Ryand... I love dull... bring it on!

Andrew... Stop talking in Latin.

"An intensely devout cathedral parish is seeking a full-time director of music to continue the development of liturgical music to the letter of Vatican II." Fixed it for you.

I don't see why it's so all-important to "win ground". As I've said to you many times personally, David, you do excellent work at the place you're at. Maybe some cathedral somewhere has this or that wrong with it (or we can swap stories about our own cathedral), but your church has truly sacred music, excellently performed.

I'm not saying close one's self off to the realities of today's situation. But we have too many people in this forum doing great work in real churches to mope about a bad job listing.

Perhaps you're right, Gavin.

But, I'm not talking about "winning" per say. Perhaps I should have used the term "gaining", as in gaining ground. It just seems sometimes that we're whistling in the wind.

One last thought - there ARE new, young priests coming out of seminaries that have become faithful, and these men are making positive changes. (My priest is one of them.) More often than not, I think, they know what's right or want to do what's right, and they simply don't know anyone who can help them do it. Which is why MusicaSacra, CCWatershed, etc., are such excellent ideas - to spread the word and educate people ;)

Well, it makes sense to look for opportunities to do more good elsewhere, either in addition to our current jobs or even instead of them.

"Vibrant" to me means "full of life": certainly how we desire every parish to be (centered around the Eucharist as the *source and summit* of life!), so I don't find it to be such a negative adjective... although the intended use above may have a slightly different spin. :)

YellowRoseofTexas hit it squarely on the nose. Every person you bring to a love of the music becomes an evangelist. David, if you can convert my daughter's Charismatic "sway when you pray" fiance to a love of Chant and Polyphony, so much so that he requests it for their wedding...which he has...I would say that is a definite gaining of ground.

lmassery...I'm not an expert, but my suggestion would be...when the music you have to play is grinding down your spirit...it's time to shake the dust from your feet and move on, or at least seek other creative outlets for yourself so you don't go mad.

I agree completely with lvsltrgy. Change does take time, and it seems so many times as if we move one step forward, then two steps back. It's easy to lose heart. Patience is key, as is using every opportunity we can to teach. Taste can be taught. It just takes TIME. Keep the faith!

I have to say, I don't see anything wrong with the word 'vibrant' describing a young parish.

It's cultural ground and it needs to be gained in the seminaries. I learned this weekend of one English seminary where first year seminarians are being given singing lessons. I gather that in the second year they move on to learning how to apply these skills to the the priest's part in the liturgy. To have clergy who are happy to sing the dialogues will be a start.

In my experience, yes, the recently ordained priests and the men in seminary almost all prefer and desire liturgy celebrated in continuity with liturgical tradition, have a reverent ars celebrandi, and would like to steer away from contemporary OCP and GIA songs sung at Mass.

Some of them nevertheless put up with bad liturgical music because they have realized that there are few available music directors who are capable of providing music outside the hegemonic OCP/GIA paradigm. Reality conflicts with and wins over idealism. OCP and GIA are behemoths whose influence on liturgical music is difficult to counteract.

However, a different challenge has arisen; namely, a lack of volunteers willing to commit to singing in parish choirs. It is especially difficult to recruit younger singers. Over the past several months I have increasingly seen conference workshop titles such as "Vocal Techniques for the Aging Singer/Choir". I never used to see that before. Choirs are dominated by retirees who have the time and, even before they retired, developed the habit of participating in choir.

A small and still declining percentage of young Catholics still bother to attend weekly Mass, and among those that do few are interested in joining a parish choral program. Schools have cut back on music education, so there is no longer a basic music literacy among the general population. Even those who do sing in choir frequently have work or family obligations that conflict with rehearsals, or they are just worn out at the end of the day.

So, although the new generation of priests will want better music for Mass, other social and cultural factors will make it difficult for an average parish to have good, suitable, quality liturgical music.

Edit: this article that was published yesterday is germane:

https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/how-to-save-the-music-at-mass

And some choral veteran retirees will forego service in choirs if choir service means navigating old organ loft staircases that present safety risks for the less abled, risks that are not necessarily as obvious to the lithe and able-bodied. Yet said retirees can model support for congregational singing from the middle of the pews if worthy music is programmed for the congregation. (Hint: Start with the repertoire for the Ordinary of the Mass. No congregant is going wage a pitched battle to save the Massive Creation, or much worse.)

Is "the Massive Creation" a bon mot of some kind (I don't get it, but it did make me laugh) or was that a typo?

On topic, several posts have emphasized patience. I wanted to add that imho the endurance needed is generational in scale. I'm reminded that for God, 1000 years is as a day.

I think we also have to remember that while we are much better informed on sacred music than most, we are not all-knowing, and the shifts coming may not ever occur precisely as we think they should. A "reform of the reform" is ongoing in practice, even if the idea has been deprecated by some of the current hierarchy, and that process is a little volatile and what will emerge is a little unpredictable. Providence and the mind of the Church know better than we do. But personally I am seeing promising shifts happen towards a more traditional sense of sacred music and liturgy in general.

We always called it the Mass of Cremation since it was requested for so many funerals.

