I have a similar quandary... I wonder if providing them with some audio examples of beautiful sacred music vs. more secular-sounding music that is used in church might help. I think beauty is recognizable to most people, even if it isn't what they are accustomed to hearing. Especially if the text is similar in both cases, perhaps the contrast would be even more jarring and obvious.

If we think about what secular music tends to do (create an emotional response that is centered on "me") vs. sacred music... maybe that would also help... Maybe explaining that that type of music may have its place in non-liturgical settings because of the difference in the goal of the event...

My husband and I are considering teaching CCD to the 12th grade class next year (our pastor has asked us to take this on) and this is one issue I'd like to discuss with them at least during one session. Perhaps provide them with something else to think about...

I will be interested in suggestions others have here, too...

haha... missed that entirely.

http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/11456/our-response-to-rebuilt/p2

I think that, if I may say so myself, I and others made some good points on the above page.

Long version short: When you go to Disneyworld, they don't play music like you listen to on your I-Pod. It's a very special, particular music for that place and time. Why wouldn't church also have specific music appropriate to what we do there?

marajoy,

I have done this twice, once with a parish youth group and once with a college campus ministry. In the process I learned that any approach which relies upon a "this vs. that" of musical styles is doomed to fail on the grounds that it fails to sufficiently demonstrate the "why" and pits well-intentioned people against each other unnecessarily. The approach I recommend is this (assuming you have a fairly reasonable group which will not give you silly responses, ):

1. First ask what is liturgical music primarily about -- the text or the melody? Of course you must establish the primacy of the text of what we are praying, that it is more important than the melody.

2. Following this, launch into a short demonstration of how liturgical music came to be sung. It is not difficult; take the Kyrie of the Mass.
a. "Now, where did music come from in the liturgy? We can actually walk through exactly how it happened. Let's take the Kyrie from the Mass." If necessary, explain what it means and that it is a very ancient part of the liturgy.
b. "We could just speak it simply, and that would be fine. Let's try it just as if we were at Mass." Speak it back and forth with them as if at Mass.
c. "But let's try something different." Sing it recto tono with them. "Singing something adds some solemnity to it. Singing it sets it apart from our everyday speech. Do you sing conversations to people?" Look at one of them and sing recto tono "Hello [name], how are do? Did you get my email the other day?" (they will laugh) "Since the word 'holy' means 'set apart,' and singing something sets it apart from normal speech, we could say that singing the words of the Mass makes it even more holy."
d. "But what we just sang was very simple. We could add even more solemnity by having some variety in the melody. Try this with me:" Then sing Kyrie XVI, or a similarly simple one, or make one up on the spot.
e. "Over time, singers created more and more melodies. Some were very simple like what we just sang, and others were more complicated. Try this one with me." Then sing Kyrie XI or VIII, or any other that is somewhat or very melismatic. A couple will try to respond if they know it, but if not, most might chuckle that you expected them to memorize it that quickly.
f. "As you can see, some simple melodies you can pick up right away, and some might take a while to learn." Then I say the following from my own experience (after having demonstrated the first part of Kyrie VIII): "I grew up hearing that long Kyrie in my church as a kid, so I had already known it very well for years before I was your age. If it's the first time you have heard it, it probably sounds too complicated, but you would be able to sing it after a little time and effort."
g. Explain, if you like, how different types of chants are very simple or very ornate depending on their function and depending on who is supposed to sing it (cantor(s), choir, congregation).
h. Explain and demonstrate, if you like, some English chant, especially anything from the Missal.

3. Next explain that different repertories of music like this were standardized in different places throughout the Christian world. Simplify the history of Gregorian chant by saying that Pope St. Gregory the Great was a great reformer of liturgy, that a few centuries after he died, the church standardized the liturgy and music all throughout the western Christian world, that the chant then disseminated was a combination of the repertories from different places and was named "Gregorian" in honor of Pope Gregory. If you like, show one of the images of Gregory receiving the chant from the Holy Spirit and explain the pious legend.

4. Describe the invention of polyphony...how some singers began to sing another melody (or two or three or four) with the original melody. Play audio samples of recreations of early polyphony. Explain that this culminated to a high point of beauty and expression during the Renaissance.

