As a musician, I am conflicted by mixing musical styles. While there are people who are not affected by this, there are many, many people who are. Movies, when wanting us to know that the scene has moved to a church never use a soundtrack of guitars, not even quietly playing classical guitars. Movie producers know that choirs and the organ, gregorian chant and hymns mean church.

Since the Catholic church has permitted the experiment of using popular instruments - the piano, guitars and bongo drums - people have enjoyed attending a Mass that is "different". This, having been offered them, should not suddenly be stopped. That would be a poor pastoral decision. Instead it should go on as long as people want to play the music and people want to attend a Mass with that music.

But mixing popular music styles and instruments at a Mass that also has the organ, choir, hymns and chant is like wearing a shirt and tie to a basketball game and then showing up at a funeral in a polo shirt and dockers. As a musician I have to be sensitive to this to assist the pastor in making decisions that go beyond his training. Canon law insists on this, a careful decision that was made to make sure that pastors do not have the weight upon their shoulders of making all the decisions on their own, but instead must rely upon the knowledge and thinking of experts.

It is not that I am against guitars and the family Mass. I am anticipating being uncomfortable for those people who attend a Mass that do not like guitars at Mass and find themselves unhappy with the change in the music, and I am just as uncomfortable for those people who attend a Mass with guitars finding that their Mass has been changed and now mixes hymns and the organ with the guitar music that they are used to.

In a compromise like this, trying to mix the styles of music, no one really wins. Some people do not like guitars at Mass. Some do.

There are those who enjoy situations like this, for example, when deciding to change the time of one Sunday Mass for a good reason, they then change the time of all the Sunday Masses so everyone is equally put out....

Trying to mix the music styles only make sense if the decision has been made to abandon the traditional music of the church using the organ, choir, chant and hymns. If this is the decision, then we need to face it and accept the changes that we need to make. But if the desire to mix the two is to make the Mass music better, it is better to leave them as they are.

There are many church documents that guide us in making decisions about music in the Catholic church. Of course, until recently, they only permitted the organ and vocal music. Recent documents show that the church is beginning to try and deal with the new challenges we are facing here, but there is no clear document that answers the questions we are facing here.

So, I am forced to rely on my gut feelings. Benedict has made it clear that the Vatican is no place for playing and singing music in popular styles. Church fathers could have pounced on that information and started a movement to ban popular music styles but seem to have made the pastoral decision to instead encourage the appreciation and use of traditional church music giving musicians the opportunity to lead, without shutting the door on all of those well-intentioned people who pursue the singing and playing of popular music and instruments in church.

Ten years ago it may have appeared to make sense to try and combine the music styles at Mass, but with the direction the church is headed we may be better off leaving things as they are.

Thank you very much--

Charles has much good to say, but the odds of walking into any church in the US and hearing Sor rather than strumming?

The guitar can sound lovely playing its classical repertoire. As can the piano. But does it belong?

Let's talk about this in visual terms.

May a priest celebrate Mass wearing rainbow-hued vestments? They'd be distracting. And there are those that would wonder about the implications of this. The Mass should not present such challenges to those who come to it.

Charles, if I choose at random any Catholic parish anywhere in the US and I walk in and see a person standing with a guitar, will I hear:

1. Bach
or
2. Strummed chords?

No one here hates the guitar, as far as I know. It has nothing to do with the guitar. It's the music that the church has promoted that is played on the guitar that is the problem.

You may turn up your nose at going to a concert by Billy Joel. And then find out he's playing his classical songs.

