"Banish All Guitars and Pianos from the Church" --- Dr. Peter Kwasniewski
  • Dr. Kwasniewski's thoughtful article has stirred up a lot of controversy. I had to ban a fellow from the CCW facebook page because he used obscenity, after he read that article. I was especially troubled to see this happen on Holy Thursday. However, I am glad to see open and honest debate about this question. Thank you, Dr. Kwasniewski.

    Here's his article in case anybody on this forum would care to read it.

    If you have thoughts or comments, I am pretty sure Dr. Kwasniewski would enjoy hearing them.
    Thanked by 1Chris Allen
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    It seems Pope Francis disagrees.
    Thanked by 2Liam CharlesW
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    I don't think that quip helps, Gavin, tho' it's cute and timely.
    I love Peter's thoughtfulness, courtesy and his compositions most of all. However, the piece over at CCW does little more to solve incompetency in music ministry and practice other than to make these and other instruments shibboleths (thanks, Liam) in a very complicated landscape. We've heard this clarion so many times before, and we bounce back and forth with moanings about how demoralizing such a dictate would prove to people, most of whom are of good heart and want to enhance liturgy but aren't provided the guidance or are resistent to the inexorably slow pace of change te church is actually making in areas of repertoire and liturgical principles and practice.
    I actually was discussing this very notion with Todd F. in a phone conversation yesterday before reading Peter's article, and its amazing how so much of what we talked about was NOT addressed by it. Jeffrey, you know that bass note counterpoint to melody is likely only secondary to melodic integrity in the compositional process. Peter, you know I know my theory up close and personal. And I'm saying, there is much wiggle room in both your premises about how a piano or guitar can function to accompany chant and even some polyphony (really homophony such as when we were on the cusp of switching from modality to tonality) that doesn't reduce the piano to a Jelly Roll Morton caricature or the guitar to a banjo. That's so intellectually dishonest that it actually surprised me. And Peter, one of your students can testify that I exhibit those abilities every Sunday.
    Okay, ban your guitars of any stripe, ban your pianos/harpsichords/virginals. And in most places you'll be left with no-pedals Myrtle still playing "Glory and Praise to our God" tortuously on the analog Allen.
    There is NO SILVER BULLET, gentlemen and ladies. If this issue is a "deal-breaker" (which is more or less understood already as a general precept) for CMAA adherence, then we're shooting ourselves in the foot with this particular bullet. YMMV.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    I would say that Internet Catholicism has a vulnerability: it tends to rally people around ideas and emotions. In this respect, it is vulnerable to spiritual worldliness, and reaps the harvest of that.

    I think in particular of erstwhile shepherds who cultivate virtual flocks, and expectations in those flocks. The problem is that, as is well said in recovery circles, expectations are premeditated resentments; it can be helpful to distinguish between hope (rooted in God, like joy) versus expectations (rooted in the world, like happiness) - hope liberates, expectation enslaves. The distinction is subtle, and the boundary will vary for each person (the Evil One knows it keenly). I do believe many of those shepherds of virtual flocks need to take *much* greater care to avoid encouraging expectations.

    In American religious culture - very much including Catholic culture - we are accustomed to gravitating to actual consolations or the merely inverted consolation of melodramatized, egoistic desolations; what we strain to avoid is dryness, not realizing that the dryness of the desert is quite normal experience of the maturing soul on its journey. We crave Heroes (or, failing that, Antagonists; in any event, a melodramatized agonism). Dryness - like the desert - scares us. Dryness can come in the form of detachment from our liturgical desiderata. Really hard for people who *do* liturgical professionally, to avoid turning that into the inverted consolation mentioned above.
  • Sad to say, I believe this article, good as it is, is just another ineffective shot over the bow.
    How difficult it is to fashion any sort of antithesis to the music and instruments which most of us on this forum know intuitively don't belong in church! It is unfortunate and frustrating that attempts to do so nearly always come out sounding like so much highly subjective carrying on. They do so no matter what council, document, saint, or pope we bolster our arguments with, or how well reasoned or objectively correct they may be.

    I can remember when these instruments and musical styles first made their appearance in the sixties and seventies (even in Episcopal churches!). That they were comically out of place and made their presence (i.e., just 'barged in') with an atrocious presumption was self-evident to me and many others. Most priests and most people, however, just shrugged their shoulders and deserted the field. Those who objected were treated to a tidal wave of shameless rudeness on the part of these 'musicians', and the helpless indifference of most of the congregations. There was, and remains, no way of demonstrating to these practitioners or their enablers that they are a hopeless incongruity thrust into divine worship.

