You know things are bad when . . .
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I don't really see how "How Great Thou Art" or "Lord of All Hopefulness" (fine hymns, both) are an improvement over "Eagles Wings," "Be Not Afraid," or "Eye Has Not Seen."

    Or did I get a defective Bible that accidentally left out the passages the first two are based on?
    Thanked by 3SkirpR Gavin marajoy
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    "Lord Of All Hopefulness" is more singable than any of the rest.

    For "How Great Thou Art", I can't get past the image of Tennessee Ernie Ford performing it on TV: isn't it very soloistic? You could try to keep it moving, but congregations are used to dramatic soloists dragging it out.

    Thanked by 1KARU27
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Adam, I think you should look again at your Bible. Mine has "Lord of All Hopefulness" written all over it.
    Thanked by 3Adam Wood JulieColl CHGiffen
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Incidentally, this story illustrates that even some contemplative houses full of saintly nuns have not had good musical formation.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Do you mean Dominus omni gaudii or In alis aquilarum? See, they really are traditional Catholic hymns. (A little Latin fixes almost everything.)
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I didn't say LoAH or HGTA were inconsistent with scripture. Just that the old Catholic Pop Hits mentioned are pretty directly based on scripture, whereas the other two (which were implied to be more traditional or something) are simply good hymns, consistent with the messages and themes of scripture.

    I just don't see how one or the other is intrinsically better than the other. Or more Catholic. Or more traditional.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Some distinctions first. Can we talk just in terms of text? Or is it important to talk about texts and tunes?

    (I'm a words girl myself)
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    We can talk about whatever you like.

    I wasn't trying to defend the Habitual Music of the Roman Rite as such. I just don't see what benefit there is in replacing passably decent songs that people wanted/requested with equally passably decent songs that people didn't want/request, on the grounds that they are intrinsically better as substitutes for the Authentic Music of the Roman Rite, which they are not.
    Thanked by 2Mad_Dan_Eccles ParleyDee
  • teachermom24
    Posts: 327
    I don't really see how "How Great Thou Art" or "Lord of All Hopefulness" (fine hymns, both) are an improvement over "Eagles Wings," "Be Not Afraid," or "Eye Has Not Seen."


    I just don't see how one or the other is intrinsically better than the other. Or more Catholic. Or more traditional.


    Neither do I . . . it's what we were left with that my son could play. The point of my story was to agree with the previous poster that EW, BNA, and EHNS are considered "traditional" by most folks in the parish. The rest of the post was just an aside concerning what we ended up with (I probably should have left that part out).

    I hated that my son "On Eagles Wings" but he could play it since he had for an earlier funeral. We weren't asked for meaningful substitutions, just what my son could play out of the OCP options and we were under the gun the get something set fast.

    I think we need to work on a list of better hymns for funerals so should he be asked again and we have opportunity to suggest something, we'll have a better chance for something better.
    Thanked by 2chonak Adam Wood
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    There are any number of ways in which LOAH is intrinisically better as a substitute for the AMotRR than OEW.

    -OEW is self-congratulatory, while LOAH celebrates Christ and expresses dependency upon Him for moment-to-moment help. Propers do the latter, constantly, and not the former. BETTER SUBSTITUTE ACCORDING TO LIKENESS.

    -LOAH uses the first person to mean us, and the second person to mean God. OEW uses the second person to mean a vague "truster" in God--often the deceased. Propers do not use the second person in this way. Neither does the Psalm, which uses the third person singular, in a way that Tradition understands as being directed, preeminently, to Christ. BETTER SUBSTITUTE ACCORDING TO DIRECTIONALITY--TO WHOM THE PRAYER IS ADDRESSED.

    -LOAH takes the singer on a journey through the life of Christ, in a meditation on imitating Him. OEW does not, particularly once the directionality of the Psalm has been undone. BETTER SUBSTITUTION BY BEING ABOUT JESUS CHRIST.

    One could go on and on...