Noel,
First I want to return the compliment of "good things" being said herein.
You, of course, are correct positing what one will likely hear at a Mass at St. Average's from any accompanying guitarist.
But even with your own scenario of Sor/Bach v. strumming, one has to allow for contextualization. Even if you were fortunate to encounter Sharon Isbin or Paul Galbraith playing Bach sonatas at the Offertory, if that occcasion were to occur in Lent, even before or after Mass, it would be inappropriate on a number of counts. OTOH, if the guitarist provided single-strummed, modally-based chordal underpinnings to "Ego sum pastor bonus" to a competent cantor/schola chanting, one might be able to at least stomach that, if not appreciate its invention as long as it doesn't call attention away from the chant or to the guitar itself.
I really want to resist going further down this rabbit hole, as we've danced in its basement with this issue many times before. I think both of us are actually on the same page, but are still talking passed each other, or around each other's perspective. You rightly advance the organ as the sole instrument endorsed for sacred use by name in church legislation. I adhere as well to that ideal, no argument. I correctly advance that other legislative documents do not specifically make the use of other instruments illicit by name. This ambiguity, we both know, is emblematic of much liturgical legislation promulgated in the last century. The Benedictine philosophy of avoiding "cognitive dissonance" by using instruments commonly associated with popular, secular styles and forms must be taken into account when applying what I call contextualization, and I concur with the pope's sentiments. Your Billy Joel example is perfect. I could say the same thing about Bela Fleck and his banjo playing Bach etudes, and we've all had a good laugh about accordians at Mass in liturgical lore. None of this helps Flagstad with his/her dilemma.
In the realm of propriety Flagstad is looking for, I might offer two perspectives. First, the abuse towards common sense of equating the Grateful Dead Wall of Amps/Speakers driving shredding guitars, eardrum splitting bass and obscenely ridiculous drum kits to Frederick Swann letting out the stops at Riverside/Crystal Cathedral is patently a false analogy; it reminds me of the Supreme Court justice that said he couldn't adequately define "pornography," but he sure as heck would know it if he saw it. Secondly, I might suggest that Flagstad's real answer won't be found lying around obviously in any document, SttL or real legislation concerning litmusic. It is more likely to be found in the nasty cauldron of pastoral/ecclesial politics, authority and leadership.
It is lamentable that one of the images my mind conjurs when ordained men convene consists of a trio of chimpanzees, one whose hands are covering his ears, another her eyes, and the third his/her mouth. Please don't mistake that as a slander upon the priesthood. It is meant simply to illustrate that when there is a vacuum of leadership, there will always be a Pandorum of invention at the ready to fill that vacuum willy nilly.

I am trying to find the best answers on the - not mine questions.

Welcome to the forum! Incidentally, which is your usual language? There may be some of us who can read it!

Nt

Flagstad,

My approach to this would be quite simply to offer the viewpoint that a mixed-music Mass draws undue attention to the music. The purpose of Mass is to praise and join with God, and music is merely to assist that process. When the music becomes so distracting that people consider it to be the primary focus, that's not good.

Unfortunately, it seems to be quite common in the US. I'm troubled by the fact that it has become normal in our parish for people to clap at the end of Mass. That seems to reinforce that they consider the music to be so important that it's worth calling special attention to. Sure, when we pull out all the stops for Easter Vigil, I may feel better about it. But even then, any applause should be expressed in joy for this wonderful gift from God and welcoming of Catechumens - that seems much more appropriate.

Consistency and integration of music is important for Mass, otherwise it calls undue attention to the music, taking it away from the true purpose of Mass.

But if your Priest truly believes that broad diversity of music helps people to build their faith, he truly does get to make that decision.

Richard M, knacken Sie mich. Diese Beispiele wurden auch lustig!
Wo ist meine Laute?

Flagstad,

This may not help, but know that there are many that understand what you are asking and what you see as the way music in the liturgy should be.

There is not much chance of this happening unless the parish has an old priest or a young priest. I realize that this is a generalization, but the majority of parishes that have an interest are ones where the priest knows what it was like, or knows that they way it is now is not the ideal.

Even so, being hired at a parish like I was where the young priest was interested - he also celebrated an EF Mass, so that's a good sign - only means that things will only improve as long as he is there. The body of believers at a parish has too much influence over a priest today and they can and will get things back the way they were.

One priest can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building a church with marble and after he leaves they seriously consider bids, one over $200,000, to cover the marble so they can control all the sound by amplification.

But know that if you kindly attempt to lead them change may come there or in other places because of your work. Don't expect to succeed, but instead attempt to lead by example.

It is frustrating but it works.

Flagstad,
You have inquried here, and those of us who've presumed this all is in earnest, have provided you with whatever perspectives we have accumulated through decades of experience. This, forgive me Lord if I've lost patience, crisis of yours seems to have entered the suspicious realm of parody.
I don't appreciate being "played."
I'm traveling 250 miles tomorrow afternoon to audition the editorial wisdom of Bob Batastini. Then 250 miles back and meals and lodging extra, all on my dime. I'm surviving.
Should you not be able to take care of business on your side of the fencelines in your own parish, and wish to call into question the contributions of other musicians armed with "electro guitars" and two chords, then simply "man up" and lay it on the line with the pastor of the joint.
I've done this very "tactic" many times with various pastors. But I know my stuff. I also know how to dialogue with diverse clerics and musicians of widely variable skill and cognitive abilities. So, I've never been dismissed. Could still happen, but I'm so elderly now I don't give a rip.
Either stop whining (if you're sincere) about the "other guys" and concentrate on setting the best example of how exemplary worship can be achieved in a normative parish, or buck up and go to the pastor with a mandate.
I really don't have any more time to worry about "Bob SabbatianI" or whomever you want to cite as an expert in lit matters.
Buddy, we all have to survive. Worrying about two chord idiots is the least of our problems.
Sorry to the rest of the readership, I'm done being "nice" as hospitality and charity are now, IMO, exhausted.

I did started same topic at February...

If reform exist--it should exist, so i was hoping reform can help to sacred music to exist!