Composer Dan Schutte can't be kept from singing
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer
    Reuters
    Mon Aug 4, 6:07 AM ET

    Pick up a hymnal in almost any Roman Catholic church, or many other Christian congregations, in the United States or beyond and one of Dan Schutte's songs is likely to be among the pages.

    The composer of "Here I Am Lord," "City of God," "Sing a New Song" and more than 100 other hymns and liturgical pieces in contemporary guitar and piano arrangements is still crafting musical inspirations after more than 30 years.

    And he's not discouraged by the Catholic's church's new emphasis on Gregorian chant and more traditional forms of music in the Pope Benedict era. It represents a natural swing of the pendulum and not a cause for pessimism, he told Reuters in an interview from his home in San Francisco.

    "I have my days, when you struggle to find the inspiration and so forth, as you go farther along your journey of faith, the challenges of the journey and the wonderful blessed things that change along the years," he said.

    SNIP....

    "We had a huge shift that came with the Second Vatican Council and a call to adapt our liturgy to this modern world rather than living and worshiping in a way that was somewhat disconnected from our daily and weekly experience. It was a shifting of the ground beneath many people's feet," he said of those days.

    The Pope has authorized wider use of the Latin Mass, and U.S. Catholic bishops last year published a document called "Sing to the Lord" which was designed to provide guidelines on the role of music in worship. It praises the virtues of centuries-old Gregorian chant and the primacy of the organ.

    Schutte sees that as "a shift of the pendulum in the other way, sort of a balancing ... We're being reminded not to lose some of the pieces of music and rituals that have been part of our long Roman Catholic tradition."

    He said the bishops' music document makes it clear that "over the centuries the church has not adopted any one form of music as the way people should pray. They (the bishops) legitimize contemporary music and other styles" even as they put their stamp of approval on Gregorian chant, he said.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    "Please post an intelligent and civil comment."

    I'll pass.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    It's really time to state:

    Our church sings Catholic Sacred Music, not Catholic Popular Music anymore...let the people have it, keep the sacred in the church.
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    I'll pass too. It does leave one rather speechless, doesn't it?

    Thanks for posting it.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Dan Schutte and I have never agreed more: the Church's emphasis of Gregorian chant is not a cause for pessimism.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    Mr. Schutte, please show me the document that states that the Church wishes to adapt itself to the modern world. Yes, I know that this was goal of many bishops at Vatican II, but please do show me where their desires became manifest in the documents. For my part, I prefer to look into the next world rather than celebrate this one.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Really, it has nothing at all to do with theology. The Church opened itself up for niche marketing in the confusion following the promulgation of the new use, because of a lack of preparation and education. These folks filled in the gap. After that, it was just a matter of what can be sold to whom. It really isn't more complicated than that. What we need to do is get passed the marketing ethos and start of look for ideals. The cynics and hucksters will be defeated once this happens.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    There was enormous confusion in the late 1960s-1970s. In fact, many will contend that Schutte and company were an improvement on what else was being sung at that time because they drew some of their texts from Scripture. Jeffrey is right. We need to look for ideals, not just what we think will sell. There are two problems I see here: First, people are used to being "sold to" and we need to promote our ideals attractively. The second is the problem of apathy and comfort. Musicians and clergy are comfortable, for the most part, with what they know. The musical level of most Catholic parish choirs is very low and raising it will be more than a weekend workshop's work. It will be work to convince congregations that their weekly get-together is not "about us." And the clergy know that the congregation likes a challenge about as much as a poke in the eye.

    I think progress is being made, albeit unevenly. However, overcoming the enormous influence of the liturgical marketing complex won't be easy. Quick - name a chant celebrity! See what I mean?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    "Yahweh's dog it leapt for joy,
    and jumped up on the couch.
    Get down bad dog you're going to hell,
    said Yahweh who's no slouch."

    "Sing a new song, tra la la la..."

    I'll be 61 in Novemer, so I'm too old to care about being civil. One of the big differences I have noticed between priests trained before Vatican II, and those trained after, is that those trained before were given some musical education in the seminaries. They at least were taught what music is appropriate for worship. The seminary grads of the 70s and 80s seem woefully ignorant of church music. Until we have leaders who know the difference, it's going to be an uphill fight to change things.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Yahweh's dog it leapt for joy,
    and jumped up on the couch.
    Get down bad dog you're going to hell,
    said Yahweh who's no slouch"

    One of my most favorite hymns....how can you have the nerve to make fun of it! [he wrote laughing his head off...]
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    Oh, I know, Noel. But aren't most of those hymns kind of laughable. I think the worst hymn ever written has to be "Anthem." It's along the lines of,

    "We are this,
    We are that,
    We are being something other.
    We are busy little beavers,
    As we toil our lives away."