5. Don't go any further in your regular lesson with discussion of musical styles. Instead return to the original point: that the music is a way of "heightening" the text and making it more solemn more holy. Explain that this is why the church says that chant and the musical forms that stem from it (like polyphony) are the model for the best forms of music for the liturgy. If you like, show how traditional hymns are polyphonic. End of lesson.

6. As for the inevitable question "Why doesn't the music at my church sound like this?", I will address that in another post because I need to get ready for a funeral this afternoon.

That is excellent @JonLaird, I look forward to your follow up!

The best way to dissuade teenagers from contemporary Christian rock is to play some of it for them.

That'y my story, anyhow.

@jefflokanata - yes lots of people want to hear imagine and other songs they think of as religiously meaningful. They have probably never listened closely to the lyrics and never will. but the music produces an emotional response, which they like and which they associate with thinking and feeling about being good and religious things.

I like jonlairds approach.

We need to help them move from prayer and worship styles based primarily on evoking an emotional response to the prayer and worship styles which are reason based. (which I think was explained well above by jonlaird)
Of course chant produces an emotional response too but that is not its primary purpose.

I think I would put it like this:

Wrong worship = music and prayers which make me feel good (emotional response); may be followed by right action but not necessarily, (failure to feel good about the worship means the worship has failed)
Right worship = music and prayers directed at God because it is right, reasonable, rational to worship him; followed by an emotional response because of putting right reason into right action (emotional response does not always follow up but this is not a failure to worship)

Ratsinger wrote on the difference between Appollonian and Dionysian music, that is what I am trying to get at.

'The writings of Plato and Aristotle on music show that the Greek world in their time was faced with a choice between two kinds of worship, two different images of god and man… one the one hand, there is the music that Plato ascribes, in line with mythology, to Apollo, the god of light and reason.

This is the music that draws senses into spirit and so brings man to wholeness. It does not abolish the senses, but inserts them into the unity of this creature that is man. It elevates the spirit precisely by wedding it to the sense, and it elevates the senses by uniting them with the spirit. Thus this kind of music is an expression of man’s special place in the general structure of being.

But then there is the music… which we might describe as ‘Dionysian’. It drags man into the intoxication of the sense, crushes rationality, and subjects the spirit to the senses….
The Apollonian/Dionysian alternative runs through the whole history of religion and confronts us again today. Not every kind of music can have a place in Christian worship. It has its standards, and that standard is the Logos.'

Joseph Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy

Some thoughts you may have already had:
Teach them the most profound and interesting chants you can find.
Give them a challenge.
Talk less and have them sing more.
Bring them to colloquium. Blow them away with beauty on a grand scale.
They will learn the sacredness by singing the prayers. The same prayers many of their patron saints sang.

They can find the newest trends without help from adults. But they need you and people like you to give them their heritage.

JonLaird: Wow, thank you for such detailed instruction on your approach to the OP's question! It's really fantastic. In your second post, you indicated that you would speak differently to a group of people who select music. If you have time (no rush), I'd like to see your 'script' for them, as well. Thanks!

Mahrt, I find your lectures engaging indeed.

I don't know where any of you are coming from but my peers and I were dismissive of Gregorian chant as late our early 20's. At that age and younger, contemporary Christian pop is many orders of magnitude more popular than sacred music and it's perfectly consistent with their concept of worship. So first, I don't think telling them that it's somehow less worthy will work.

I'm not sure what will work but expressing how sacred music enriches you personally couldn't hurt. Also, what might have persuaded me personally back then was if chant was presented not as the music of uptight anti-altargirl trads but of enlightened intellectuals. Or perhaps a lesson in small-t tradition not as a static practice always in conflict with modernity but just a small way in which we preserve the treasures of our spiritual forefathers.

One could also see the document written by Dr. Mahrt entitled "Gregorian Chant as aParadigm of Sacred Music." He quotes Cardinal Ratzinger at the end in regards to "utility music," and only using what is comfortable and serviceable at the parish level. Very insightful.

JonLaird: Wow, thank you for such detailed instruction on your approach to the OP's question! It's really fantastic. In your second post, you indicated that you would speak differently to a group of people who select music. If you have time (no rush), I'd like to see your 'script' for them, as well. Thanks!

aria,

I apologize I have not been able to answer until now, but I took advantage of your "no rush" to think and pray on it a bit, since I have never addressed directors, and therefore my view is based on my experience as a music director in my parish, and not as a director of directors. I am not certain whether you are still thinking of a teenage audience or adult, but either way the essence is the same, so I will tell you what I think and leave the application up to you. With God's help I will be as complete as I can, and hope others will correct, amend, and add what is necessary wherever I have failed.

