i think it opens the door to problems. period.

-MichaelM, it is very clear to you and I what sacred music is. I do not find rock or pop music sacred in the least. I think that the words heard by a rock musician playing in a contemporary church would think that the music they are playing is sacred music, simply for the fact that they are playing in church and they are being filled with the Holy Spirit while playing it.

The trouble is that most people these days have no concept of "the sacred" let alone "sacred music".

It's true, this instruction is a bit alarming, as it will be used to justify music that is probably more suited for concerts, prayer groups etc. The reality is, even in daily life, we desire to interpret things differently according to our own agendas and ambitions. Whether it be laws, rules, or other things, we all tend to want to bend things to our desires of how things should be. This will be of course, no different, and will surely be used to justify rock music in mass.

As others have suggested in other threads, the real cure to this problem is teaching the youth, and sowing better seeds of knowledge and sacred tradition of the church, to combat this dilemma. It's only then will change start to become more effective.

Yet another frustrating paragraph. There is so much that needs to be cleared up. It seems the more we get "clarity", the more confusing things get.

>>we can't always rely on the laws of the documents

Or use them to beat people over the head with.

I'm not so sure, Adam. Many documents, especially the Catechism and the Code of Canon Law, are exactly the kind of weighty books which I would prefer for head-beating.

Andrew, I would say the Kazoo might not be fit for the Liturgy but it is a wind instrument and might sound sacred in a crowd of kazoo'ists.

My point would be that some one, any one of some sort of authority needs to not worry about offending someone and simply state, "I'm sorry but the kazoo is just not worthy of playing during the Liturgy. No matter how much you like to play it and you think it sounds sacred. It simply sounds like blowing wind past the sharp edge of a blade of grass only worse."

What we need is more direct verbiage. Simply stating wind instruments and percussive instruments are ok is lame. It can be taken out of context by anyone.

I would be in favor of a directory of sorts, a reference to what words mean. So every time a new GIRM comes out and it states "stringed instrument", there would be an asterisk pointing to a reference. That reference would then states something like the following.
* In the Diocese of the United States stringed instruments are intended to mean orchestral instruments such as the violin, viola, etc. and not stringed instruments such as accoustic, electric, steel, etc guitar that is suitable for Rock, Country, Jazz or Pop, etc styles of music. In some settings where there are no other musicians available to play anything but the guitar, great care should be taken that the music played does not sound like the genres listed above.

This could and should be done by the USCCB.
We need to start a petition or something of the sort.

I think most of the forum readership is familiar with the concept of "aboriginal" vocal production. That is, where a significant amount of exhalation pressure is consciously applied by a singer upon the folds of the larynx which results in a pushed, reedy, formant timbre that can be, at once, loud-pure-devoid of harmonic overtones and difficult to describe. This sort of singing method came to a heighthened attention with the Bulgarian State Radio Women's Choir albums in the eighties, later on via the film "Cold Mountain" displayed the primitive beauty of the shape note singing tradition, which musicologists have documented for over a century. To an untrained ear used to western classical and popular solo and choral styles, aboriginal choirs tend to sound quite similar, no matter whether from the tidelands of Mississippi, the savannahs of Africa, the hills of Southeast Asia and Australia, or the islands like Tahiti, not to mention, again, Bulgaria. Why this geographical/musicological excursion?
I wonder if contextualization has to be part of the discussion of the validation of instruments at worship just as much as the voice. To say that the vocal technique above is invalid, or faulty would be incorrect prima facie, perhaps even if a form of chanting used the style. Look at Corsican chant for such an example. Tens of you might be lining up to say, whoa there, the scenes in the film, "The Mission," explicitly show and we have tons of written documents that the physical ability to chant with vocal ease was also taught successfully, and there's exquisitely sung chant from the four corners of the globe on record everywhere. Of course there is. But, it doesn't necessarily mitigate the value of an "unusual" timbre or technique being used validly at service, does it really? No one here's particularly stressed out about using a gemshorn, a serpent, or a shawm in medieval context.
So, why the constant drum beat demanding the "black list" of instruments? Isn't the dilemma similar to the way I think a supreme court justice replied about the definition of pornography?
"I don't think I can actually define it, but I know it when I see it."

Actually, reedy sounds have a wealth of overtones. Compare that sound with the sound of a pure sine-wave oscillator which is, by definition, devoid of overtones and is generally perceived as flute-like. Bulgarian and other slavic folk-style singers sing with voices that emphasize higher partials rather than suppress them.

On your pipe organ, play music with just a stopped flute at 8ft. The stopped flute only produces the 3rd, 5th, and other odd-numbered partials, which fall off quickly in intensity, much like the chalumeau register of a clarinet, which also has no second partials. Then compare the music played with stopped flutes simultaneously at 8ft, 4ft, and 2ft (if available). This has more overtones and will sound, amazingly enough, less flute-like. Lastly go back to just the 8ft stopped flute and add a IV or V rank cornet to get a sound that is much more reedy sounding.

If you want to hear a pure sine-wave sound, try listening to a theremin, played preferably without its excessive vibrato.

please note, the text says:
>>by common opinion and use

it does not say:
>>in the opinion of those highly trained in Sacred music and according to the use of those experienced in its venerable traditions

Well I keep getting people tell me that we are to sing a joyful noise on tamborine and cymbal as stated in the psalm. So they feel that if it was good enough in the days of David it should be good enough for us as well.

Do they, indeed? Is this reliable, or accepted. Or is it legend?
One has heard many tales that allow as how it is hidden and yet to be discovered in any of a number of underground caverns around Jerusalem, including under the Dome of the Rock.
This has fascinated me since reading about it as an adolescent in the Adventures of Richard Haliburton.
Is there, really, any seriously and reputably accepted locale at which the tabernacle is thought likely or definitely to rest?

As an aside, some may want to go to our Lady of Walsingham's website in Houston and view our tabernacle, designed solely for us. It is a 'replica' of the Tabernacle, complete with carrying rods and cherubim, and bears the Alpha and Omega of the Hebrew alphabet on the doors. It's quite beautiful, and simple.

Back to the original topic: is there now a reputable theory (or knowledge) as to its whereabouts? Recovering it would, of course, be a wondrous thing.

How true: we do not need it. But...
We do not NEED relics of any kind... but.....

Second Maccabees says in 2: 4-8

It was also in the writing that the prophet, having received an oracle, ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of God. And Jeremiah came and found a cave and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense and he sealed up the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up to mark the way, but could not find it. When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and declared: "The place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy. And then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should be specially consecrated.

Given the Jewish attachment to the ark, I always thought that Solomon giving it to the Ethiopians was a pretty fishy story. Pretty unlikely, I think.

History Channel has presented a couple of programs on the Ethiopian ark. Interesting, but authentic? My money is on Jeremiah.