“For the Sake of the Children”: How Far Should We Adapt the Music of the Mass?
  • Dr_Haze
    Posts: 28
    Another Summer ends, and a new School year begins at the Catholic School and adjoining Parish where I hold dual roles as Music Teacher and Music Director/Liturgy Planner.

    I've spent the last four years moving the Parish and School toward a more traditional approach to singing the mass, with Source and Summit as a guide, with in the proper use of antiphons, chant, and timeless hymnody untainted by secular harmonies, melodies and instrumentation. When the school brought in a new principal, she was vehemently opposed to the use of Chant and Latin in School masses, and since then we've had a very contentious relationship that has been mediated by our head pastor, who unfortunately has had little or no experience overseeing either a school or music ministry. The principal's latest challenge came at our first meeting of the school year, where she requested that I use the music of Steve Angrisano during masses and music class. I don't know if I should feel bad that I didn't recognize his name immediately, and so I just said, "sure, I'll look into it." I am now filled with dread.

    I came across a recent podcast with Steve Angrisano and Sarah Hart discussing the use of Antiphons and how exciting it is to "sing the mass", but when I went to listen to the music they've arranged for this "Let Us All Rejoice" project, I was baffled. I actually started to cringe at the beginning of every new Antiphon, because while the words were liturgically accurate, the music was mundane. Podcast: https://bustedhalo.com/podcasts/breathing-new-life-into-liturgical-music-with-sarah-hart-and-steve-angrisano/

    I find myself wrestling with a question that I suspect many parish music directors have encountered: to what extent should we adapt the musical language of the Mass to what we believe children and young people will find attractive?

    I have considerable experience both as a professional musician and in musical theater, and I am increasingly being asked to consider repertoire that is more contemporary in instrumentation, harmony, arrangement, and overall aesthetic, on the grounds that it will encourage children's participation.

    I understand the pastoral argument. What I question is the underlying premise: should we begin with the musical language children already know from popular culture and bring that into the liturgy, or should we expose children to the musical patrimony and distinctive language of sacred music and teach them to participate in it?

    This question has become particularly interesting to me after listening to Sarah Hart and Steve Angrisano. Whatever one's aesthetic judgment, their success demonstrates that there is a substantial contemporary Catholic music industry producing repertoire that is accessible, professionally arranged, and intentionally directed toward Catholic worship.

    But accessibility and popularity are not necessarily the same thing as liturgical suitability. At what point does contemporary Catholic music cease to be an organic development of sacred music and instead become essentially secular musical language with Catholic texts placed within it?

    I am particularly interested in how forum members understand this question in light of Sacrosanctum Concilium, Musicam Sacram, and the Church's broader teaching on sacred music. Pope Leo XIV's recent catechesis on sacred music seems especially pertinent: he speaks of music being appropriate to the liturgical moment “beyond fashions,” while simultaneously calling for music that is noble, simple, of high musical quality, accessible to the assembly, and rooted in the Church's musical heritage.

    Most importantly for those of us working in Catholic schools, he explicitly connects sacred-music formation with Catholic education.

    So I am left with a question I genuinely don't know how to resolve: am I being too rigid in wanting to maintain a distinctive sacred musical language, particularly for children? Or is there something pedagogically and liturgically backwards about continually lowering the musical/aesthetic threshold because we assume children will not participate unless the Mass sounds like the music they already hear outside the Church?

    Is the proper response to children's presumed musical preferences to change the music—or to form their musical preferences through exposure to something more genuinely sacred?
  • rvisser
    Posts: 97
    I think you already know the answer to your question...the problem is that your principal came to the opposite conclusion, so you have tension in your job because you are being asked to do something that you know is not right.

    I think the Agrisano/Hart propers are following the letter of the law (using prescribed liturgical texts) while missing the whole point. That style of music does not foster prayer and contemplation. Gregorian chant does.

    Music at Mass and concerts is the public facing part of your job. However, I doubt your principal makes regular visits to your classroom, so this could be your opportunity to *slowly* change the culture of your school by introducing quality music to your students,. even if at first this music is not used at Mass. My experience with teachers and principals resistant to good liturgical music is that what they mostly want is for the kids to sing confidently, and this means they have to sing what they know (which might be poor liturgical music). If you spend your time in the classroom teaching and memorizing solid hymns or Mass parts, you can overcome some of this resistance. The kids will sing what they know, and you have the unique ability to teach them this in class!

    I teach K-12 music in a Catholic school where I am also the parish music director. While I have a wonderfully supportive pastor and principal, the parish only recently (a year ago) starting singing the Gloria in Latin. I have hopes that eventually we will sing the Creed in Latin, but the parish is not there yet. In preparation, I taught it in class to my Gr 5-12 students last year, and at the end of the year they had singing tests in small groups where they sang Credo III from memory. The kids are already asking when we get to sing it at Mass, so half my work is already done ;) I am planning to include it in our Christmas concert, with a polyphonic "Et incarnatus est."

