a paradox, I think.

The priests and religious sing better and sing better music because they are on furlough from the musical prison walls that surround the typical parish. There is apparently a true example of an actual prison in which it was discovered to have rotted walls and in some places could be pushed over with bare hands. But no one escaped because everyone assumed the walls were sturdy. That to me is a perfect analogy of the typical parish: surrounded by walls of rotten liturgy and music in which no one has the fortitude to test . And to throw out another analogy, no one tests the walls because of crabs-in-a-bucket mentality. You don't have to keep a lid on a bucket of crabs because anytime a crab makes a move to escape, the other crabs pull him back in.

Is it a paradox or double-standard?

Respectfully, I'd say it's neither. Rather, it is an attempt to compare an apple (i.e., a few named musical selections used at a celebration of Evening Prayer in Visalia, CA) to an orange (i.e., completely unnamed musical selections, left to any and everyone's imagination, used at imagined Masses in the parishes and chapels of those who participated in the Evening Prayer liturgy).

Had the comparison actually been between an apple and an apple, I would guess that any of the participants at the Evening Prayer in Visalia who themselves offer sung Evening Prayer in their parishes or convents will most likely use a metrical hymn and a simple tone for the chanting of psalms, as was done in Visalia. And, contrary to what was reported about the Visalia liturgy ("After the responsory my duties were over."), I would imagine that most parish and convent celebrations would also include a sung Magnificat with its antiphon.

Convents would be more likely to sing the Salve Regina than parishes (see below), but if the sisters also sing Compline, they would sing the Salve Regina there, where it actually belongs. In my experience the Salve Regina is the one and only chant that priests usually know. They don't often sing it very well. And, for the most part, they are not concerned that their parishioners don't know it. That way they can keep it as their "secret" chant, a bit of arcana, to be sung only by them at the end of a deceased priest's funeral (comparable to the de rigueur bagpiped NEW BRITAIN at funerals of firefighters).

Had the comparison been between an orange and an orange, that is, had the celebration in Visalia been a Mass rather than Evening Prayer, and had the music sung at that Mass honoring jubilarian priests and women religious been compared to the music used by those same priests and sisters at Masses in their own parishes and convents, it may have produced some interesting results, perhaps even paradoxical ones.

Xpost from Café.

Todd, you and Fr. Krisman (in a comment at MSF) both have focused upon an ancillary observation by claiming I'm comparing liturgies. Not at all, if you really comprehend what I'm observing, it's a comparison of valuing distinct forms of worship music in one arena, and lessening that value when back at home. That's the facts. Your comment answering "why?" is redundant because I stated that reality in terms of their formation- Meinrad tones are imposed and cultivated over other forms, so yes, they become habitual and favored. As a musician, I was simply offering that I, me, myself and I found them compositionally wanting, and less intuitively cohesive for psalm-tone chanting. Another thread on MSF was discussing the notions of music as math. Some of that discussion focused upon the baroque era theory that specific tonal keys had specific emotional/physical/spiritual affects. I believe a similar taxonomy, even a superior one, existed for the Greek and the Church modes.
To cut to the chase, neither of us have to buy what the other is selling. And that extends to whether we buy what OCP/GIA/WLP/LitP or CMAA/CCW/Illuminare is marketing. But volume of gross sales doesn't mean a superior product is guaranteed.