I have known about them for years but the church stopped paying the membership fees a good 15 or so years ago. The pastor at the time said we had grown past anything they had to offer. I haven't paid much attention to NPM since. Now that I am retired, I care about them even less.

A priest who was at that early meeting told me about the fisticuffs. It really happened. He also said some of the early leaders hoped to reform and refocus the organization but abandoned it when they realized it was impossible.

Nathan,

NPM is an abbreviation for National Association of Pastoral Musicians. When I stopped following them, just before my oldest son was born, they were advancing music and praxis which (more or less) said "the past has nothing to teach us", and, accidentally, "Look at our glorious mediocrity".

NPM is the super liberal, praise and worship type church musician group, right?

Just to expand on jclangfo's clarification, "praise and worship" music originated among Evangelical Protestants and was expanded particularly by charismatic denominations such as Vineyard and Hillsong. It is often devotional and emotional in content, with repeated material intended for easy singing by large groups led by a stage band with one or more soloist "worship leaders". While a parish with several thousand people is no big deal among Catholics, a congregation of several thousand is often called a "megachurch" among Protestants. The commercial Christian-music industry was an instrument in the spread of this music, as it was played on Christian radio stations, and available for sale to the public.

This term does not include most of the "contemporary" music sung in average Catholic parishes in the US and Canada; 1960s-1970s "folk mass" music has mostly faded away and been succeeded by later (post-1980) compositions. Some people call this music "sacropop" though it's really not based on pop music: theater is a bigger influence. Let's call it "contemporary Catholic", though that's not a perfect term either: some prominent authors in the field are not Catholics.

Doctrinally ambiguous lyrics are more often an issue in the contemporary Catholic category than in P&W. P&W music avoids saying anything heretical about the sacraments, because it's mostly designed for Protestant audiences and therefore rarely talks about sacraments. In the recent document about church music from the US bishops' doctrine committee, none of the songs they cited as problematic examples were in a P&W style: while some Catholic musicians have adopted it, it doesn't have a dominant presence in parishes.

Oh: but this is a digression.

While NPM mostly advances the interests of big publishers of parish music, it usually does (to its credit) have presentations on chant for its members who are interested.

MarkB

Could only listen to about 10 seconds of each vid, and then had to close the page. The only word I can use to describe this is... repulsive.

Jackson,
Have you seen/heard the CD called Pigorian Chant?

Listen to those videos; that's what P&W music is. OCP's "Spirit & Song" catalogue is a mostly failed attempt by Catholic composers to imitate the successful style of Evangelical P&W music but for Catholics.

Maybe I'm not listening closely enough, but I hear the same solo singing style, the same individualistic lyrics, the same chord progressions, the same silent congregation, the same disconnect between the music and Catholic liturgy and spirituality with both "authentic" P&W and its Catholic imitation.

jclanfo, on that day I posted that, I went to their website, and one of the first things I saw was a black lives matter statement talking about inclusivity. Also, the church I grew up at was quite contemporary and liked praise and worship music. I would say it is also one of, if not the most liberal church in my diocese, which has quite conservative leadership. I would say that you are quite different from the other contemporary musicians I have interacted with. I would not put you in the liberal category, but many of the other contemporary musicians I would.

Grunt: Pigorian Chant from Snouto Domoinko de Silo (Google book preview).

Thanks to MarkB for posting the example videos. I've only listened to a little so far, and I thought there were certainly weaknesses about the entrance song heard in the video. On the other hand, it was an attempt to evoke a real sense of adoration toward God, something which is rather remote in a lot of average parish music.

I though that was a poor rendition of Here I Am To Worship, for a number of reasons. The most significant are that the lead singer used an overly commercial vocal style that strayed from the normal rhythm and pitch of the song and likely intimidated the congregation out of singing. You can hear that the singer is often not lined up with the rhythm of the guitar. And that leads to the second issue here, it seems that the accompianment is only a single acoustic guitar being played at what I would consider an intermediate level of ability.

Here's the original version of the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86v2ZEsEKW8

A Catholic parish would need a lot of resources to sound like the original recording, but I just want to make the point that this song was intended to sound much better than the parish video makes it sound. Here's a live version that a Catholic parish that invested in a contemporary music ministry could pull off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUywjZrfslQ

I reguarly play this song for my contemporary choir.

"Here I am to worship" - - Yay for meeee!

Since when did singing about worshiping Jesus equal "yay for me"? Seriously. By similar logic, "Holy God we praise Thy name" is "yay for we."

"Is there a better example of the "Jesus is my boyfriend" genre?
Here I am to say that You're my God and
You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy,
altogether wonderful to me"?

Again, I feel to see how singing about worshiping God = Jesus is my boyfriend. The quoted text is a noble sentiment to have in worship of God. Furthermore, I don't think you can credibly make this claim about a song whose lyrics discuss sin and the death of Jesus. Full lyrics, for comparison:

Verse 1
Light of the world
You stepped down into darkness
Opened my eyes let me see
Beauty that made
This heart adore You
Hope of a life spent with You

Chorus
So here I am to worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that You're my God
And You're altogether lovely
Altogether worthy
Altogether wonderful to me

Verse 2
King of all days
Oh so highly exalted
Glorious in heaven above
Humbly You came
To the earth You created
All for love's sake became poor

Bridge
And I'll never know how much it cost
To see my sin upon that cross
And I'll never know how much it cost
To see my sin upon that cross

Tim Hughes
© 2000 Thankyou Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

Copyrighted text reproduced for the purposes of critical analysis, which is specifically exempted from copyright enforcement.

