Words for music at Mass
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When I'm talking with someone or reading about, for example, the difference between hymns and propers, I notice that the following words are often either used interchangeably or can mean very different things to different people: church music, sacred music, liturgical music, religious music, worship music, etc.
How do you understand these terms? How are they related to each other? And how could one prevent a confusion of tongues when discussing matters musical? -
In Catholic documents, some of these terms have a technical meaning:
cantus popularis religiosus = "popular religious song", meaning: vernacular hymnody. This belongs in non-liturgical devotions, at home, and in the general culture
musica sacra = "sacred music" = the music which is an integral part of the liturgy: settings of liturgical texts;
Kurt Poterack's commentary on Vatican II's teaching about sacred music has some mention of these terms:
http://media.musicasacra.com/publications/sacredmusic/pdf/sm125-4.pdf
Thanked by 1CHGiffen -
And how could one prevent a confusion of tongues when discussing matters musical?
It's very difficult. When someone says "hymns," do they mean "Protestant style vernacular poetry set to robust chorale melodies" or "metrical prayers from the Divine Office sung to Gregorian melodies" or both or neither?
And it isn't just a problem in Catholic Liturgical Music land.
I went to a ACNA (formerly Episcopal, conservative "Anglican") service a while ago, and was told to expect "Praise & Worship" music. Apparently Have You Seen Jesus My Lord and Old Rugged Cross is what they meant. I would not call that "P&W" but "White Southern Gospel." (If it predates commercial Praise Bands, I don't think of it as "Praise & Worship.") (On the same token, I have programmed a few pieces of P&W in my time at the Episcopal parish I serve, certainly more than one would expect from a more-or-less Anglo-Catholic Episcopal parish. And I still get asked by a few people, "When are you ever going to do some Praise Music?" "Um- well- we just sang All in All this morning." "No- I mean like Shine Jesus Shine!" - In this case, 'P&W' specifically means "a handful of songs we sang at a retreat center one time.") BUT I DIGRESS
The best you can do is be as clear as possible about what you mean when you are speaking, and not make assumptions about what other people mean.Thanked by 1Gavin -
This is soooooooooooo important. How many little parish frictions could be ameliorated by just not assuming vocabulary is shared? Music is like a mystery religion with its own code. It's up to the DM to translate. Big part of the job.
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This is only my own interpretation of these terms. I'm curious how even members of this forum see these terms differently.
church music - the broadest of them all, could mean any music used in church without much qualification
sacred music - the music that the documents call for, chant and polyphony
liturgical music - this may be idiosyncratically just me, but I read this one with a connotation of more "functional" settings, i.e., responsorial psalm settings, modern settings of antiphons, vernacular settings of proper texts, etc.
religious music - popular vernacular hymnody, with a connotation of "low Mass hymns"
worship music - popular vernacular songs, everything from Adam's definition of "Praise and Worship" to some things of the Haugen/Haas style.
Thanked by 1CHGiffen -
Funny story- The Standing Committee on Music and Liturgy (i think that's right) of the Episcopal Church did a survey about two years ago- basically wanting to get a sense of what music was actually being done in Episcopal parishes.
It was super-obvious to me that the survey was going to be unhelpful when I started reading the questions, which asked (basically) what kind of music you were doing, and gave options like: "Traditional Music" "Praise Choruses"
What the heck is a Praise Chorus? There's a wide gap between "Awesome God" with Full Band and a Taize refrain sung unaccompanied. And what, exactly, is "Traditional" supposed to mean? German hymns? Anglican chant? Renaissance polyphony? Shape note songs?
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Here's what I mean when I use some of these words (very similar to @SkirpR )...
religious music - the broadest category, including all music written in any style, for any purpose, with the intention that it be religious in nature.
church music - music created to be sung in church. Very broad, but still excluding some things. (Singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow in church does not make it church music.)
sacred music - music intended to be sung in church, within an intentionally sacred style-tradition. Chant, polyphony, Anglican choral music, traditional hymnody, Orthodov/Byzantine music, etc.
this is somewhat amorphous, which is why I often specify...