    Friend Gavin - I'm wondering (sincerely) why you suggest that Holy Father Francis disagrees. It seems to me that it might (I hope!!!) be too early to make that call. He did, after all, say something about God 'resplendent among his people'. This was in reference to, I think, liturgical vesture. Perhaps (we can hope!) such resplendence includes music?
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    There was, and remains, no way of demonstrating to these practitioners or their enablers that they are a hopeless incongruity thrust into divine worship.

    MJO, as much as your reflections here and everywhere are informative, fatuous and always entertaining, the condescension of this quote reflects an unfortunate pride and arrogance that must lie somewhere on the back of your mind, invisible to even a mirror.
    I don't enable crappy guitarists, I challenge them to work on their craft to within an inch of their very lives. I can't be alone in this. So, for one, your declaration is a fallacy.
    And the premise you declare leads to your false tautology as well. You are not the sole articulator that interprets either in this world according to earthly law, or those redoubtable delectibles of sound that are beyond the cosmos what constitutes "divine worship." I loves ya, Jackson, but don't tread on my or others' sensibilities without knowing we might bite back.

    Oh, and PS.
    JMO, whatever possessed you, other than to draw further attention to the existence of your blog, to shill this particular subject over here at MSF in an extraordinary week of liturgical revolution in the universal church? This was a gratuitous posting in retrospect, no? We haven't begun to see the backwash of what occured in Rome today and we are talking instruments worthy? Omigosh, this is what we're reduced to?
    Thanked by 1noel jones, aago
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    MJO

    I suspect Gavin's quip (or at least this is how *I* understood it) was intended as a humorous reference to the fact that the Pope's celebration of Mass last evening at Casal del Marmo was accompanied by guitar*

    * For the associated 40-car pile-up and associated rubbernecking:

    http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-official-end-of-reform-of-reform-by.html
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I think Gavin has a point. The thought has crossed my mind that we may be in for craziness exceeding anything we experienced under past popes. I hope I am wrong about that.
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    While I enjoyed the articles' analysis, at some point it would be nice to see some articles with practical solutions on how to offer alternatives to the chest-less age of liturgical therapy.
    Thanked by 1irishtenor
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    For once, I don't think Gavin was being flip, not one little bit. He's dared to point out that the "emperor has no clothes."

    The "devolution" has begun, right under our very noses, and it has not taken long for even the otherwise serious-minded and clear-thinking faithful to begin suggesting that Francis' approach is showing us a "different way" to reach the poor, that is to say, compassion for the poor trumps the "legalism" of the liturgy of the Church, right down to the music.

    Those of us who have faithfully, obediently and with all humility tried to honor and respect the received traditions of our Faith must now prepare to be painted as heartless Pharisees, and enemies of the Church.
    Thanked by 3Gavin CharlesW eft94530
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    As my priest said to me after Monday's Mass, "I wonder what some of those [i.e. minimalist and nobly simplistic] priests were thinking when they read today's Gospel: 'Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, "Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages and given to the poor?"'" After all, is that not the rallying cry of a certain group of clergy, religious, and laity : We ought not to build beautiful churches, or have million-dollar pipe-organs, or chant or polyphony, or good liturgical appointments and praxis, we should be focusing on the poor.?