I agree with many of the statements about the lack of music education and such. Also, so many of the younger folks are so over-committed they don't have much time for lengthy choir rehearsals and weekly performances. Sad to say, much of the music ed they do receive is from school music teachers who are firmly in the 70s guitar thumping Haugen singing "contemporary" crowd. Bad music is all they know.

Just a play on sloppy pronunciation. Nothing more than that.

My former rector predicted this. He mentioned that many of his generation of priests were canon lawyers because they were seminarians when the new Code of Canon Law was introduced and there was a heavy emphasis on it in their formation. When the new translation of the Missal was introduced, he remarked that the then-current cohort of seminarians would be getting more formation in liturgy, particularly the celebration of Mass, and we could expect to see another generation of liturgists emerging.

I'm afraid vibrant was used to describe my music program on the parish website without my ever having been consulted about the verbiage, but I like to think it's apt. Getting back to generational differences, I've noticed with some dismay the different musical tastes among the younger traditionalists. They seem to have almost zero interest in congregational singing, not even the old Benediction and Marian hymns, sometimes expressing opinions along the lines of "it's more respectful/reverent not to sing in church" (yes, I've literally heard that said) and are indifferent to the organ and its music, preferring a cappella singing, all types of which they classify as "chant." They prefer small ensembles to full choirs and don't much care for choral music that we might call energetic, exuberant, festive, uplifting, or... vibrant. The softer and gentler, the better. It's the same phenomenon of the "sweet song" lamented by Thomas Day, but perhaps marginally more musically respectable, perhaps in Latin instead of the vernacular, and in a decidedly conservative milieu. I did not expect to see a resurgence of early 20th-century two- and three-part convent music by third-rate composers, but here we are! Is it better than things were 20 or 30 years ago? Undoubtedly, but vibrance is often exactly what's lacking. Liturgical listlessness is being mistaken for reverence by many.

In my situation, difficulty in recruiting younger singers isn't exactly the problem. Many of the young people only last a year or two in the choir, in the parish, or in the area, then they move on elsewhere for education, work, family, vocational discernment, etc. I've always had a distressingly high turnover rate in my choirs here for that reason. How I would love to have a few retiree husband-wife couples who've been singing together for decades, like in the churches I grew up in, but we have none of those! Yes, the lack of music education in the schools is a tremendous problem, and the COVID disruption certainly didn't help. My high school alma mater disbanded its choral program years ago. My adult choirs definitely aren't beginner-level ensembles. Unless someone has come up through my children's choir, they've had to learn their basic musicianship elsewhere.

They seem to have almost zero interest in congregational singing, not even the old Benediction and Marian hymns, sometimes expressing opinions along the lines of "it's more respectful/reverent not to sing in church" [...] and are indifferent to the organ and its music, preferring a cappella singing, all types of which they classify as "chant."

I am so blessed to serve a TLM congregation that loves to sing. However, it was notable, when another local Latin Mass apostolate went through some tumultuous times, and we got some of the people at our place, the extent to which, to my ears at least, even that influx noticeably and negatively affected the congregational singing. I think it just multiplied the dead spots downstairs and helped discourage those who may have already been self-conscious enough to consider not singing from even trying. We’ve certainly recovered, and I’m generally happy with where the people’s singing stands now, which is well above average, but I don’t know that we have recovered to the point that we left.

Interestingly, and I think this tracks, my folks love the organ.

"They do sometimes jump in and sing"

My people, my father's people. My father's paternal grandfather was a founding trustee of the German national parish in his New England city in 1870; people in that parish sang their hearts out. My mother and her family attended the biggest Irish parish in the city, which became the cathedral after WW2; my mother and father said that the Irish left things to the choir to sing. (The curiosity of people of one of the most musical peoples in the world opting to remain musically mute during Mass.)

The liturgical culture of Catholicism in the USA could have been rather different if the Great Hungers had not happened until the late 19th century in Ireland, and if German-speaking Catholics had arrived in huge waves a generation before the Irish came in such ways.

It was my father who taught me to sing during Mass. (My mother encouraged it - she sang, and had sung in her parish's school choir - but it was my father who took most of the kids to the first Sunday morning Mass, while my mother and eldest sister went to Mass later in the morning.) One of my most beloved memories was observing the relish with which he sang A Mighty Fortress Is Our God when we were first allowed to sing it in 1970; sure, he knew its history, but he adored the tune and text, and refused to leave it solely to Protestants to sing. We sang it at his funeral.

" . . . the only people left will be the "remnant" of faithful catholics who want beauty and tradition."

Don't bet on that.

It is particularly unsuited for the entrance of the sacred ministers

Why?

The high church Anglicans and Lutherans really treat vernacular hymns like they are important. Lengthy processions at the entrance and ceremony for the recessional hymn so it does not feel like an afterthought. All this without skimping on the full ceremony of the rest of the service.
Catholics old rite and new rite like to treat a hymn as elevator music. I have noticed that when I do only 2 verses of a hymn, the singing is poorer than when I do 3,4 or 5 verses. In the latter case, the singing actually gets stronger the more verses I do. I think it takes until a 3rd verse for a congregation to begin to be comfortable with the tune and to really sing out.

Also, the best singing parish I ever encountered was a small one where a previous pastor had apparently strong encouraged congregational singing. To the point where if he thought they hadn’t sung a hymn well enough, he would make them sing a verse over again. Sounded ridiculous to me, but the results were stunning.