Traditional Sacred Music - by which I mean specifically Gregorian Chant, Polyphony, and the styles that are immediately based on or inspired by them
Modern Sacred Music - music intended to be sung in church, in a style derived from traditionally sacred genres and/or the western classical art-music tradition, written in the last 100 years (or so).
-For "sacred music" and "Traditional Sacred Music," one could categorize quite far in terms of styles, sub-genres, etc.
liturgical music - yeah- Musical settings of liturgical texts, with the intention that they be used in their liturgical context. Polyphonic Mass settings count, but Mass settings intended for the concert hall do not. Contemporary-styled settings count also. Paraphrases (such as metrical propers set to hymn tunes) are borderline, as are liturgical texts used out-of-context in liturgy (singing Ubi Caritas as a choral anthem at the offertory, or Office Hymns sung as processional music at Mass).
devotional music - "religious music" in a style your grandparents liked
Contemporary Liturgical Music (or, "Contemporary Catholic Music")- music in a folk/pop/rock/easy-listening/jazz style which is written with the intention that it be sung within the context of a liturgical church service. This is NOT a subset of "liturgical music" (despite its name), but the categories overlap (some pieces of liturgical music are, indeed, contemporary). This includes everything from Taize to David Haas to Wild Goose, etc. The "Big Three" specialize in this music. It could be further broken down or described by style (folk, pop, jazz, faux-ethnic, etc).
Facts like whether it is really "liturgical," "Catholic," or even "contemporary" are (in this context) irrelevant - the name is simply what people call it.
While it has something in common with "Christian Pop/Rock" and "P&W" music, it is not the same, as Contemporary Liturgical Music was a development from activist folk music, through 1960s liberal Catholicism, while "P&W" is a Protestant phenomenon and was originally an outgrowth from Gospel music.
Christian Pop / Christian Rock - music in a secular pop or rock style, with overtly religious/christian lyrics
Praise and Worship music - a subset of Christian Pop/Rock, with lyrics that are not just thematically religious but specifically praise-oriented. Usually written with the intention that it be used within the context of a non-liturgical (or vaguely-liturgical) Protestant church service or prayer meeting. When people talk about "Praise Choruses" I assume this is what they mean, but I'm often wrong about that.
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That's just ME, though.
When THE CHURCH talks about Sacred Music- it specifically means "Gregorian Chant," with Renaissance polyphony as a sort-of bonus.
When THE CHURCH talks about "devotional music" or "religious music," it means "don't sing that at Mass."Thanked by 1CHGiffen -
The most interesting part of this discussion, however, is that while my definitions don't line up completely with Adam's I can completely understand how he arrived at his.
I suppose this is the problem. Even people quite active in these areas can give different connotations to these terms, and frankly there is no one commonly accepted specific definition for most of these terms. -
Interesting thing about language- when you have different words for different things, it's easier to see how they are different. (I can "feel" how different Shine Jesus Shine is from Old Rugged Cross, or how different Let All Mortal Flesh is from Of the Father's Love Begotten.) If you only know one word for several things, you tend to think of them as versions of the same thing (people who think Taize is of the genre "Praise Chorus" tend to have a more negative opinion of it; people who think Protestant Hymns and Gregorian Chant are equally "traditional church music" probably don't know much about either, and feel equally bored by both).
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Heck, Adam, Prots were calling these megachurch stage show performers Praise TEAMS twenty years ago. What's a "praise team?" And why do Catholics have some as well? Dagnabit.
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This thread has digressed...When I'm talking with someone or reading about, for example, the difference between hymns and propers
"hymn" is a broad literary genre of sung poetry, and encompasses a lot of different musical styles (just like "poem" means a lot of things).
"propers" (in this context) means either:
1. the specific chants appointed for use on a specific day (both the text and the music)
2. the text of the same, in any a setting other than the chant
A hymn might be an instance of (2).
What you really are talking about is the difference between GIRM Option 1 (the Proper), GIRM Option 4 (another suitable "liturgical chant" [or song]), and doing whatever we feel like (because reasons!).