Here I Am To Worship is a good worship song. If what you hate about this song is that it isn't Gregorian Chant, that really isn't fair and doesn't make this specific song worthy of your ire. This song is a huge step up from Gather Us In in essentially every measurable facet. Some of us live in a reality where we are picking hymns that match the readings rather than chanting the antiphons. For those of us in that reality, I don't think a compelling case has been made for why Here I Am To Worship is a significantly worse choice than any other hymn.

BINGO! @trentonjconn You can argue all you want: you still can’t square that circle. Christian pop music is not suitable for the Mass because of what it IS.

The "Jesus is my boyfriend" lyric phenomenon is real. I'm going to start a separate thread about that since this thread was originally about NPM's convention not P&W music.

Here, a_f:

For an example of a Catholic parish that's attempting to transplant genuine Evangelical praise and worship music into the Mass, jump around the video here:
https://youtu.be/BHAsS0vxj-A?t=342

Mark,

Such hopeful news, and yet it can't be denied that jclangfo and others who agree with him (Pax Melodious comes to mind) will continue to insist that what NPM proposes is the real world future of Church music, not some ivory-tower Gregorian chant or fussy recital music.

jclangfo frequently makes a good point that liturgical music doesn't only have to be Gregorian chant. I can support the judicious use and restrained performance of praise and worship music at Mass, if that's where the community is at and if that's what helps the community pray. Moves should be made to expand upon P&W to introduce or include some chant in vernacular and Latin and other recognized and common Catholic liturgical music instead of relying only on P&W, but the P&W genre does have music that could be used effectively and appropriately as liturgical music for some communities.

I wouldn't introduce P&W where it wasn't already being sung or that didn't have a very, very large college-age population. The only P&W song I think I used, which I have quietly retired, was "In Christ Alone", which I would only ever program as a prelude piece; never during Mass itself. That song is more in the style of a hymn than much P&W music. But just because I don't use P&W doesn't mean I oppose P&W music; in some parishes and settings it could and should be used.

I do disagree with the tendency of P&W bands to contemporize traditional songs so that every song has to be performed with a rock beat. Consider this contemporization of "Holy, Holy, Holy" published by OCP:
https://youtu.be/FIHEx-cpaSs?t=28

In so many parishes, music directors have to make pastoral judgments about what music the community will accept, put up with, are ready for, will appreciate being introduced to, want to sing or want to hear, and what will help them pray given where they are, and where they can and should be led. That can be dishonestly used as an excuse not to move in the direction of traditional, sacred music, but a responsible music director will not use it as an excuse to avoid expanding a parish's repertoire beyond styles they already know and love to what accords more with the mind of the Church.

Liturgical music doesn't have to be Gregorian chant. True.

I can support the judicious use and restrained performance of praise and worship music at Mass, if that's where the community is at and if that's what helps the community pray

I can't. The praying we're supposed to be helping the community foster is that which is pleasing to God.

yet it can't be denied that jclangfo and others who agree with him (Pax Melodious comes to mind) will continue to insist that what NPM proposes is the real world future of Church music, not some ivory-tower Gregorian chant or fussy recital music.

NPM doesn't speak for me and I would consider myself in opposition to most of what the organization seems to stand for.

The genre of music I am interested in has nothing to do with the music of Haugen and He Who Shall Not Be Named. If you hate P&W, please hate it on it's own merits and not by guilt by association with craziness from the 70s.

Not sure what you mean here, are you suggesting Jeffery Morse is giving chant courses at the Colloquium as a disguise for P&W? I remember in the 70s the precentor of Westminster Cathedral remarking that 'of course the St Louis Jesuits derive their music from chant'

So long as the superstructure was intact

And is that just the musical superstructure, or more fundamentally?

Just because something isn't explicitly excluded in the plain text of the liturgical documents doesn't mean its use during the sacred liturgy is laudable or a good idea. The music you advocate for is so informal and secular in style. There is nothing elevated or hieratic about it. That's just what it is. It's not wicked nor poisonous, but it's not appropriate for Mass.

I think none but the most ardent ideologues would suggest CCM/P&W/whatever should be proscribed in every circumstance, but it doesn't belong at the foot of the Cross and is completely incongruous with the august Sacrifice being offered. You keep trying to square the circle and it can't be done.

Jeffrey Morse posits (rightly) that there isn't much distance between the syrupy music which was used in many American parishes before the Council and the syrupy music used in nearly all American parishes in the time since the Council.

Lucy Carroll, on the other hand, posits that the syrupy music/texts represented a true devotion to Mary (for example) even if many of us now find the music cloying.

The superstructure to which I refer is the liturgical environment created by the Traditional form of the Roman Rite. German parishes sang hymns in German at Mass (despite prohibitions) but, it can be argued, didn't thereby abandon their faith. That came later.

I think the problem of not eating meat came from a time when the nobility ate little else. It was a way of getting them to fast and didn't apply all that much to the peasants. Similarly, it doesn't mean so much with people today, since we have so many food sources available.

As I remember, congregations were singing folk music after the council. Every Joan Baez wannabe in town showed up with a guitar. There was no praise & worship music at that time.

I suppose one of NPM's more successful goals over the years was the professionalization of an industry that is by nature catch as catch can.

For those of us who have made a living wage at Church music, something almost unheard of in some other countries, we can thank the AGO and NPM.