    You could change the lyrics to,

    "Me me me, me me me me..."

    Is that hymn self-worship or not?
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    ... one might at least try.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    CharlesW,

    Not only are they not exposed to a minimum of basic liturgical music history, but many of them can't even chant recto tono when called upon to do so, let alone acknowledge that they even know what it is.

    And worse still, as has been pointed out repeatedly since the motu proprio was issued, there are a majority of priests that cannot read or even speak (that is, simply pronounce correctly) LATIN, the official language of our rite!!!

    How can we expect these priests to take the music of the Church seriously if they can't read the ritual language of the Church or sing a basic monotone chant (in ENGLISH)?!?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    Exactly, David Andrew. It's not the trained musicians who are having difficulty with chant and Latin.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    By the way, our pastor, who served as Associate at CharlesW's parish for 10 years [which he described as a record in this diocese], was at Charles' parish for the 100th anniversary on Friday evening and remarked on what a beautiful, traditional building it is. Mary Weaver's Harmonia Vocal Quartet enjoys singing there.....
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    It was a wonderful mass. We had two bishops in attendance and numerous priests. We even had to put folding chairs in the side aisles. But when the men's section of the choir sang the Gregorian chant Ave Maria, there were tears in many eyes. We tried to incorporate music into the mass that the original congregation would have heard 100 years ago. And I did see your pastor.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Mary Weaver's Harmonia Vocal Quartet enjoys singing there.....


    At first I misread this as "vocal harmonica quartet," which alarmingly didn't strike me as odd.
  • Brian Michael Page
    Posts: 158
    LMAO on the Yahweh's Dog spoof...

    Frogman writes:
    "how can you have the nerve to make fun of it! [he wrote laughing his head off...]"

    I ticked off a curate I once worked with (about my age, mid 40's) about another SLJ dittie: Sing to the Mountains. I had referred to it as a drinking song and I had pictured guys on bar stools swinging their beer mugs around while singing it.

    Father C replies: Let me ask you something? Why do have to be so disrespectful towards sacred music?
    Yours truly replies: What's so sacred about "Sing to the Mountains"? Putting "sacred lyric" to drinking music is borderline sacrilege.

    BMP
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    "At first I misread this as "vocal harmonica quartet," which alarmingly didn't strike me as odd."

    I jokingly wrote on my blog about my work in progress, "The Liturgical Harmonica" and received serious inquiries from good-hearted people (of which I clearly am not one.) I felt very bad...

    I also was privy, yesterday, to a simply horrifying parody of "We Are Many Parts..." revolving around barley and its effect on the digestive system, which I won't go into here.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    still crafting musical inspirations after more than 30 years

    Yes, notably among them, an inspiration to sing better music than he has written. The baby boomers have lived one age. We will now live another.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    "I also was privy, yesterday, to a simply horrifying parody of "We Are Many Parts..." revolving around barley and its effect on the digestive system, which I won't go into here."

    The director of a folk group got ticked off at me for calling "We Are Many Parts" the Frankenstein song.
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    I'm still laughing at the re-titling, "One Bed, Two Bodies." I might have seen that over at the NLM.
  • pipesnposaune
    Posts: 113
    Workshop invitation I received today:
    "Meeting the Word of God in Music."
    "This workshop, designed for musicians, and other liturgical ministers, will focus on the work of preparing a Sunday Eucharist where people are drawn into prayer. The work of ministry takes humility to put the good of the assembly ahead of our own needs. And it takes knowledge of the rite of the Mass to make good choices. You are invited to celebrate 'The Word of God in the Life of the Church' with noted composer and liturgist, Dan Schutte. You have sung his music - now experience him in person, both in concert and at the Journey of Faith conference, where he will be both keynote speaker and workshop presenter. His workshop is especially for you, your fellow ministers and other liturgical ministers. So invite your choir members, other musicians, your liturgy committee, to join you. We look forward to seeing you there! Diocesan Religious Education Staff."
    Concert Friday September 26, 7 PM St. Margaret's Church Mattydale
    Conference Saturday, September 27 9 AM Oncenter, Syracuse
  • pipesnposaune
    Posts: 113
    First of all, why are Religious Education staff doing this workshop? (By the way, they spelled religious, 'religous' on the invitation.) May I, as a Music Director, bring in someone for the diocese to teach Religious Education?
    Secondly, is he that popular to do a conference at the Oncenter, a large convention center?
    Thirdly, perhaps I have sung his music, but I would prefer NOT to experience him in person. May I picket?
    Fourthly, "it takes knowledge of the rite of the Mass to make good choices." No comment.