    Don't get me wrong, I'm all for helping the poor; but why is it that the only way to help the poor is bad liturgy? The liturgy is Divine Worship, not community service : it is to worship God, not to make us feel warm and fuzzy.
  • WendiWendi
    Posts: 638
    Brilliant Salieri, you summed up my thoughts precisely.
  • Jani
    Posts: 441
    Does the Pope approve in advance the accompaniment at a given Mass? When the bishop comes to my parish he doesn't know what we are planning for music. What could the Pope have done- stop the Mass and demand organ music?
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    I want to make crystal clear the fact that I support Peter's, MJO's, David's et all of our missions to recover the "other" three judgments regarding liturgy. And yes, it did occur to me during the most meaningful of liturgies (for myself) last night that our ars celebrandi was "light years more CATHOLIC" that what was heard at the Casa in Rome; and that was extremely disheartening. In point of fact, what David says above is precisely what I described to my Wendy as we drove home from Mass. And is extremely disconcerting that now, despite Liam's wonderful cautionary take, both "sides" of the ecclesial camps' mutterings amount to "What's next?"
    But two things remain constant- no matter if the blowback of misunderstood papal gestures results in an onslaught of queries or bluster from any know-nothing local zombies, the reform will continue at our joints out here in CenCA.
    Secondly, to return to the topic's original thread, misassociating bad performance practice with specific instruments is no solution to the maladies the Church faces in liturgy. And what happened in Rome yesterday will ultimately be realized not to be an endorsement of such impoverished attitudes that I even deal with within my own music leadership. Beauty will prevail, and with humility at her side.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,471
    Side thought:
    Everyone is an ultramontaine when they like the guy. Else, not so much.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    As was said above, I intended to highlight that we had a papal triduum liturgy accompanied by guitar last night. So obviously Francis does not agree with the (incendiary, over-stated, and perhaps hyperbolic) statement that guitars ought to be "banished".

    Charles is right to "melo" us out with the usual "it's not about the instrument, it's about the repertoire and quality" enjoinder. Something I whole-heartedly agree with. But then I say: watch the video. Is this basso continuo done by a skilled lutenist? Is it a classical guitar arrangement of one of JS Bach's great keyboard works? Or is it pop music at a papal liturgy? And no, the Pope does not decide all music at his Masses. But he does have influence over it. I would be curious what music was used when Benedict visited the same prison.

    Again, for what it's worth, the Pope, the supreme legislator of the Roman liturgy, does not seem to agree with the statement made in the article above. Draw your own conclusions from that, as I have drawn mine.
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    Everyone is an ultramontaine when they like the guy. Else, not so much.


    Maybe we can make a flow chart like this one:
    image
    Thanked by 2Gavin Chris Allen
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    Confession: I don't attend the Triduum liturgies in the churches in my area because of the banality of the music (especially in performance terms) is is just too painful; for a variety of reasons I won't belabor here, getting to my Sunday intentional parish is not feasible for me. I've been off choral duty for the past year (for the period 1980-2012, the only years I did not sing were my three years of Harvard law (1983-86) and an overdue sabbatical in from mid-2003 to mid-2005), and because I"ve resumed working full-time for an employer rather than being self-employed as I was for many years, I don't have time for workweek choral rehearsals. And I switched intentional parishes after getting fed up with ham-fisted attempts at a variation on Reform of the Reform under poor leadership (it's great to see how the same mistakes get repeated or rhymed over the decades, regardless of ideological mindset). So I am in what I have long called the retrochoir - that is, I plunk my butt in a good pew location midway back in the nave, caty-corner to the choir in the side of the sanctuary, and sing. (From old experience, I know it's as important to have solid, confident singers amid the congregation as it is to have them in the choir; back in the day, when I helped facilitate a music ministry with three choirs that rotated over a 3 week rotation, we encouraged those off-duty to distribute themselves behind the front half of the congregation, and the effects were very helpful.)

    So I don't point fingers at others without including myself. I realize that there is simply not a lot of demand locally for fine liturgical music or excellence regardless of musical idiom/genre. There isn't even enough demand for local bloggers to create resource lists of oases for the Triduum (people are MUCH more motivated by topical agitation of divers stripes).
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I was hoping to address the article, but Charle's first response said much better and more gently what I had to say in criticism. I only need(?) to add this:

    This article is not unique. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, such correctives written by many, many well-intentioned and knowledgeable musicians. Will this finally be the one that makes guitarists in parishes around the world hang up their instruments, take out their Graduales, and embrace chant?
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    But then I say: watch the video. Is this basso continuo done by a skilled lutenist? Is it a classical guitar arrangement of one of JS Bach's great keyboard works? Or is it pop music at a papal liturgy?

