Adapting Native Music to the Liturgy

noel jones, aago

While this is supported by church documents, I continue to doubt that what we have now is what was intended.

While Mariachi music is of the people, how does incorporating it into the liturgy influence people that the Mass is something higher, something out of the ordinary?

Is this acceptance of popular music forms not as detrimental as the celebrant speaking not the words of the Mass, but paraphrasing, using lingo and slang of the people to make them feel part of the Mass.

Should people think that the Mass is just another place to meet with friends?

Or, to put it in other terms, does the use of popular music forms confuse the people, turning the Mass into yet another place of elevator music?

chonak

For context, here is a quote from Varietates legitimae:

40. Music and singing, which express the soul of people, have pride of place in the liturgy. And so singing must be promoted, in the first place singing the liturgical text, so that the voices of the faithful may be heard in the liturgical actions themselves.[84] "In some parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are people who have their own musical traditions, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. Due importance is to be attached to their music and a suitable place given to it, not only in forming their attitude toward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius."[85]

It is important to note that a text which is sung is more deeply engraved in the memory than when it is read, which means that it is necessary to be demanding about the biblical and liturgical inspiration and the literary quality of texts which are meant to be sung.

Musical forms, melodies and musical instruments could be used in divine worship as long as they "are suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, and provided they are in accord with the dignity of the place of worship and truly contribute to the uplifting of the faithful."[86]

Jeffrey Quick

Here's the problem as I see it: if it's party music, it's not appropriate, no matter the culture. If it's sacred music, it probably has strong associations with non-Christian religion, and it might be hard to "baptize". One extreme would be the way Scandinavian Protestants treated the Lapp drum, suppressing the native culture. When the Spanish came to the New World, they taught European sacred music early on, and the Indian influence came later. the French seemed more open to cross-cultural influence.

I think people tend to bend over backwards under the influence of cultural relativism. If we believe in our faith and the music of its liturgy, then of course it's superior to what others have. If we can't affirm that, maybe it's because it can't necessarily be said about modern liturgical music.

M. Jackson Osborn

The Missa Luba, for one, exemplifies the baptism of an indigenous musical culture. It is sacred. It is profound.
Mariachi is just a Mexican popular music idiom (derived from the marriage bands of the hated French occupiers) with sacred words.
One rarely, if ever, hears of Mexicans singing real Mexican sacred music composed by the Indians.
Quite a lot of us on this forum, of course, have OUR OWN indigenous music - which certain oh-so-chic people would like to disqualify by calling it 'European Art Music'.
There must be a reason for this cultural suicide by certain types whose heritage is European - and, that includes quite a few 'Hispanics'.

Chris_McAvoy

I have strong reservations accepting the "Missa Luba " as fully valid or ideal example of inculturation of liturgical music for others to follow. I do think it has promise and certain pieces are more inculturated than others.

There are peculiarities to the Missa Luba which do not match other forms I have heard and I think can only be explained as that it continues to includes elements which are not appropriate to include.

The tempo and style of the percussion matches no other tradition that I know of.

I can't give specific examples but would say that the timing of it's creation (1940s-1960s) is too influenced by the 20th century liturgical modernist reform climate to be able to avoid that influence.

I think that the "Music of the Kenyan Orthodox Church" is a better example of inculturation.
However even there I believe work is needed to grow in a direction in which the music gives a more profound feeling.

http://www.saintromanosrecords.com/music/KenyaO.mp3

I only wish what I say could be backed up with more substantive less subjective statements. My only feeling is that something is missing which should or could be there but is not.

Chris_McAvoy

The percussion in the missa luba tends to overshadow the vocals I think.

In Coptic and Ethiopian liturgical music, when percussion is used I do not think it overshadows the voice as much, it is more reserved and subtle, yet you will notice it.

vincentuher

'Missa Luba' is fully valid and the perfect example of realised inculturation begun in a Belgian colonial context but found useful across Africa before the loss of Latin. That each local culture shaped its percussive qualities in very different ways is not something identifiable from the first recording or the old film of the Mass at the Vatican. One can however taste a bit of how majestic it could become in the only Kenyan recording of Missa Luba that I know of. The tempo and style of the percussion arises from the local Congolese tradition which governs acts of communication, celebration, and mourning, and with variation is held in common across sub-Saharan Africa. It is impossible to separate those instruments and their manner of use from the singing as it is impossible to imagine the ancient Maronite chants without their accustomed instruments and rhythmic performance.

Adam Wood

This is all fine and good, but...

The problem with talk of enculturation is that it is of very little relevance to what happens in most American parishes.
Can it happen? Yes.
Does it happen? Almost certainly.
But let's think about this for a second....

Catholics adapting hymntunes which are sacred and beloved by Protestants, in order to ease their way into liturgy and win their hearts?
Enculturation win!

