That whole statement about teens not wanting to come to mass because we don't want to put on a show with rock n roll, is non-sense. I can remember a time before I even got into music as a kid, enjoying the hymns, and gregorian chant. I don't know where everyone has it in their mind that pop/rock music is the only way to entice kids to mass.

If everyone acts in church the same way they act in a bar or club, then they have no respect for the church as a sacred place.

If the music played and sung in a church brings to mind secular pursuits, then the church once again becomes in people's minds, a secular place.

What the fool who said that is missing is that music - styles and particular pieces - have connotations. Play the bridal march at graduation and fury ensues. Play pomp and circumstance at a wedding and you are dealing with the worst of all beasts, the bride's mother.

Can a hamburger bun be consecrated at Mass? Sure. Would people, not seeing a host as they expect, be distracted from their sacred participation. Yes.

Jeff,
Since I know the people who were leading the symposium in Atlanta, I can guess who said it. But that is the line fed to us by NPM as a means to stratify and give credit to its members as a whole. Thus, "everyone" who plays whatever instrument or sings whatever song or style can be made to feel that what they are doing "good." We have dumbed down the music to accomodate the "masses."

It is sad and genuinely sorrowful that a person can make such an assertion and not be thought to be either jesting (as though it were a jesting matter!) or daft. It is a reflection on the lamentable cultural degradation that assaults us all in our land, and of a pitiful comprehension of the unique holiness of the eucharistic banquet and all that surrounds it.
Would one suggest in earnest that 'it is not for us to say that any musical style is appropriate for' a sporting event or a military parade? What might be the reaction to a Beethoven quartet, a Purcell anthem, or plainchant during half time, soldiers marching, or a beach party? There is, as any sentient person knows, music that is incredibly appropriate for all aspects of our cultural life, most of all for church.

Hey, that's comment 1000 for MJO!

RE Teens and church music, I just posted this link on another thread:

http://www.reformedworship.org/article/june-1997/teens-and-church-music-what-do-they-really-think

"Who would want to sing music that sounds like circus fanfare at the holy sacrifice of the mass."

Hey, now! I've been known to play the Lemmens Fanfare in D every now and then!

The Widor is fine, if you play it the way Widor intended it to be played. He condemned those who play it as a show piece and way too fast. Of course, you need an instrument that is voiced for the piece, not the typical screeching Lutheran machine popular in recent years. I find it much too lengthy for use in my own church without cutting sections out. I hate to do that with any piece because it destroys the integrity of the composition. Others will disagree. Like the Lemmens, too, but haven't played it recently.

To the issue, I agree in principle with certain styles not being appropriate for church. Where I part with the larger consensus here is how to define those styles. I think we may agree that rock is a style unsuitable for church. But how do we legislate that? Ban musical elements (chord progressions, instruments, performance techniques)? Or the notoriously silly, "I know it when I hear it"?

I don't think that works.

See the ridiculous statements on "operatic" music of long ago. What does this even mean?? No recitatives? A limit on the number of notes per syllable? A ban on certain chromatic motions? Thank God composers ignored these foolhardy bloviations.

If I have a central thesis on this forum, it is my belief in the responsibility, but also the liberty, of the parish musician and pastor to make an informed decision as to the suitability of specific compositions at Mass. Bottom-up, not top down. Which isn't to say that one can just program whatever one likes - note the qualifier "informed". If the liturgy is executed with seriousness, and Gregorian chant attains pride of place, it will be obvious to everyone what the appropriate music is. Obvious to me might not be obvious to you, and that's ok. You do what your conscience leads you to do in your church and I'll do what mine leads me to do in my church. If we have the solid ground of Gregorian chant and the authentic liturgy, we can't go too far into left field.

Or, perhaps a better way to put it is that I'm reticent to say "Rock music is inappropriate," but eager to say "Chant is appropriate." And then I think it's obvious where to go from there.

Actually Gavin, I witnessed someone tell him that in the mid 90s at a NPM convention ( I stopped going in 95 and I think this happened in 93 or 94). He cited the "every style" is appropriate mantra and then went into this long diatribe about the Church being stuck in time.