    Precisely, Gavin. And the redress of that is not to be laid at the feet of HHFrancis, but at mine, yours, our own beloved francis and all of us. HHF's land-speed record of pinball papal gestures has us all reeling in blogdom. If I recollect, John Allen has a good take on it all at the fishwrap if someone wants to find the link. And, IIRC, he (and even F.Zed) believe it all has nothing to do with liturgical sensibilities.
    Foot by foot, brick by brick is still on. I'm sorry that I cannot accept Rorate Caeli's shrill whistle that RotR is officially over. There were no guitars at our HThus last night, nor today, nor tomorow night at our mother parish. And it was beautiful!
    And even tho' there is another thread about this, I will state that Heath Morber's THE WISDOM OF GOD is one of the most brilliant pieces for the Mandatum ever composed. And adding verses in psalm tone let us proffer the beauty even more!
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    I think it's better if we strain to avoid extrapolation, because we human beings will naturally tend to extrapolate a narrative that reinforces our preferences in some way.
    Thanked by 1melofluent
  • I don't think it's a case of not liking good liturgical musical, but more of not being exposed to it. If there was only one radio station, we'd eventually learn to like that music, whether it was good or not. In my parish, I've been forced by a very conservative pastor to change our music completely. We went from years and years of Breaking Bread to St. Michael's Hymnal, without a supplement of favorite music. Did we lose a lot of people? Yes. Did we gain many people who had been to other churches where the music was ultra 1960's coffee house style? Yes.

    All the hoopla about Pope Francis and liturgical music is uncalled for and not warranted by those of us who are "afraid" that the age of Benedict has once again come to an end. Benedict set the ground work and it is our job to continue it. Rorate Caeli was off the mark, imho.
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    Sometimes we need iconoclasts, but now, I think, is not one of them. We are building something substantial at the grassroots, and people are responding to it. As frustrating as it is sometimes, we need to persevere with calm; showing people what beautiful liturgical sacred music is, rather than demanding it by fiat. Converts are much more interesting people than prisoners.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,181
    "We must do everything possible so that the Church may never look like that complicated and cluttered castle described by Kafka, ... and the message may come out of it as free and joyous as when the messenger began his run. We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris." Raniero Cantalamessa, at St Peter's, Rome, Good Friday, 2013.
    Thanked by 2melofluent CHGiffen
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    I am an idealist just like Peter. However, WE have reaped what we have sown. The Church is the one to blame for our plight, not the people. The Church (the Bishops and the priests) have neglected and watered down the faith, her truths, her traditions and sacraments. "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter." The heart of the problem isn't the instruments or the style of music; that is the symptom, not the cause. The heart of the problem is sin; narcissism; faith floundering and lost to the influence of worldly desires; it's confusion in the ranks.

    To love our narcisistic society out of its quandry we must meet the world where they are and then we can take them where they need to go. I am not proposing or condoning allowing worldly influences within our liturgies. I would love to shove our piano up to pub just as much as PK. But if we run away from those who are ignorant because they have it wrong, then we are handing our camp over to the enemy, lock, stock and barrel. Instead we must lovingly and consistently build bridges to those who are confused and find ways to awaken their conscience. If we stand aloof and throw stones of criticism and refuse to reach out to the ignorant and lost, we are only inviting them to throw stones of contempt back at us.

    Fight fire with love. Beauty is irresistible, and we must put it forward in every way possible in our liturgies, prayers, AND our actions. We must always hope that upon hearing authentic sacred music or seeing the liturgy celebrated in a solemn manner that one heart will become more open to truth and beauty, and love will melt away the selfish whim of personal preferences founded in ignorance and confusion. That goes for the bishop just as well as the PIP. We can only hope and love and live our faith best by example, and be ever so calculating with words, arguments and debates where they will win hearts.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Francis has a point that "[b]eauty is irresistible". However, in the current usage many people believe 'beautiful' to be synonymous with 'pretty'; just as many people believe 'solemn' and 'sad' to be synonyms (cf. Adam Wood). We need to educate people, especially young people, about the difference between something being 'beautiful' and 'pretty'.

    My predecessor would often write the word 'pretty' above the titles of hymns or songs that she liked. Were they pretty? Yes. Were they beautiful works of art, worthy of use in the sacred liturgy? No.
  • Music Teacher -
    I must differ with one of your assertions: if there were only one radio station and it played music that was awful, I (we?) would not 'eventually learn to like that music'. I (we?) would not listen to it. Just as if the only museum in town only showed Maplethorpe and not Michaelangelo, I (we?) would never go there.

    Francis -
    Oh, if only you were correct!. Unfortunately, if beauty really were irresistable this conversation would never have had reason to happen. Our churches would be filled with Gombert and Herbert Howells. Not only is beauty resistable, it is purposefully spurned by many.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,471
    Not only is beauty resistible, it is purposefully spurned by many.