Adding tribal drums so that white liberal intellectuals can feel like their liturgy is closer to the third-world causes they support?
Enculturation fail.

Chanting the ACTUAL TEXT of the Mass using the Sacred melodies of Native Americans, in a community largely consisting of Native Americans?
Enculturation win!

Chanting some pagan words to some Hawaiian melody during a Mass attended primarily by cradle Catholics from Minnesota?
Enculturation fail.

Having a bilingual Mass because you have a bilingual community?
Enculturation win!

Having a bilingual Mass because it makes you feel less guilty about your mono-lingual community?
Enculturation fail.

I could go on and on and on.

The documents of the Church, two thousand years of practice, and common sense will tell you that there is a legitimate place, indeed a strong need, for enculturation.
But looking around for a minute would tell you that there isn't a whole lot of that actually going on today.

Gavin

I could not agree more about bilingual liturgy, Adam. Although I would expand it to say that one should consider wider than the parish community in determining its suitability. If I were in a city or neighborhood with a large ethnic culture, I might consider occasional usage of (quality, high art, sacred) music representative of that culture (probably more choral/organ than congregational) - regardless of the ethnic makeup of the parish community.

I would also say there is a place for American inculturation in general. We have some musical traditions in this country which can suit our purposes on occasion. What immediately come to mind (and I have used before) are spirituals and shape-note hymns. These musics are American, traditional, inherently sacred, and define our musical culture. Now, not every Mass here ought to have one or both, and you may use them only a few times a year, but I'd say that our own American culture deserves a careful examination from discriminating musicians.

Jeffrey Quick

Gavin,
I LOVE shape-note hymns. That said, there are very few places in America where shape-note hymnody is part of the living cultural traditon...and those places are aggressively Protestant.

Charles in CenCA

Ditto to JQ's observation.
Wendy and I watched Ken Burns' 1985 documentary "The Shakers" last evening. Beyond "Simple Gifts" there were lots of very "authentic" hymns and songs from that legacy (all pentatonic for the most part, of course.) Wendy remarked how "pure" they were. I thought that a natural inclination, to describe something in "quaint" terms as if it could be reconfigured to compatiblility within our rites. But then it dawned on me, that emotional response has actually been the modus operandi for a great deal of the current repertoire of the post-Council era.
Nostalgia is an unacceptable criterium for determining a music's worthiness to serve our rites, whether it's for those saccharine "Irish" tunes Tom Day cited (or the full Montani), or even as a defense of the use of chant. As was brought out over at the Cafe by Kathy, we need to clarify what IS the purpose of music that serves the liturgy, exactly.
Would our own faithful be permitted to assess for themselves how "quaint" (tongue in cheek) our own chants prove!

DougS

I think the fact that shape-note hymnody is essentially a Protestant art form is all the more reason that it could or should be inculturated. Isn't that the idea, after all?

music123

Adam,

Does anyone ever say LOL on here? I LOVE your list, and feel exactly the same way!

noel jones, aago

I sincerely doubt that using the local culture was meant to use the POPULAR culture, but rather adapt the SOLEMN movements, signs and music of worship or state.

noel jones, aago

From Chant Cafe's referenced article:

Benedict:

But, he said, when people recognize that the liturgy does not belong to an individual or parish as much as it belongs to the Church, then they begin to understand how, while some expressions of local culture are appropriate, priority should be given to expressions of the Church’s universal culture.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-dos-and-donts-of-mass-music/#ixzz1NwyLgQun

Chris_McAvoy

I can't help but come back three monthes later and add a few links to examples of the beginnings of a very beautiful and obvious authentic inculturation, in what are technically more established constantinopolitan or galican-roman chant traditions.

http://www.gocamerica.org/photos-congo-uganda-2007-06_09_Music.shtml

This here is for me the perfect representation of inculturation of the congo and uganda music in the context of byzantine chant. The melodies are familiar to the greek, yet the pronunciation, way they are sung and the rhythm used is distinctly and profoundly native. No greek would ever sing them this way, and yet they are still beautiful and compelling and perfect to me.

I found that this particular user had a distinct japanese quality to his singing of gregorian chant, as he is from japan. http://www.youtube.com/user/LiturgicalChants?feature=mhee#p/f/58/g2yXG0uHqFo

Here are some very good recordings of important and rare gregorian chants which show some of the affinities of italian and french folk music. Something akin to the 1930's Solemse recordings and Marcel peres work with Corsicans.

All sung by Dr. Luca Ricossa.

http://luca.ricossa.free.fr/

Now everyone may agree with me, but I believe strongly that these are the real true forms and beginnings of authentic and Spirit filled inculturation, which may someday evolve further but starts off there, within a more universal context.

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