    "One cannot say that one song is as good as another." -Pope Benedict XVI
    Thanked by 3Jenny KARU27 ZacPB189
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Ok, fine. On Eagles Wings is a terrible song and I should feel bad about it.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Well, there, that's settled :-)
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood CharlesW
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Acquaintance with "How Great Thou Art" has been something I could hardly avoid, the reasons for which are not important here. But for the collector with a historical interest, I'm attaching three scores. The first is the Swedish hymn (unison) "O store Gud" on which HGTA is based. The second is the 1953 hymn by Stuart K. Hine as published in 1957. And the third is a contemporary engraving, with somewhat altered harmony.
    SwedishScore - O store Gud.pdf
    243K
    HGTAOriginalScore - How great Thou art.pdf
    936K
    ManuscriptSongsofFellowship - How great Thou art.pdf
    151K
    Thanked by 3Andrew_Malton Gavin Chris Hebard
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    "Ok, fine. On Eagles Wings is a terrible song and I should feel bad about it. "

    I think this is why it resonates with me when I read some bloggers mock "reform^2" as "hermeneutic of subtraction." It's all about hating the right music for some people. Doesn't matter what you're actually doing, as long as you hate the right music (and the people who wrote it.)
    Thanked by 1MarkThompson
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Well, as Rabbi Marc Gellman said, in an appearance with his TV colleague, a New York priest, "Hating the right people is the essence of true religion." :-)

    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Wendi,

    Glad to make you smile. Getting over a bummer of a cold myself.

    The sentiment behind the comment was serious though... Not to rebuke marajoy, as I know she probably had a sizable welt on her forehead after the head-to-desk reflex, but the notion that these things ARE, chronologically speaking, the most contemporary resources for the Catholic mass. Pointing this out to choirs at my last job made the explanation of and inclusion of propers a much less painful experience.
    Thanked by 1Wendi
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Ok, fine. On Eagles Wings is a terrible song and I should feel bad about it.

    I have no idea where this sarcasm is coming from.
  • donr
    Posts: 971


    You know things are bad when...
    ... the last 20 posts have taken on a mind of their own completely off topic of the original thread
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    ...even people in the CMAA don't want to think about hymns.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Kathy, there is some measure of truth to both your concerns over resignation via sarcasm and a general weariness towards deconstructing paraphrased texts versus "de gustibus."
    In other words, you know there's something wrong when....
    OEW or even LOAH is used as responsorial at any Mass, even funerals.

    That said, to try to filter the distinctions you articulated above to specific parishioner individuals or groups, whether by direct consultation or soemone hits you up why they've not heard OEW as an option 4 all the whole year long (as it was stealthily sequestered), is not a hill even I would like to die on.
    And I so wanted to avoid commenting in this thread...
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Charles,

    I'm not asking anyone to talk to parishioners about this. But it's a DMs job to think about them.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    I know such discussions have enthused me to keep up my scrutiny about everything I put out there for all to worship in song. So, I'll retract the last statement.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Well, and I suppose that my use of all caps in places didn't exactly invite credibility. I was trying to make CATEGORIES.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    ALL CAPS doesn't bother me, used JuDiCiouSlY.

    My sarcasm re: OEW is just- I'm tired of it so much hating on that song. It's not great. It's not terrible, neither (in my opinion).

    There are some songs that seem to be a weird nexus for complaints against 70s/80s CatholiPop, and OEW is one of them- even though it is (by far) not the most egregious example of the genre. But it gets the most hated on BECAUSE it's one of the more beloved- which I should think would give us pause particularly when talking about FUNERALS (which we weren't, but then we were, and whatever).