    Yup.
    Thanked by 1eft94530
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    Yes, they spurned beauty himself and crucified him in this very hour. But that didn't prevent him from MANIFESTING his beauty nonetheless. So we must follow even to our demise if God so wills it.
  • I feel like I'm the only one that can see an elephant in this room, specifically with the use of the guitar at the Holy Father's Thursday Mass.

    Um, did this prison have an organ? I'm not saying that the guitar wouldn't have been used anyway. It just seems logical to me that in a space without any other instrument, the guitar would have been the way to go.
    Thanked by 1Spriggo
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    It's a chapel, so maybe they did have an organ. My point still stands: many on this forum assert that the guitar never should be used in the liturgy. The pope himself seemed to have at least tolerated it at this occasion. (And there's tremendous evidence that he may have even considered it a good thing.)
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Thanks, Gavin. I've done prison music ministry. No two chapels ever have a uniform "setup," because each yard is essentially administered by its own articulated criteria. If prisoners in the six yards I used to visit had the means for a keyboard, much less and organ, it was on them. Guitars predominate obviously. But one would be surprised at the ingenuity of prisoners to obtain keyboards which are sometimes played by amazingly talented inmates. It's never the same from week to week, even day to day.
    I would advise everyone on this thread to go to dotcommonweal.org and read the combox post inwhich HHFrancis' conclave address was given permission to be released and printed. It explains much.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    Do you mean NCR rather than Commonweal?
  • The man who composed Silent Night wrote for guitar because the organ was broken.

    Missionaries (here ) in California used both organ and other instruments as they could teach them to the indigenous population.

    Instruments are not required at Mass.
    Music is urged at the best celebrations of Mass.

    Perhaps we will see an indoor Mass for World Youth Day, given that His Holiness wants to shun publicity?


  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,209
    I can understand the experience. I'd only put up with a guitar Mass if I were a captive audience too.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    So, Richard, if I were the guitarist and cantor with every single musical moment assigned to all except the celebrant, you'd "put up with it" and remain captive until I hung up the harp by the streams? Quite magnanimous of you.
    By the way, not just for my friend Chonak, "What exactly is 'a guitar Mass'?"
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,209
    The kind of thing I used to do in the '80s. (But now that I'm in my nineties I gave that up.) :-)
  • WendiWendi
    Posts: 638
    Dearest, I hate to be on the opposite side from you in any discussion...however.

    In the case of guitars, it is extremely difficult for me to picture their use as liturgically appropriate. Perhaps that is due to the fact that in the US guitars are very clearly established in the secular pop music and rock genres. Perhaps it has something to do with memories of my childhood of folk Mass and liturgical dancing (both of which I would love to repress). In any case, until the collective memory of the guy with the ponytail playing Kumbaya has faded, these debates about the use of guitar at Mass will likely continue.

    edited to add...I am not as magnanimous as Chonak. I would likely NOT put up with it and leave the building. Although I will freely confess that it is my weakness.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,471
    Maybe I should add to my list of proverbs:

    Not every Mass that has a guitar is a "Guitar Mass."

    Nor does the presence of many folks constitute a "Folk Mass."
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    I've long been lectured not to advise that a discussion has run its course, and I yield to that admonition. However, I put it to all you, my wise, charitable and dedicated colleagues, that we have again fallen prey to debating and answering the "wrong" question that Dr. K posed (again, no disrespect to Peter.) When we get to the point of pondering whether we could tolerate rather than participate in the worship of God as given us by Himself incarnated as our Brother due to the nature of an instrument used only to be subserviant to the most apt means, the voice, then we have gone awry.
    I'd suggest that we shift our attentions to all the wonderful possiblities the wisdom of our young genius, Mr. Yanke and his flow chart, and continue down those paths.
    YMMV
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I have heard all the arguments as to what guitars can do, how they can sound, and how they have been used in past centuries to good effect. Unfortunately, it is not likely many will hear them in such positive light at the average U.S. parish. They are often played in conjunction with inferior music, played in inappropriate styles, and often just played badly by musicians of lesser talents. Seems to me the problem is the guitarists more than the instruments - true of organ, too. There are also among us the legendary left-footed wonders.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    CharlesW

    The parallel to that is all the bad organs and bad organ playing many folks experienced in cookie-cutter new suburban parishes in the postwar period. When the folk group sprang up in my parish 1970, they were polished and crisp compared to the baleful organ.... And I do encounter crack contemporary liturgical ensembles about as commonly as crack liturgical organists (not that common in either case, but I can tolerate a yeoman organist more than a yeoman ensemble, but in that respect I believe I am in the minority in the pews, from what I can observe over the decades).
    Thanked by 2CharlesW ParleyDee
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Re guitars in the liturgy: I rather doubt that anyone has Williams or Segovia in mind when it comes to how they're played or used to accompany.

