Exactly why my last job only lasted a year and a half. When a person with actual KNOWLEDGE talks about documents, instructions from the Church, and even liturgical trends and is shot down with "but that doesn't help MEEEE pray!," what is the point? A very "progressive" parish shouldn't bother recruiting a liturgist or musician with CREDENTIALS; they merely need someone who is good at "listening" to "what the people want" and being able to provide it. Which makes it all the more puzzling why they were impressed with the credentials that I DID have in the interview process ...

Is this what happened? I thought what happened was that a generation of musical theater majors couldn't find work and so they became choir directors.

Andrew, +1 !!!

Music educators are, in my experience, hands down the worst musicians. They know the least, do not have a command at their craft (either MUSICALLY or regarding teaching theory), and are the laziest.

Is that a generalization? Yep. And it's one that I've found to be true in almost all cases.

And my wife is a music teacher ...

Andrew, I thought you were writing about my parish...

FWIW, it's been my experience that few 'music teachers' have a CLUE about the entire Western tradition of music. We can forgive them for not knowing about Chant (sorta), but not for not knowing--or appreciating, or teaching, about JSBach, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Faure, Elgar.....(etc.)

There is a real connection between appropriate music for Mass and the classics, even the 'secular' ones: that is, that the music sets and dominates the mood. (Remember your Plato? "Music is that which moves the soul...")

So when the music sets and dominates the mood during Mass, what 'mood' IS it? We know what 'mood' is in the room at a symphony concert of the Brahms Requiem, or of Elgar's "Variations," or JSBach's Magnificat, or St John's passion.

How can a trained musician ignore that reality and set a 'mood' of coffee-house or lounge? Or Sesame Street?

Michael Ruhlman who understands all the processes and can conceptualize a new dish without experimentation.

I'm trying to glean the same ability with mixology, Jeffrey, by reading the regular articles in the "Atlantic Monthly". Not to worry, though, I can't afford to realize such conceptual concoctions! But I thank God for the ability to cognate the sensus inebrium through such exotic unions, even if just the fruit of the vine which so gladdens my heart! ;-)

@ Jeffrey Quick:

The Orff-Schulwerk is not a method for musical education. Its practitioners (the well-trained ones, at least) will completely deny that the Schulwerk has any methodology at all. The Orff-Schulwerk, properly implemented, advocates for expression at the expense of communication. The Orff-Schulwerk is a way of doing music; one hesitates to use the word "teach" and "Schulwerk" together, or even the word "facilitate". I do some Orffish things with my students, but only as diversions or entertainments-----it doesn't at all qualify as real and solid music education.

Seriously, go to a Ward Method seminar. That is THE stuff for teaching music. Catholic musicians who have an opportunity to teach children and are not currently using the Ward Method are missing the best opportunity.

It's interesting to me that two of the biggest music teaching methodologies, Orff and Kodaly, were designed by composers; Edwin Gordon is the only non-composer I can think of who has done anything comparable.

Yes, and in my experience, Gordon is the one that actually produces results in students. Back in the day, Gordon came to speak to the Orff association at my college. The teachers in that room simply couldn't conceive of another way to "teach" music, and Gordon ended up calling them "Orff (ladies of the night)." He was never invited back. He was also totally right.

Although I am certified as a K-12 music teacher, I don't teach music. I realized some years ago, the mediocrity of texts, standards, and music teaching in the public schools. Then I learned it is just as bad in the Catholic schools.

This. Furthermore, the breakdown of music and cultural education has bled into the churches in a major way. God bless teachers who work their hardest to give students a good education. They get little support from inside or outside their profession.

Great quote, Ralph. It is so unfortunate that a (relativistic) myopic view formed by selfishness eclipses reason this day and age.

I attended the Ward I seminar at CUA this past summer and I raised exactly the same point to one of the Dom Mocquereau Foundation board members. Catholic schools (mine included) are notorious for poor salaries; in fact, my family of 4 (with baby #3 on the way) already qualifies for WIC and food stamp benefits, and I work over 40 hours a week! Yep, the Ward study is not cheap at all, but it certainly pays the world back in what is gained.

The board member had no answers for me----she only shook her head and agreed. This is, as I mentioned, a structural problem. Music, especially in the Catholic schools, is an afterthought, a fun little extra. There's a wider cultural malaise at work too, and I'm not sure how to fix it. That's why I'm trying to keep my candle lit instead of cursing the darkness.

The greatest amount of the cost is related to the graduate tuition fee charged by CUA. I took the Ward 1 course a few years back on a non-credit basis for a much lower cost. If it's possible to do that for the whole series (I don't know whether this is an option), it might be useful for people who don't need the graduate credits.