    I don't care that much one way or the other about the song, and increasingly I could take or leave the whole genre, but some patterns of discussion get repeated so many times that I'm like, "yeah- okay, whatever." (I mean really, if I hear one more person tell me how Gather Us In sounds like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I might have to go all St. Nicholas on them- especially if they make that stupid face like they were the first one to come up with that totally awesome example.)

    aaaaaaaaaaaa

    Kathy- I think your close reading of hymn texts is valuable and needed. I just don't see the need to discuss OEW any more. But that's just me.
    Thanked by 2Gavin Spriggo
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Adam,

    That's why I made categories, silly. Because it's not about one song or another. It's about WHY.
  • donr
    Posts: 971
    I might have to go all St. Nicholas on them-


    What your going to put gold coins in our shoes : )
    Thanked by 2JulieColl Gavin
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    You know things are going bad when Adam doesn't give a shout out for an old f*rt tryin' to give 'im some cover. Dagnabit whippersnapper. (I miss Walter Brennan)
    You know things are going bad when Paul Harvey's not around for the rest of the story:
    donr,
    You don't know the legend how St. Nicholas would show up at bad children's hovels with a posse of Hun thugs and bag and tag the little miscreants and spirit them away in their Escalades Donner and Blitzen? Thunder, lightning....
    That's my idea of a medieval saint!
    Thanked by 1donr
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    go all St. Nicholas on them


    punching them in their stupid faces.

    I certainly wasn't trying to make a big thing out of any of it, dagnabit.

  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 904
    Back to the original topic...Celebrant and concelebrant donning Santa/elf hats for the recessional, singing happy birthday to Jesus while distributing pieces of birthday cake, a special guest appearance of Santa which was way cooler than the transubstantial appearance of Christ only moments before. Live animals for the nativity play (complete with actual droppings left on the carpet), 40 minutes of running the sweeper after Mass to pick up all the straw that the kids dropped on the floor, which overpowered all the quiet prelude music I had planned for the serious Mass that followed. Many years of wacky Children's Masses on Christmas Eve. And I'm happy to report that there just weren't' enough kids interested the past two years to do the play, so we just had Mass instead!

    And while not quite as crazy as the straight-jacket routine, there was a priest who was also a magician who frequently did magic tricks as part of the homily. But he always managed to tie it into the readings (however loosely).
    Thanked by 3Gavin expeditus1 Spriggo
  • SkirpRSkirpR
    Posts: 854
    I'm sure after just a few more years of Catholics getting this all out of their systems, it'll stop, right?
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Andrew Motyka
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    You know things are bad when......
    Gavin and Adam don't think (unless I'm misreading their meaning) that the song about the great predator bird is just too, too, disgustingly awfull for words; and compounding the calumny is that it is wildely popular and in unmitigated demand.

    (I, myself, have only encountered it once. It was dropped on me at a priest's funeral. Time came for it in the 'liturgy' and I began playing and quickly realised that my fingers and my honour were not going to co-operate, so the organ stoppped and the congregation kept right on singing their hearts out. Afterwards, in the parish hall, I overheard one delighted clergyman observe: 'whose brilliant idea was it to sing Eagle's Wings a cappella?' I've never seen nor heard it since, nor will I ever again.)

    I feel shamed that I even know about it, all the more so for having been accidentally introduced to it at the above event. It is really, immensely trashy of people to expect serious musicians to play (or even know of) such rubish.

    It belongs on broadway with secular lyrics... would be right at home there.
    Thanked by 3ryand CHGiffen Gavin
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,979
    I am no fan of OEW, and it has become representative of the worst of 70s/80s Catholic music. But there is worse out there. There is a local musician who often programs "Rise Up Jerusalem" with the Godspell sounding center section. It is wretched! Some songs, such as "Here I Am Lord" are pretty close to plagiarism. For some reason, that term is avoided in describing such works. Why, I don't know.
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 904
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85jKDa2zpus&noredirect=1
    Thanked by 2JulieColl ZacPB189
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    You know things are bad when......
    Gavin and Adam don't think (unless I'm misreading their meaning) that the song about the great predator bird is just too, too, disgustingly awfull for words;


    I guess things are bad, then.