    One need only open the most recent issue of the GIA Quarterly and read the article by Stephen Petrunak about how to strum the proper rhythms or modify them for variety.

    Q.E.D.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    David, you are proof of tenacity under fire, so forgive me as I, too, don't really want to engage this discussion much further. Regarding your latter point, all such guitar gurus are also progenitors of banal music as well as shills for the company "line." I wish not to demean Mr. Petrunak, but that is a sure reality as good as his intentions to remedy the Tom Dooley strummers. Which brings me to a point, as has been pointed out already here a gradual, progressive acknowledgement that vocal improvement doesn't require any particular instrument, thus rendering the guitar (and perhaps piano) unnecessary, remains a better remedy than banishment by fiat. OTOH, if the landscape suggests the guitar will remain, wouldn't it be better for organizations such as NPM and, ahem perhaps others, to make endorsed outreaches to guitarists to consider emulating Williams or Galbraith (Scotland) in their weekly duties? A quarter century ago, Bob Hurd put his steel string down and picked up the classical for the greater portion. John Michael Talbot's skills, tho' predictable, are still much more refined than Petrunak's or Bobby Fischer. But again, I yield to the primacy of a well and artfully played organ.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Did you know that William Tortolano and Bobby Fischer are collaborating on a "breakout" session at this summer's NPM convention on how to accompany chant on the guitar?

    Seems to me it's a bit like putting a Gelfling and a Na'vi in a room and waiting 20 minutes to see which one emerges in one piece.

    *snort*
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    Btw, the finest instrumental accompaniment to liturgical I've ever heard was: a harp. It was a revelation.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Okay, that was the last straw!!! Liam professes his love for Mary Jane Ballou even tho' she bandies about in Italia......it's personal now, I get it.
    "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I gonna eat some worms!"

    ;-)
    What's a Gelfling and a Na'vi? Are they birds?
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Gelfling- a small, quiet, elf-like, peace-loving, tree hugger from the mind of Jim Henson and the world of the Dark Crystal (see the movie of the same name).

    Na'vi - a 9-foot-tall, poisoned arrow-shooting humanoid creature from the planet Pandora with blue skin and a tail, that is a fierce defender of its territory and that doesn't take kindly to the invasion of the military/industrial complex from earth (see the movie "Avatar").

    OK, I realize that it was a horribly oblique reference, but in light of the ongoing unpleasantness of late, I should be cut a wee bit of slack, don't you think?

    You may now return to your regularly-scheduled chaos.
  • WendiWendi
    Posts: 638
    Oh thank goodness. I'm so glad I can return to your side of the debate Dearest. I quite agree that banishment is neither required or desired. In the area of sacred music...education is essential. Give people something good to compare the banal to. People reach for the good. We're hardwired to it. Beautiful, well done chant and polyphony will win the day every single time. Badly done chant and poorly prepared polyphony however, will go down in flames against well done guitar strumming.

    It can perhaps be argued that most of the time we don't hear well done guitar, and that is what causes all of these debates in the first place, but still. The answer is NOT to banish the instrument(s). Making something forbidden immediately renders it more attractive. That is human nature.

    Darling...you weren't supposed to mention my regularly scheduled chaos...
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Dearest....
    Darling....
    "Torn between two lovers....." Not to mention her loving husband! Oh what fun, and from galactic distances to boot. Beam me back, Scotty, it's all too much.
    But now that we're all on the same page, I've been watching (sequentially) Ken's Burn's series, "JAZZ," on Netflix between liturgies. Maybe we should just sing "Stardust" as an option four?
    Thanked by 1Wendi
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    I play a liturgical guitar

    And you will NEVER know what that means till you show up at a
    Liturgy here in 83001

    Less is best

    Nuff said
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood mlabelle