Well, back the original subject. The changes of Vatican II arrived at the very moment that post-modern thought was approaching its apogee. Post-modernism rejects the idea of "masterpieces" or the preeminence of art music over popular music. All aesthetics are culturally relative and learned phenomenon. Intellectually, these claims have merit, but theologically they simply cannot apply. Once we say that all church music should arise from the local culture, it becomes quite difficult to convince that local culture of the absolutes embodied in the faith. My Protestant friends wonder why Catholics are so hide-bound (if they only knew). I see the adherence to tradition and practices as a reflection of our belief in certain theological absolutes. The two work in hand in hand in the best of situations.

Yes... thank you MO.

@dad29, well, intellectually the ideals of post-modernism make sense by "contextualizing" matters of truth and beauty. Not everyone finds Gregorian chant beautiful, for example. However, when this contextual view of aesthetics is applied to an institution such as the Church, it disturbs the entire belief system by undercutting the supposedly surface matters like music, art and ceremony, which themselves are outward signs of the absolute truths held by that institution.

Ralph, Of course I am not promoting post-modern philosophy as a religious or even aesthetic ideal. I'm just doing my best to explain how art and music have been sidelined in the Church. When all beauty is based on every individual's (or small community's) preferences, it's hard to argue for the universal, even if we believe it is best for the Church.

MO and F: I agree. Our responsibility to the congregation can address the congregation's ability to to be fulfilled music. This criteria should be far beyond that of "personal preference" and does not dismiss our absolutes.

I think we could easily identify the text of a song as the "material cause" and the melody as the "formal cause". But if we expand this structure by identifying congregation "material cause", then "formal cause" should be a new prayerful environment. Of course if the content of the music or intent lacks a grounding in the absolutes then we create an environment for relativism.

+1 again MO

+1 Dad.
It's difficult to imagine this reality will ever be addressed or improved within our lives, or even two or three generations ahead.
It's so frequently weird to have to contend with the peaks and valleys of clericalism, whether overtly or passively aggressive. From the pulpit we mostly hear "we must be happy campers for He is in our midst and will yet come again!" Privately, we have to steer through a multitude of personal preference, "likes or dislkes," and critical detritus that reminds us why the corpus must remain affixed to the cross, a visceral reminder that we must suffer. But at whose hands or words are we made to suffer within the confines of the Church?
It's maddening when the regularity of these "offer it up" peaks and valleys can be charted, were we to have the time to chronicle these absurdities. I know that's very oblique, dark lens language. It has to be so.

Here is an idea:

The founding of more sacred music programs in Catholic universities. We cannot allow secular institutions such as Eastern Carolina University or UNT do all our bidding for us. There has to be a good, solid formation in liturgical (and general) theology. Liturgical theologians and canon lawyers familiar with liturgical law should have input into the curricula of these programs. Otherwise, we may end up with more of the likes of "Let us sing a new Church". Perhaps a re-reading of Cardinal Ratzinger's (Pope Benedict XVI) lecture on the organ (or was it sacred music in general (?)), reposted in Sacred Music ca. 2006, could be required material.

May I also suggest some elective rotations:

How about one to a Byzantine Catholic Church? There repertoire is even more fixed than ours, so the goal here would be to get a musician in the habit of deciding music according to a fixed repertoire and lectionary as opposed to one's own taste. Repetition builds habit. Just like when an emergency medicine resident physician needs to build his or her intubation skills, he or she rotates in anesthesiology and ICU. Some other rotation goals: an appreciation for chanted liturgies. Both of the Eastern Catholic churches (one of them a mission) I have been to have their Divine Liturgy chiefly chanted. Where is the Latin Church in all of this? Are we, too, not part of the universal (that is, Catholic) Church? Why are our liturgies chiefly spoken? Other goals for this elective: some appreciation for sacred choral music (when appropriate---Byzantine music is chiefly chanted, not rendered chorally---SATB liturgical music is one of the few gifts which the West has brought to the East, namely, from Italy to Russia---it's time we took some of it back). I went to Divine Liturgy on the occasion of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple a few weeks back. Before the priest gave the opening blessing ("Blessed be God...."), the singers sang one of the most beautiful Marian hymns I have ever heard-----with a choir of......two (yes, I know, it's called a duet). Additional goals: an improvement in singing skills, at least for men. This can be done by the men serving as cantor (that is, reader). (I do not know if women are allowed this role in the Byzantine churches.) A final rotation goal: a general appreciation for Eastern Christianity and Eastern Catholicism.

I have enough trust in my own generation to see that things can improve in the future. Even when I was in first grade twenty years ago, not enough to develop a taste for anything, when I first (and last) heard a rock band with electric guitar at Mass (a Saturday vigil one), I knew instantly that something was wrong. Fortunately, I never heard this kind of rubbish live ever again.

"The world has need of Beauty in order not to lose hope. Beauty, like Truth, leads the soul to God." (cf. "Message to Artists", Second Vatican Council)

go paul!

we need more DOERS in the trenches and more KNOWERS in the formation of DOERS. As a musician of the church I lived in obscure liturgical bankruptcy for most of my career. now that i know the truth i am going to help lead the charge the best way i can. Come Holy Spirit. Protect us most Venerable Virgin Mary.