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how could one prevent a confusion of tongues when discussing matters musical?
You cannot. You can only attempt to be clear.
But people will still get confused.
Sometimes you will be so clear that you will be left with the impression that the other person's confusion is deliberate, willful stubbornness. It probably isn't, though it may be.
Be clear. And be charitable. -
"how could one prevent a confusion of tongues when discussing matters musical?"
Say exactly what you mean.
"Sacropop is inappropriate for Holy Mass."
=
"I don't wanna play On Eagle's Wings!"
In other words, avoid sweeping and general statements. Make specific, first-person statements.Thanked by 1Adam Wood -
This is more of a problem for US, as academic musicians, than anyone else. We are the only ones saying "what is contemporary? Isn't Langlais and Messiaen contemporary?"
The rest of the world understands "traditional" as being accompanied on the organ, being hymn-like, and/or old.
"Contemporary" means it should be accompanied on the piano/guitar, is "upbeat" and written since 1960.
"Praise Music" means it's being played on the local Christian radio station.Thanked by 1Gavin -
An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.
“Well,” said the farmer. “It was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns.”
“Praise choruses?” asked the wife. “What are those?”
“Oh, they’re okay. They’re sort of like hymns, only different,” said the farmer.
“Well, what’s the difference?” asked the wife.
The farmer said, “Well it’s like this … If I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well that would be a hymn. If, on the other hand, I were to say to you, ‘Martha, Martha, Martha, Oh, Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black and white cows, the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, in the CORN, CORN, CORN, COOOOORRRRRNNNNN,’ then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well that would be a praise chorus.”
As luck would have it, the exact same Sunday a young, new Christian from the city church attended the small town church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.
“Well,” said the young man, “It was good. They did something different, however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs.”
“Hymns?” asked the wife. “What are those?”
“They’re okay. They’re sort of like regular songs, only different,” said the young man.
“Well, what’s the difference?” asked the wife.
The young man said, “Well it’s like this … If I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well that would be a regular song. If on the other hand, I were to say to you,
Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth.
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
To the righteous, glorious truth.
For the way of the animals who can explain
There in their heads is no shadow of sense,
Hearkenest they in God’s sun or his rain
Unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.
Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight,
Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed.
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night
They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn chewed.
So look to that bright shining day by and by,
Where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn
Where no vicious animal makes my soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn,
then, if I were to do only verses one, three and four, and change keys on the last verse, well that would be a hymn.”
(I didn't write this and am actually pretty sure it's been posted here before, but it's too funny to pass up) -
Both of them met later at an interfaith alliance meeting, which was held at the local Catholic Church. To be polite, and out of curiosity, they decided to attend the Mass that immediately followed the meeting, at which the "Contemporary Ensemble" was going to play.
Gathering Song: All the Cows are Welcome Here
Offertory Song: The Lord Hears the Moo of the Poor
Communion Song: Gift of Finest Hay
Post-Communion "Chant": Moo. Moo. Moo. (Taize)
Song for Sending Forth: We are God's Chosen Cows
Neither of them had any idea what the hell was going on. -
Angus Dei?
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The Vatican Rag - Tom Lehrer
It's got more theological content than most of the more contemporary music. -
Is "upbeat" more or less the same as "syncopated"?
Actually, I've come to realize "upbeat" simply means strummed on guitar regardless of tempo. Pick a song, any song (One Bread, One Body, for example), play it on the organ with the quarter = 100 but sustain all the harmonies, tie common tones etc and you have what the average PIP would call a funeral dirge. Play the same song on guitar with quarter = 60, but strum down up down up on each beat (16th notes) and you have yourself an upbeat song.
Syncopation doesn't hurt, and is the norm, but not the quintessential qualifier.Thanked by 1Ben -
That's probably true Earl.
A big part of what they call upbeat is whether it's in a major key. If it's in a minor key, it needs to be FAST and "driving," such as Marty Haugen's arrangement of "O Sons and Daughters" for it to be called "upbeat." -
Some of 'em are real downers, though, Gavin, as I'm a tenor.Thanked by 1MHI
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