When the music doesn't fit the ceremony
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    I would like to know who put this music to this video
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    (A note: I had to turn off my browser's ad-blocker to get that video to work.)

    I'm glad to see that the bishop was confirming young people at an earlier age than is done here!
  • Dale Fleck
    Posts: 49
    This beautiful litrugy decimated with some kind of trash. How does this happen?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    It might be the same guy who put music to this video:
    inauguration of perpetual adoration in Boston.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    About the video from Villeurbaine: how is it that those server-boys are wearing zucchettos?
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Don't be confounded by the soundtrack, that's just attributable in all likelihood to the simpleton who wed the video to the tune. Also, no way was "O Happy Day" actually used at the French Mass!!! I'm sure that it has been repeatedly inserted into hundreds of liturgies since '69, but with the same success I would imagine "Soon and Very Soon" has enjoyed over the decades. Were I Edwin Hawkins or Andre Crouch, I'd sue to prevent the dilution of those otherwise righteous gospel anthems by earnest, uhm, "choirs" who try SO HARD. In the immortal words of Tower of Power, lotsa folks have trouble with the notion of "What is hip?"
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    Once the "shock" is over, and one realizes this is not some French gospel being sung at Mass, (it took me a few seconds to figure out as my video was hiccuping) and that is was the original track set as a sort of backdrop to the video, I thought it was fine. I can listen to that song any time, at least the original. This track, which was the first big gospel crossover "hit", of course, late 60's, was recorded at Tramaine Hawkin's grandfather's church in San Fransisco direct to two track. Just from a pure recordist standpoint the record is a gem. Sonically just sparkles. Just a wonderful side from a great album. I have a couple of friends from the original group, and their memories are extremely fond, especially as this album was done as a fundraiser and was never thought that it might go anywhere near as far as it did. Just a great story behind a great and honest musical effort.

    Try this link for more info

    chancellorofsoul.com/oh_happy_day.html
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Mr. Z, I thought the church was either in East Oakland on MacArthur Blvd., or just down the street from me on Park Blvd. somewhat near Lake Merritt? It was a heckuva phenom in 68/69, going to number one on pop charts almost instantaneously! I remember Tom Fettke (a fairly prolific evangelical composer/arranger) was my high school choral director, and he had them sing OHD on our Department of Fine Arts LP in '69. I played bass for it, 'twas cool.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    One ( or more ) of the churches associated with the Hawkins family singers was indeed in Oakland, the "Love Center" comes to mind, (and probably more appropriately named "center" rather than church, but I digress..). But I am referring to the place of the original recording. This dates to 1967, I believe, and was "tripped over" by a DJ of a local radio station, two years after the recording.

    see, again, the link:

    chancellorofsoul.com/oh_happy_day.html
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Mr. Z,

    "Once the "shock" is over, and one realizes this is not some French gospel being sung at Mass, (it took me a few seconds to figure out as my video was hiccuping) and that is was the original track set as a sort of backdrop to the video, I thought it was fine."

    What in the heck are you thinking? How could a piece of joyous celebratory African American spiritual music erupting during the Consecration in the midst of Europeans celebrating Mass be fitting? It makes about as much sense as a Mozart Sanctus eruptiing at a Mass in a jungle in Africa....actually, that WOULD be more fitting.

    O Happy Day reaches the emotions, not the soul.
  • Maureen
    Posts: 675
    1. Guy probably doesn't have much good music to work with.

    2. Guy may be drawing from YouTube's "free background music", which is not... good.

    3. Guy may not know any better.

    4. Guy doesn't really have much feeling for matching music to pictures, so picks something upbeat and hopes for the best.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    5. All of the above?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    6. Guy is French, and had a happy day, and liked the title "O Happy Day".

    --

    Hey, Noel, we're talking about music on a video, not about an actual use of such music in a real extraordinary-form Mass.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Thanks, Richard.....geez Louise, Noel, I know PBEH is hot and heavy, but that was just a brief, tangential sojourn down memory lane for a couple of Bay Area guys.
    What, if we're not in Balt/DC/VA/MA CMAA we can't have fun?
    And we really don't want to start tallying "orthodoxy" statements in this forum, now do we?
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    I have watched this again, and I like it even more the second time. A day caught on video that indeed was a joyous one, and the music, to me, is very fitting (though I must say the digital conversion of the sound is poor). This particular piece, is a true work of genius, attested to by its very story, (please do check the link above) the story of a youth choir and a young director recording some new arrangements of hymns trying to raise money to travel to a workshop, and boom, two years later, out of the blue, it hits the mainstream radio ("Top 40" radio was then much more eclectic, pop and rock and some soul all together) and just takes off, the first such ascendancy of a gospel song onto the "hit parade," and deservedly so. Just defied all categories and bucked all the trends. A complete "out of left field" anomaly. Then, almost to outdo itself, the song becomes a hit a second time, this time in the nineties as the centerpiece to a film musical about a Catholic school in the non hoity toity part of San Fransisco, and I think that this was just a pure coincidental twist of irony. The music director on that film, incidentally, was Oscar Castro Neves, a guitar player arranger associated closely with Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66,77,88 etc., who's influence one can here in the music of Edwin Hawkins during that musically fructiferous period of the sixties. Just listen to Mais Que Nada or others Mendes arrangements of that era.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    So, Mr. Z, how does all this connect it to the majesty of the Consecration of The Mass?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    I suppose that burst of song on the video after the elevation of the Sacred Host was intended as an expression of something which is silent in reality: the soul's interior joy at the Consecration.

    Now, it wasn't an ideal representation, inasmuch as the Consecration was not complete until after the words of institution would be uttered over the Sacred Chalice. Also, the particular text sung was not ideal for the moment, as it does not refer thematically to the Holy Eucharist. A motet in honor of the Blessed Sacrament would have been more suitable; of course, for much of the Church's history, that was a lawful option in sung Mass after the Consecration.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    Well, the consecration of the Mass stands on its own, with or without music, especially canned music to a past event in two dimensions. I think we do notice the music being paused, as to allude to a heightened importance of that moment, and starts again.

    I just don't take the juxtaposing of these two elements, a soundless video of a Mass and a sort of oblique statement via the music about the wonderful, complete, in toto experience of that day being celebrated by the community, is some sort of cheapening or desacralizing of the Mass itself. It would be the same if someone were to place the music of Segovia on the video as an overlay or background. Or, if someone would change the color to black and white for an effect not meant in any way as a lessening of the respect for the moment.

    I have seen the a recent "promotional" video to attract recruits to the priesthood, and these are accentuated with a sort of "Gladiator" soundtrack and there is where I see not a "fit." Priests walking in slow motion at their ordination to "Terminator" music. Yay, go get em you guys. Hans Zimmer, or Zimmer-esque is not a good choice, but I see this as a sort of cliche that editors reach for over and over. This is, perhaps in both cases, a matter of taste. In my vote for "good taste," I think (the other example, not so good) I'd emphasize that "O Happy Day," as an example of a genre, is really a superior work, and transcends or even can be said to create its own genre. To me it is that good and has stood the test of time. I cannot think of a single gospel "choir" piece that comes close to it in its execution of phrasing, dynamics, subtle variation of timber, clarity,voice leading balance, and originality, with a "game changing" effect on the world of gospel, and to boot it is a "live" performance, not one bit of doctoring or dubbing or even mixing. And it is a youth choir. Straight to two track. Go try to duplicate it and then tell me it is not everything I just said that it is.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    duplicate
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