    Looking forward to reading comments....
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    Knowledge of the Mass precludes choices, for the most part.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    It takes humilty to put the good of the liturgy ahead of one's own publishing career.
  • Dan F.Dan F.
    Posts: 205
    pipesnposaune,

    Was there a gentle breeze flowing through your hair and a contemplative flute playing in the distance as you read that invitation?
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    As a degreed flutist, not flautist, I can advance the notion that flutes are generally not regarded as "contemplative." They are more towards the capricious, the cavalier, the cute and so forth. And besides, in this auspicious, mutlitculturally saturated era (sensory overload with Olympics bleeding into Dems in Den.CO) I could allow that shakuhachi's are, per se, contemplative. That and Native American flutes when played by that Nakai fellow, not Kokopelli Kokopuffs....
    But recorders and flutes in the minds of Bach or Faure, do stir longings, which are contemplative.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    The problem with the shakuhachi and Native American flutes is the proliferation of folks who think that owning one means you know how to play it. When I go out to find musicians for collaborative projects, I'm always falling over people who can play exactly three notes (randomly) and think that's enough.

    And the degreed flutist (not flautist) with whom I do harp/flute wedding gigs is definitely capricious. When she rips into Carolan, I'm generally three measures behind and panting to catch up.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    mj, can you say more about this flutist/flautist thing? What's the deal with that?
  • Mark P.
    Posts: 248
    I attended a Methodist Church on Sunday as part of a friend's grandmother's 90th birthday. Instead of singing "Take my life and let it be" (which I really like), the minister changed the hymn to "Here I am Lord" at the last minute. My friends and I laugh that at our funeral our relatives will select things we detest like "Eagle's Wings" and "Here I am Lord" with the poem "Footprints in the Sand" thrown in for good measure. Is there something in our culture that thrives on the saccharine?
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    MJB- you're so right about the poseurs- they probably get the left hand, ring/middle/index scale degrees 1-2-3, and they're off! God help it if they get the other two pentatonic notes! And if your flutist "rips into Carolan" you got one heck of a flutist!
    Now if Chris Walker had done HIS homework, he would've spent more time with the Carolan catalog before crafting his Rube Goldberg of a Mass and calling it "Celtic." Just IMO.
    Mark P., you know RC sacropop's Q factor keeps getting stronger when you can find no less than five new arrangements of "Here I am..." or OEW when Pepper and Hal Leonard release their newest annual catalogues. Those (by Mark Hayes/John Carter et al) are manufactored for your Methodist ministers and, ahem, Worship Arts Pastors.
    Worship Arts Pastors (don't do the anachronism!)- that beats both "cantor in Catholic Church" and "Sanitation and Recycling Engineer Specialist" for puffed-out resume fodder, I would think.
    When I get fired, I'm gonna re-tool my resume to read "Artistic and Aesthetic Liason, Khamelmeister and Dirigent for the Communion of Heavenly Host Vocal Arts Ensembles and Scholae Gravitas Incantantiones." Of course, I've never actually used my resume when looking for another gig. Besides, my next gig will hopefully find me with an outside chance of auditioning for the Heavenly Host Vocal Arts Ensemble! Be sure to elocute that as "awn-saw_m-bluh." And it's resume, as in to presume, such as people do.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    I'm a degreed Kappelmeister (not Cappelmeister), and I fully intend to list the program for my funeral in my will.

    He often would ask us
    That, when he died,
    After playing so many
    To their last rest,
    If out of us any
    Should here abide,
    And it would not task us,
    We would with our lutes
    Play over him
    By his grave-brim
    The psalm he liked best—
    The one whose sense suits
    "Mount Ephraim"—
    And perhaps we should seem
    To him, in Death's dream,
    Like the seraphim.

    from "The Choirmaster's Burial" (Hardy)
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,224
    Better not rely on the will, Incantu; that may not be read until it's retrieved from the lawyer's office weeks later.

