoral music is sung only on Rogation days.

You're welcome.

"Pastoral music" is when the pastor sings the preface dialogue. However, for some, this might be called "pastoral noise." The latter term may also refer to the decibel level of the praise band, or the decibel level of its proponents, when advocating during a liturgy committee meeting.

It's the music we would like to put out to pasture.

by hook or crook.

PGA, I really like what you wrote here. The most important word that you used was trust. In my parish, the pastor trusts me in matters of music and liturgy. Trust has to be earned over time, and hopefully after a while experience shows us that we can rely upon each other's expertise. We also have to speak to each other often. I have found that when everyone involved in the liturgy is aware of what is supposed to happen next, there are fewer hiccups and we get a lot more accomplished.

Yes. Those two things exactly.

Thank you all for your comments!

Suppose the discussion is phrased thus: church music should be governed by the criteria of liturgical, pastoral, and musical, in that order. So liturgical concerns outweigh pastoral ones, and pastoral outweigh musical.

Surely pastoral musicians stink smell like their sheep?

....but that the people want....

There is a certain coterie of folk who are fond of telling us what the people want. Did the people come to them and tell them that? No! These folk simply decided on everybody's behalf, yours, mine, and the people's, that what 'the people' wanted was synomymous with what these folk, cultural iconoclasts and ignoramuses to a man and woman, wanted. No one but them would ever have dreamed of it.

.

AmChurch of Nice (not a town in France) stands oh so close to a sinkhole.

CharlesW: I laughed so hard, I'm crying right now!

Perhaps not.

In no universe that I wish to inhabit does a "pastoral" concern trump a music concern.

I think that I don't agree with you. In fact, I wouldn't want to inhabit a universe where a pastoral concern is always the last of the three concerns in order of importance.

Let's do a thought experiment. Suppose that my pastor gets transferred to St. Mary of Suburbia and later asks me to join him as his DOM there. Now at our current church, the music at mass is very close to ideal IMHO. We use Latin, we use chant, we sing polyphony, make use of the propers and only sing very sturdy English hymnody, accompanied on the organ. Suppose that St. Mary of Suburbia has a music program that uses Mass of Creation each week, coupled with 3 Haugen/Haas et al songs, with maybe one "traditional" hymn thrown in. No propers, DEFINATELY no Latin, and no chant.

Now how do you suppose I should approach this new assignment? Should I go in and say "Well, as you know you have a new pastor, and I'm the new DOM. So the music program here will immediately be very similar to the one that I used to run at my last parish?" Such an approach would be divisive and would even likely cause a loss of faith for some people. People rely on church to be constant; such dramatic change really does drive people away.

What I would actually do is probably make very few changes for a while. My presence and the fact that I would not be their former director would be traumatic enough. Eventually, I would maybe start using the organ more, maybe introduce ICEL chants in English over the summer, and make a few other small changes. Then we would go from there.

So in this case, yes, I would absolutely let pastoral concerns trump the music and liturgical. IMO it is the right thing to do in such a scenario.

Such an approach would be divisive and would even likely cause a loss of faith for some people.

Again, this notion of divisiveness. Who divides from whom? Does the DM divide the people, or do they divide themselves based on the actions of the DM, because some of them cannot or will not accept the changes that are to come?

Consider the case of Fr. Robideau: was it he who divided his parish, or was it his parish that divided itself over him?

I disagree that certain approaches or actions or types of music or choices we make as DMs are "divisive." I do agree that people in certain places will divide themselves over whether or not they like or dislike the change that has been made. I want to point out that this happens with any change you make at the parish level: even introducing a new Mass setting.

The parish gets divided when they have to make a choice about whether or not they like something you've done. That's when you get "divisiveness," and at this point, we're worrying about who is right, not what is right, which is contained in the Church's documents and teachings, which PGA has rightly pointed out in several places on this forum.

Folks in my area everywhere tend to almost always resent being dictated to, even if especially when the dictator is correct

Fixed.

It is also important to remember that most of the people we work with in the parish setting everywhere do not have our training or experience a lick of common sense or decency and so we need to bring them along slowly by first meeting them where they are. beat them with an antique push broom while throwing cheese at them

There have been those times when all the years of weightlifting paid off, and I was able to say, "You know I could hurt you?" A last resort in extreme circumstances, to be sure, when dealing with the "uplifted" and adamant. Some of them need a good smacking.

When I look into Church history and worship in the Old Testament, some things emerge strongly. Worship had form, ceremonial, consecrated priests, holy places, items consecrated for God's service, and rubrics. It was LITURGICAL! There were no cases of the official religion telling everyone to do as they pleased or as they felt. A good lesson there for the uplifted wannabes.

CharlesW, who spent years training with weights, wrote:

A good lesson there for the uplifted wannabes.

Now there's a mental image for ya.

Again, this notion of divisiveness. Who divides from whom? Does the DM divide the people, or do they divide themselves based on the actions of the DM, because some of them cannot or will not accept the changes that are to come?

Consider the case of Fr. Robideau: was it he who divided his parish, or was it his parish that divided itself over him?