I don't think it is an either/or proposition. That is, either we put chant as pride of place OR ban certain instruments and genres. Rather, it is both/and. Make chant the center, but also banning things like electric instruments and percussion (playing a djembe should be latae sententiae excommunication) would go a long way to correction.

Music is not the focus of the Mass, the Eucharist is. I evaluate music as appropriate for Mass based on these criteria:
1. Does it lead to worship of God alone?
2. Does it fit with the received wisdom of the Church?

Well, Carl D -
You could have the band play vexilla regis (in organum) as the choir sang it complete with ison while marching 'round the field in the shape of a giant porrectus resupinus, changing after a bit to a torcullus, a liqescent, a podatus and a quilisma... then you could have them magically form a 60 neume melisma while singing Alleluia Pascha nostrum in discant style. Your team would be assured victory... the enemy would be dumbfounded. And flummoxed!... they would flee the field and leave their weapons behind in dissarray... It would be the greatest victory since Lepanto!
And, to celebrate, the band and chorus could sing the Agincourt Hymn while receiving the obeisance of the enemy coach.

If only the major drum & bugle corps were still attached to parish CYOs!

Assuming good will on both sides (which is often not done), the key to the problem lies in:
>>musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy
and
>>ought to correspond to the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite and the liturgical seasons

What, besides opinion and "I know it when I see it," is supposed to guide judgement regarding which styles "fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy?"

Go to an NPM event, or a liturgical/catechetical workshop like "Beginnings and Beyond." (Do they still have those?) Shoot, read "Sing to the Lord." There's a lot of smart and faithful people (including some Bishops) who seem to think that all sorts of styles can and do respect the meaning of the liturgy and correspond to the meaning of the mysteries being celebrated.

1. Begging the question does not mean "raising the question."

2. It raises no such question. My point is not "authoritative documents say X." My point is "smart and faithful people have disagreements about what an authoritative document actually means."

Extreme liberals think that anything can mean anything. Extreme conservatives think that something can only mean one thing. Neither one of these positions is particularly tenable, although both are significantly easier than dealing with reality.

Nonetheless, it would have been the right thing to do to send it to Rome for a thorough review from the CDWDS. The Congregation would have been able to clear up a lot of the ambiguities.

I am reminded of a remark that Cardinal Burke made about weak liturgies leading to weak faith. Certainly, weak music contributes to weak liturgies.

FNJ,
Agreed... but oh so weary of these arguments. Has liturgical tinkering not proven itself a bad idea yet? Especially in our age?

When the Liturgy is abused, the Church has to act. So it was in 1903 and in 2004 with Redemptionis Sacramentum. The difference is heteropraxis and heterodoxy are so commonplace and often linked that we trivialize the issue by saying it happened before and everything is relative.
The Liturgy is the "Source and the summit" of the spiritual life. The malaise of our times is a spiritual one. The Liturgy is the source of the remedy so we badly need direction from the top, even if it means the shaky ground prohibition of certain types of music based soley on their genre. We brought this on ourselves so we should expect it.

(BTW, Gavin, I agree with you about positive vs. negative descriptions)

We can pretend to think in the abstract for so long in discussing the pros and cons of P&W and the like (and all liturgical tinkering for that matter: tropes and so on), while we watch the walls crumble around us and our children fall away from the Faith that will make them whole.

Liturgical tinkering is something different than liturgical restoration. That's quite the point. In fact, that's quite the problem with the Novus Ordo by design as well as in practice --- the form of it was liturgical tinkering rather than development or restoration. What's worse is that in practice it involves even more innovation than is already prescribed.

At least, that's how it was for many years when folks were drunk with stolen sherry. That time is not our time. Our time is more like waking up with a hangover we don't deserve and realizing that the house is a mess, a mess we didn't cause.

Exactly.

According to that book by Alcuin Reid, the thrust of the Liturgical Movement before it became the banner for "pastoral" innovation was instead reinvigorating liturgical piety. So the answer is, as it always was: Formation, formation, formation.

To bring this subthread back on topic, this goes double for the issue of liturgical music. At the risk of sounding overblown, it is the last beachhead we have left, at least in the liturgy itself, and so far the most intractable. Even then, our storming Normandy, even if it is the high-water mark for the other side, is not the end of the war for either side. From here on out it's formation, more than ever.