    I didn't say I liked it. Just that I don't loathe it with every ounce of my being.
    I cannot imagine ever programming it on purpose.
    I also can't imagine saying to a grieving funeral family, "Sorry- but you have terrible taste."
    Thanked by 6Gavin Chris Hebard Spriggo ParleyDee MarkThompson bkenney27
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    . . . you see a photo of the Holy Father drinking out of an cheap-looking chalice that's so big that all you can see in the photo is his chin and the back of his head because his entire face fits inside the bowl of it.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I'm more or less with Adam on this. My big thing is that I've gotten reeeeeally tired of church musicians being perpetually angry. I spent the first 5 years or so of my career being perpetually angry: "HOW DARE THEY SING THAT SONG??" Eventually, that anger just kind of lost interest with me. I still get angry about things that happen to me or my friends. But I don't get angry about generalities. It doesn't matter to me that there's a song out there that I never use that stinks to high heaven. It doesn't anger me that someone else likes it.
    Thanked by 2SkirpR Andrew Motyka
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    +1 to Adam and Gavin's sentiments.
    I suppose we could benefit the coffers, such as they are, of CMAA by staging a Sumo/MMA cage match pitting Adam, Gavin, myself against David, Jackson and Francis, and charge heck of admission. Then we could again smile afterwards and have a toast! Kathy can referee. Unless she wants to join either team!
    Thanked by 2Gavin francis
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    water baloons
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    I suppose everyone has to decide their own role. Personally the more I hear of the progressive rhetoric, the more I realize we're taking very little initiative to promote good liturgy.
    Thanked by 3Adam Wood CHGiffen donr
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I suppose everyone has to decide their own role. Personally the more I hear of the progressive rhetoric, the more I realize we're taking very little initiative to promote good liturgy.


    This I do agree with. But I figure I must find a way to increase my own contribution to the cause before I spend too much effort masterminding an overall plan for US to move forward on.
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • WendiWendi
    Posts: 638
    I suppose we could benefit the coffers, such as they are, of CMAA by staging a Sumo/MMA cage match pitting Adam, Gavin, myself against David, Jackson and Francis, and charge heck of admission. Then we could again smile afterwards and have a toast! Kathy can referee. Unless she wants to join either team!


    Oooh. Do that at colloquium next year. I'll bring the popcorn. :)
  • Caleferink
    Posts: 434
    ...you see flying fish/squid puppets at (of all places) BNSIC:
    http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/9373/flying-fish-puppets-at-npm-mass#Item_12
  • francis
    Posts: 10,824
    Melo

    ONLY if we can include big flying fish puppets but they need to lip sync gregorian chant.
  • WendiWendi
    Posts: 638
    francis, Dearest, Darling et al... I triple dog dare the lot of you to come up with something for the follies next year.
  • donr
    Posts: 971
    ... after the communion song the sax player provides the "Audience" with a beautiful jazz solo that fills the whole assembly with "The Holy Spirit", so much so that they can't help but applaud.

    I actually thought he was going to get a standing ovation.
    Thanked by 1expeditus1
  • francis
    Posts: 10,824
    Damn... I gotta take up the sax!
  • francis
    Posts: 10,824
    Wendi:

    I think it is a fun idea, but I would much rather spend my time and energy conducting the world premiere of my latest Missa Solemnis (or other sacred work) during one of the liturgies during a CMAA Colloquium.

    Our shenanigans here on the forum already absorb too much of our precious time. Don't you think?
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    ...when a popinjay priest declares himself an expert on music AND choir directing, having had 6 weeks' experience with the latter and perhaps 15 years actual instrumental work in the former--and that as a barroom jazz-flute player.

    Ratzinger he ain't.
  • WendiWendi
    Posts: 638
    Our shenanigans here on the forum already absorb too much of our precious time. Don't you think?


    Perhaps. But then again, sometimes they are a wonderful outlet for pent up frustration, without actually causing property damage or therapy bills. :)
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Gavin JulieColl
  • CindyCeciliaCindyCecilia
    Posts: 65
    "and that as a barroom jazz-flute player"

    That just sounds so scary . . . . . . .
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