    In answer to your question, you are not being too rigid and you are being asked to do something liturgically backward. If it were me (and this has been me!) I would change the culture through my classroom first and at Mass second. For music at Mass, you might have better luck teaching motets and a few solid hymns to the kids and not die on the hill of "absolutely no P&W music." I have played far more P&W music than I care to admit, and I regret it, but also realize that I didn't have much say in the matter.

    I wish you the best, and will pray for your perseverance as you begin a new school year!
    Thanked by 2Dr_Haze CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,766
    The school Masses should be purely recited Masses with no hymns or sung parts whatsoever if the principal wants to do something counter to the parish’s music program otherwise.

    That goes especially for cases where the DM provides the music directly, and in this case you’re the teacher. The pastor needs to set the tone here.
    Thanked by 1Dr_Haze
  • TimTheEnchanterTimTheEnchanter
    Posts: 239
    This is one reason that I am glad that, though I pick the music for the school Mass and accompany it as DoM, I am not the music teacher nor officially employed by the school in any way, and so I remain outside the principal's official control.

    I would guess she heard some Angrisano (don't judge him by "Go Make a Difference," which was suggested to me by a teacher for this year's Masses and was shot down faster than a duck in an Nintendo video game; he does have considerably better music) and liked it, and that's the entirety of the thought she's put into it. Unfortunately, since she is your boss as far as school stuff is concerned, she surely believes she should have a say.

    Speaking as someone who does mostly organ at the school Mass but includes one of the aforementioned Hart/Angrisano antiphons (at Communion) and usually one piano-based piece (often by Hart, occasionally by Angrisano), it doesn't bother me to add some "contemporary" music. But that's not actually the issue, is it? The issue is control. If you had control over the school Mass music under the prior principal, and this principal wants to take some of that back, that's something the pastor needs to adjudicate.

    I have stressed with the principal at my parish's school that I would like to have continuity with the weekend Masses, and that our goal should be to have worship similar to what they experience on the weekend; if we try to entertain, we're missing the point. She accepted that. I can assure you your principal hasn't thought that far. If you haven't had that conversation with her, you do need to have it. But at the end of the day, this is going to be up to the pastor, I think.

    On a related note: this sort of issue is why, in general, I do think that the DoM shouldn't be the music teacher too. You should be equal with the principal, not reporting to her.
    Thanked by 3Dr_Haze davido irishtenor
  • rvisser
    Posts: 97
    @TimTheEnchanter - maybe my school is weird, but although I am teacher I do not report to the principal, but only to the pastor. Perhaps this is why I have good relationships with the two principals I have worked with here. Neither is my boss ;)
    Thanked by 3Dr_Haze irishtenor tomjaw
  • francis
    Posts: 11,404
    to what extent should we adapt the musical language of the Mass to what we believe children and young people will find attractive?
    Children will find adult music attractive... chant, polyphony and organ. Anything else is dumbing down the effort and keeping them in the sandbox of musical dev.
    Thanked by 4Dr_Haze SponsaChristi Chant_Supremacist tomjaw
  • davido
    Posts: 1,240
    There is a lot of wise advice in the comments above ^^

    Children need to learn things that are good for them. Do they adjust math and reading to only material that the children like?

    Good music is good for children, lousy music is not good for them.
    Thanked by 5irishtenor Chant_Supremacist CHGiffen a_f_hawkins Dr_Haze
  • PaxMelodious
    Posts: 505
    Do they adjust math and reading to only material that the children like?


    No, but they do adjust the teaching materials so that attractive stuff is used to engage the particular children, and then invite them to branch out into more challenging stuff.

    People who find chant and sacred polyphony prayer seem to have difficulty with the idea that not everyone prays the same way they do, or has the same reaction to those styles of music. Some of us find chant down-right creepy.

    For a teacher, the answer is yes: You need to expose children to a broad range of styles, including at a minimum chant, traditional hymnody and contemporary hymnody.

    One suggestion: play some Steve Angrisano on the organ, and see what the principal thinks of it!

    I would be interested to know some examples of "timeless hymnody untainted by secular harmonies, melodies and instrumentation".
    Thanked by 1Dr_Haze
  • francis
    Posts: 11,404
    People who find chant and sacred polyphony prayer seem to have difficulty with the idea that not everyone prays the same way they do, or has the same reaction to those styles of music. Some of us find chant down-right creepy.

    That is your perspective... perhaps another perspective is:

    People who find chant and sacred polyphony creepy seem to have difficulty with the idea that the church prayed the same way for two millennia, and knew that sacred music was an obvious style and form that crossed all cultural and geographical boundaries. When Christ said, "let them be one", He was being literal.

    Examples of timeless hymnody:

    Anything in the Parish Book of Chant is a great start.

    By "attractive stuff" are you in a sense saying chant is not attractive? I have found the opposite to be true... children gravitate toward the chant as it is truly simple to learn, and doesn't require contemporary rhythms to back up a syncopated melody, which many times, IS the more challenging stuff.

    JMHO
    Thanked by 1Dr_Haze
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 356
    It's not like the children have inborn "ways that they pray" where for some children that's chant and polyphony while for others apparently it's the stylings of Steve Angrisano. They are in class to be formed. Form them on excellent music.
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