How Influential is CMAA Compared to NPM?
  • bhcordovabhcordova
    Posts: 1,164
    @jpnz17- You asked why the forum is public and received an answer from chonak (who is both the forum administrator and webmaster). He explained why it is a public forum and why it will remain that way for the immediate future. He noted your objections and dismissed them. Why are you still harping on that? Give it a rest.
    [Admin note: would you mind easing up about this?--RC]
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • jpnz71
    Posts: 65
    Give it a rest.

    No. I disagree with you and him. Many, many years ago, I played baseball for one of the best college baseball coaches ever. He would often say that he could tell what kind of ballplayer we would be by visiting our apartment/living space and seeing how cluttered or well kept it was - the better kept, the better the ballplayer, the more cluttered and disorganized, the worse the ballplayer. He was right, because if he had visited my living space, he would have seen a mess. Consider this forum a sort of living space, and all of us musicians (or people who care about music) instead of ballplayers. I think my coach's lesson applies here as much as it did in baseball.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    JPNZ71,

    I think Francis' point (and I hope he will correct me if I'm wrong) is that what the CMAA has already published and made available is sufficient and that vernacular hymnody is the stranger. To promote lots of appropriate vernacular hymnody (which isn't an oxymoron) is, nevertheless, to promote devotional music rather than what is proper to the Roman Rite.
  • jpnz71
    Posts: 65
    Chris Garton-Zavesky - I don't disagree with you, however, I think the majority of Catholics in the pews, bishops, priests and music directors either do disagree, or aren't even aware of the distinction. The question is, will all of the above be more likely to come around to CMAAs perspective on this with the current resources offered, or would they be more likely to come around to this perspective, or at least do some significant review of the materials offered, if CMAA offered them a hymnal filled with quality vernacular hymnody? A quality hymnal might open minds in ways that all the current CMAA material just has not.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,817
    The question is, will all of the above be more likely to come around to CMAAs perspective on this with the current resources offered, or would they be more likely to come around to this perspective, or at least do some significant review of the materials offered, if CMAA offered them a hymnal filled with quality vernacular hymnody? A quality hymnal might open minds in ways that all the current CMAA material just has not.
    the best (musically assembled) vernacular (SATB) hymnal i ever used was the 1940... however, it lacked many elements proper to the RCC.

    There is a good hymnal put out by Angelus Press that contains a nice blend of hymns and chant very appropriate to the liturgy. Here is a link:

    https://angeluspress.org/collections/tridentine-mass/products/traditional-roman-hymnal-2nd-ed
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    JPNZ71,

    I won't speak for the CMAA board on this point, but I will offer my own opinion.

    If CMAA offered a hymnal filled with quality vernacular hymnody, those opposed to Latin, chant, polypony and theocentric worship would claim (with some justification) that the CMAA had thrown in the towel and acknowledged that these things are nice add-ons now and again, but not necessary or serious parts of Catholic worship in the age of Pope Francis the Humble, who wants his priests to smell like the sheep.

    Adoremus drew attention (some years back) to the defective nature of the English translation of the Mass of Paul VI. ICEL's chant Mass became mandatory in some places. Many didn't make progress beyond that. In the 1950's scores of thousands of Catholic school children were taught Missa de Angelis, and only Missa de Angelis. As a result, many Catholics of a certain generation believe that this Mass setting is the high water mark of Catholic music. (Please notice that I haven't spoken against Missa de Angelis in this post.) Catholics of a certain generation and upbringing believe that Low Mass is normal and High Mass is so much fluff added to what is normal, and should, therefore, be avoided.

    I think CMAA should stay on its current course.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    I like good hymns and have no problem with them. No, they are not Propers but I think Propers have seen their best days as far as most parishes go. They were not revised to fit the cycles of the three-year lectionary and are just stray bits of music and scripture that don't adapt to the current calendar. I believe Kathy Pluth, if I am not mistaken, has written a series of hymn Propers that could kill two birds with one stone if more widely used.

    Someday the OF will disappear, some say. If it does, it won't be in any of our lifetimes. What many EF folks can't bring themselves to admit is that the majority of Catholics in this country don't want the EF and are glad it's gone. Hardly a basis for the OF disappearing.

    Currently, CMAA offers a good collection of largely free music that any parish, struggling financially or not, can download and use. Music directors and organists can browse and choose what they want from the collection. I like that.
    Thanked by 3a_f_hawkins Elmar CHGiffen
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,467
    Indeed the collection is amazing, perhaps it could be more clearly advertised.
    A suggestion - on the home page, in addition to the unobtrusive Resources box in the banner, a splash on the left hand side, perhaps based on the attached.
    cornucopia.png
    200 x 150 - 4K
    Thanked by 2chonak tomjaw
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Charles,

    I grew up in the finest of the second-to-the-top-shelf of Anglican music, and only in my 20s discovered that there was other stuff, mostly junk, on offer. I don't dislike vernacular hymnody as such, and I enjoy (and my family embodied, when I was a kid) the idea that Anglicans can pick up unfamiliar music and read it in 4 part harmony. I had regular access to Hymns Ancient and Modern and a 1906 English Hymnal, if I recall correctly.

    The dam broke, for me, with the introduction of the Hymnal 1982 which has a few improvements over the Hymnal 1940, but much impoverishment to compensate for them. The new Book of Common Prayer was (and still is) a disaster at so many levels, but it took me until college to recognize that in its fullness.

    I think hymnody on the model of really solid Anglican hymnody could find a real, proper home within Catholic devotional life, but that's not the mission of CMAA. Now if someone wanted to compile a collection of chant hymns for various feast days, particularly saints days) that would be a real asset, and a project worthy of the CMAA. If anyone has a chant setting of the Lorica of St. Patrick, I would enjoy learning it, but I don't think it exists yet.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,817
    I think hymnody on the model of really solid Anglican hymnody could find a real, proper home within Catholic devotional life, but that's not the mission of CMAA.
    I second this thinking... I don't speak for the CMAA, but it is obvious that the CMAA has a very focused mission and even without trying to be influential, it simply IS.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    CMAA has published some original books, though not a hymnal; we've issued English adaptations of the propers for Mass (Simple English Propers, Simple Choral Gradual), an anthology of Latin chant (The Parish Book of Chant) and a book of responsorial psalm settings in English plainchant (Parish Book of Psalms). These are all aligned with the model of the sung Mass as reflected in Musicam sacram: with singing of the dialogues, the Mass ordinary, and the propers.

    Of course, that's not where most parishes are in this country, so hymnals can be a real practical aid for musicians here, working within the status quo in their parishes and striving to improve their parishes' musical culture. I wouldn't rule out publishing one, but so far CMAA has put more emphasis on the singing of the texts that appear in the liturgical books: that is, the Roman Missal, the Lectionary, and the Graduale Romanum.
    Thanked by 7WGS CHGiffen jpnz71 a_f_hawkins tomjaw bhcordova francis
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