I disagree that certain approaches or actions or types of music or choices we make as DMs are "divisive." I do agree that people in certain places will divide themselves over whether or not they like or dislike the change that has been made. I want to point out that this happens with any change you make at the parish level: even introducing a new Mass setting.

The parish gets divided when they have to make a choice about whether or not they like something you've done. That's when you get "divisiveness," and at this point, we're worrying about who is right, not what is right, which is contained in the Church's documents and teachings, which PGA has rightly pointed out in several places on this forum.

I don't mean this as a criticism of you at all, so don't think I'm being rude.

You are talking about "the way things ought to be." I'm talking about "the way things are."

I've known firsthand of several parishes where a new DOM came in and immediately redesigned the music program in their own image with the support of the pastor. In a couple cases, it was people transforming a "typical suburban" music program into something more sublime. In a couple other cases it was someone turning things in the opposite direction. In each case I've heard from people personally involved.

In each of those cases, even the people most sympathetic to the changes (indeed, they WISHED for such changes) say that it was those changes that divided their parish. In most cases they say "I was glad that the changes came, but in the end it probably wasn't worth it for what it did to the parish."

You can talk semantics about who did the dividing and where the blame SHOULD go. But any of those people involved in those cases would tell you the same thing: "Whether the music was good or bad before, the parish was at least not DIVIDED the way it is today."

These things have serious consequences. People literally leave the faith when they feel the rug has been pulled out from under them at their parish. Couple these types of dramatic, sudden music changes with a pastor who says "If you don't like it, leave" when they complain, and you've got a real recipe for someone actually leaving the Church and never coming back.

You can talk semantics about who did the dividing and where the blame SHOULD go. But any of those people involved in those cases would tell you the same thing: "Whether the music was good or bad before, the parish was at least not DIVIDED the way it is today."

When there are statements like this being made, it indicates that you have people in your parish who are unwilling to accept the Church on any other terms than their own.

Words and how we use them are important: that's why we use them. Semantics, therefore, are important. I'm not interested in blame: I'm interested in truth. The true cause of a divided parish is not, for example, that the new priest wants to use Latin in the Mass. It's because there are people in the parish that don't like the fact that the new priest wants to use Latin in the Mass. It doesn't matter why those people don't like it; it matters that they are willing to cut themselves off from the rest of the parish, and enter into conflict with others over it.

You are talking about "the way things ought to be." I'm talking about "the way things are."

We should be striving to make them one and the same. Yes, there will be people who don't like the change, and who will try to vilify us for it. That phrase should sound familiar. Jesus Christ himself was divisive, and so was His message. He was also vehemently vilified for this. Was He wrong to bring His message to the world because it might have divided the people? I think He knew His message would divide them, and that He knew it was necessary. Christ's teaching was a dramatic shift from what was going on in the world at the time, and yes, this is why many people didn't like Him.

These things have serious consequences. People literally leave the faith when they feel the rug has been pulled out from under them at their parish. Couple these types of dramatic, sudden music changes with a pastor who says "If you don't like it, leave" when they complain, and you've got a real recipe for someone actually leaving the Church and never coming back.

There are several problems with that scenario that would have nothing to do with the music, nor the use of commonly "divisive" aspects such as Latin and Gregorian Chant. First, why is it that someone complains when they don't like something? Could it be that they feel that they are entitled to something they didn't get? Second, if someone is willing to leave the Church entirely and never return because of something in the Church they disagree with, this is called Protestantism. Third, as the retention of souls is a chief concern of the Church, it is disturbing when people abandon Her for whatever reason. However, if the condition of their staying at the side of the Holy Mother is that their earthly desires must be appeased (such as vernacular, no Latin, no Chant, etc.), then how true is their loyalty to Her? In this case, the issue runs much deeper than music, vernacular, etc.

Also, I think another issue here is that of change. People don't deal well with change in the church, and that is quite understandable. The Church should be a place of constancy and a refuge from the outside world. However, the Church was constant for almost 500 years until the 1960s when a radical, sudden change occurred. All change is sudden in some way, and for many even that is too much (simply changing the Mass setting can cause some individuals to complain and threaten to leave the Church). So where do you draw the line? I would submit that gradual change is not possible. Although, one can split a larger change into smaller points and call it gradual, it is not, because each one of those points is a sudden change in itself. When it comes to change, at some point things have to be different in some way, however large or small than they were before. The argument that I would receive against this is that it is easier for people to swallow smaller changes than larger ones. This is a generalization at best, and seeks to circumvent the truth that all change, of whatever size is sudden. Gradual change is an oxymoron in that sense.

Surely you don't mean to compare your judgment as a professional Church musician with the divine teachings of the eternal Word (who prayed to his Father ut unum sint). Also, Latin and chant--as wonderful as they are--are not of divine mandate, and it would be troubling to suggest that their preservation or promotion was worth the cost of a single immortal soul. This is what it means to give priority to pastoral judgement.

This.

OK. So people divide themselves as a result of hating the concepts you espouse.

So what? How does that change anything, practically speaking?