The difference is that the discussion would continue by imparting to your audience the great responsibility they have in choosing the words and music in the liturgy, that they are deciding what the congregation is going to pray, and what melodies they will hear. Their goal, as stated by Pope St. Pius X and reiterated by John Paul II, is the sanctification and edification of the faithful -- not the satisfaction of their personal preferences, and a music director must be a servant wholly dedicated to the fulfillment of these lofty goals. All of us, as I stated above, must to some extent set aside our personal preferences in order to be a part of the liturgy; stated another way, each of us must let go of earthly attachments and send them up to be sacrificed on the altar, if we are to truly receive Christ as worthily as we can -- on our tongues, in our hearts, in our lives.

Once divested of the feeling that it is necessary to satisfy the preferences of individuals (whether his or her own, or those of others), the music director must simply apply himself or herself to a humble obedience -- obedience, that is, to the will of God as it is made manifest to us in various ways. Primarily that holy will arrives to us in three visible parts: two related parts are the received musical heritage (see my earlier posts for significance of this) and present liturgical law of the Church (which is divinely guided in its guardianship of the liturgy and which clarifies and narrows down the receive heritage), and the third part is the direction of the pastor or other superior, who must be obeyed to not only in external action but by submission of the spirit (in all things, of course, except sin).

I mentioned the three visible parts, but there is equally important an invisible part: the light of Christ in our own hearts. We will do very well by simply taking the received tradition and applying it according to the law of the Church in the particular way it is applied by the pastor. But if we are to decide what the very prayers are of our fellows who are taking part in the highest and holiest action in this life, then (unless we are programming the Gregorian propers which are absolutely ensured to be a perfect prayer on that day and in that part of the Mass) how can we truly do well without divine direction? Therefore, music directors who seek to be faithful in their task must do all they can to be free of their own earthly attachments and convert themselves from sin and selfishness by prayer, meditation, and cultivation of virtues in order to clear away all that clouds the Light of Christ within. A good spiritual director would be helpful in this regard.

Have compassion on those who challenge you, because although they will not admit it right away, their defiance is most likely fear that if they follow the path outlined (that is, discovering the will of God), they will have to give up things they love so much (certain songs or styles of music). But who among us, clinging to selfish purposes, has not had this fear of what God has in store for us? Yet we must still seek, distrusting ourselves and trusting God, if we desire eternal things. Assure them that if they truly seek the will of God with all of their heart, mind, and soul, they cannot go astray. If they truly seek and God leads them to what they already are doing, then so be it. But do not forsake the journey out of fear of the destination, for the journey to God only leads to heaven, and often collects companions on the way.

Here's another approach

Schedule a field trip to a beautiful (i.e., traditional) parish church-- large or small doesn't matter -- when a choir -- someone else's -- is singing something beautiful from the repertoire of sacred music, preferably from the choir loft of the church, so that sacred music is heard in its proper context.

A little update and an additional question-
I gave this as a presentation to the students today, and I believe it was well-received, but we didn't have any time for discussion or questions, other than one, which I have actually wondered myself, and so have no idea how to answer this student.

How do you draw non-religious people (who prefer the more "emotional" or "Dionysian" music) into worship, while using sacred music? Could an argument be made that we could bring them into Catholicism with music that appeals to their emotions, and then as they grow in their faith, they will come to appreciate music that is more appropriate for Mass? Is that an exception to "what kind of music should we use at Mass?" or if not, then how do we bring them into Right Worship?

Indeed, we really need a place outsideof Mass and the liturgy (I include Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in that, since it is governed by the church's law...) to place things like contemporary Christian music, but it needs to draw people back into the Mass at the same time. That's how popular piety in all forms ought to be. Using CCM at Mass where people assume their personal postures of prayer is really a more active version of people praying the Rosary at Mass, IMHO.

marajoy, what intrigues me is that non-religious people often have a keen sense of the beautiful. I say at Mass always put forth the beautiful, especially if one is always able to do so. Give the best of what we have and what the church asks.