    You can probably make some advance-planning deal with a funeral home and spec out the instructions then.

    However, you can use the will to get financial revenge on the people who disregarded your funeral instructions. :-)
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    He wanted WHAT for his funeral? Good thing we didn't read that. He was sent on Eagles Wings to the Lord.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    Re: flutists and flautists. I was taught to call them flautists. Since then, I have been confused by seeing first one term, then the other. When I asked Melissa the Dauntless what she wished to be called, she said firmly, "Flutist." And since she's got a Master's in Flute (not flauto traverso) from Peabody, who am I to argue.
  • Daniel Bennett PageDaniel Bennett Page
    Posts: 837
    Flautist is pretentious and anachronistic in English.
    We were taught it by musicians and teachers who were reproducing what they imagined to be a sophisticated way to refer to players of flutes.
    It ranks right up there with a laughable, similarly pretentious choral pronunciation found in this country: Is-righ-el.
    It makes me think of the hostess who thought she was being 'fancy' by using special gold scissors to cut open the Pop Tarts at her tea party.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    I always open my Pop Tarts with pinking shears.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    I just pretend they are guitarists and rip them to shreds. ;-)
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Ah, Charles, discretion being the better part of valor, if your pop tarts represent the six chord wonders who've come and gone (or worse, stayed) from sanctuarys over the last forty years, rip away.
    If you're associating your rippage with the likes of Paul Galbraith or John Williams, or Tommy Emmanuel and Michael Hedges for that matter, use the shears and a little chevre on your tarts.
    I'll assume the former.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Must we also then abandon "lutenist"?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    Charles, if they all played like Segovia - and had his taste - there would be no problem. Unfortunately, my experience has been with the six chord wonders. A plague on their houses.
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    The guitar is very often an instrument of musical oppression. You're skeptical? Consider that guitarists tend to use the same strum patterns, over and over. This grinds every possible element of musical delicacy into a coarse and tasteless paste of faux "folkie" fervor. It is small wonder many people, priests included, heave a pious sigh whenever the strumming starts, and start offering it up as a cross to bear. One has to salvage something out of it.

    I play guitar quite well, by the way. Just not at the Mass.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    By no means, we lutenists, are exactly that. I would not want to be referred to as a lute player. How gauche.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    I suppose we organists could get a bit pretentious and become "auganists." That's what my Savannah relatives call us. As for the debate over flautist/flutist, does this mean flute players are as contentious as organists? ;-)
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    The guitar is very often an instrument of musical oppression. You're skeptical?

    The original weapons of Mass destruction?
    It is small wonder many people, priests included, heave a pious sigh whenever the strumming starts

    If only....

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Flutists and flautists, contentious as organists? Not going there.
    I think that when individual artists of each species reach the heroic level of achievement and fame, it becomes natural for us plebes to ascribe characterizations to them that were magnified to us through the lens of celebrity. When I was young you had the polar extremes of Fox versus Biggs, Rampal versus Baker, De los Angeles versus Sills, Stokowski versus the world.... you get the point.
    I do think the "flautist" moniker, when self-applied, has always been pretentious. But for organists, I think it'd be cute if those of a superlative stature were recognized as "organistes!"
    What the Church really needs is some objective standards that could be applied to determine if someone amounts to a composer or a songwriter. There's no doubt that a Jack Miffleton would fall into the "Woody Guthrie" category while the Richard Proulx would pass through the Bela Bartok door; but what do we do with Joncas or Janco? Sondheim and Rutter box?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    I completely agree on the objective standards. In my Byzantine church, there is a published book with the chants to be used at Divine Liturgy. That's what you use, and nothing else. The questions on music could be resolved if the authorities in the western church would mandate similarly for the non-changing mass parts. Oh sure, other music could be used, for example, during the offertory time, communion, etc., but the core of the mass would stay the same.
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    "In my Byzantine church, there is a published book with the chants to be used at Divine Liturgy. That's what you use, and nothing else. The questions on music could be resolved if the authorities in the western church would mandate similarly for the non-changing mass parts. Oh sure, other music could be used, for example, during the offertory time, communion, etc., but the core of the mass would stay the same."


    If only..... (am I repeating myself?)

    Save the Liturgy, Save the World
  • francis
    Posts: 10,866
    i've never seen a flaut! what's it look like?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,993
    Hmm! I've never seen a sackbutt, either. On second thought, let's not go there. ;-)
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