What's the difference..?

[johnquinn39]

...many of our primary schools now sing liturgically ...

I have to say that I have not found this to be the case (that schools now sing liturgically). All the school Masses that I have attended over the past few years are largely non-participative, with the acclamations being recited (very badly) or paraphrased to mediocre 3-chord music. The young people and children are now largely dumb throughout the celebration - often not even joining in the spoken responses.

The Leeds Diocese is doing much with Diocesan youth choirs.

Looking at the Leeds diocese - yes, they are doing much with Diocesan youth choirs - however, is any of this liturgical?

[keitha]

it looks as if I have had better experiences than JohnQ. I am thinking of 6 and 7 year olds (ie KS1) singing Boyce and Stanley at mass coupled with some reasonable hymns, some Taize and Elgar's Ave Verum Corpus, taught from CD's by teachers who are not musically erudite but who learnt 'what goes where' from CJM. I know that youngsters of this age can learn better stuff than some of this, but the teachers simply don't have the skills, or, quite often, the time, to teach it. They do what they can, with enthusiasm, and do pretty well in my view. If we have a major parish event, I go in to the school and 'polish them up' a bit.

We then have KS2 youngsters who have moved on to music (including the mass) published by OCP and GIA and the like, taught by only slightly more musically erudite staff, but who again learnt their structuring from CJM courses. Then we get to the secondary school, where I have had the same experiences as JohnQ.

[Southern Comfort]

A noted liturgist in these parts vetoed the Inwood piece when I put it forward as an Agnus on the ground that, strictly, it was not a trope

All the pieces we have been discussing are quite mild in comparison with what some of our forebears got up to. I suspect your liturgist thinks that an Agnus trope would be confined to Lamb of God, ....... [fill in with whatever], you take away, etc. He or she obviously needs to do some serious study on the huge range of tropes in the Middle Ages. In fact the scope of a trope (love that phrase! - can I copyright it?! ) is enormous.

[Southern Comfort]

This was replaced overnight (I think circa 1996) by the non-singing of the above, and the introduction of happy-clappy paraphrases and dubious texts.

The actual period when all this was introduced was 1992-4. It happened under the insidious influence of BBC's Songs of Praise, where Kendrick et al were commonplace. It's somewhat amazing that people took to this stuff at all. A few years before, things like Shine, Jesus, shine and Servant King would have been unthinkable in our liturgies (they still ought to be, to continue the whinge). We seem to have collectively lost our ability to recognise poor taste and bad theology. It was a phenomenon not confined to this country. Other parts of the English-speaking world have undergone the same sort of transition, curiously enough, which obviously cannot be attributed to Auntie Beeb (!) but can be attributed to the media in general.

Looking at the Leeds diocese - yes, they are doing much with Diocesan youth choirs - however, is any of this liturgical?

It has almost no impact on the life of the diocese, it seems. The Leeds initiative is heavily funded by the taxpayer because it is very laudably providing music education and experience for large numbers of children who would not otherwise benefit from it; but none of this is apparently finding its way into the liturgical life of either school or parish. It's a completely separate animal.

[Nick Baty]

The actual period when all this was introduced was 1992-4. It happened under the insidious influence of BBC's Songs of Praise

Surely you're not blaming a TV show for the choices of Catholic parish musicians? SoP has frequently featured You'll Never Walk Alone and Secret Garden's You Life Me Up, as well as endless pieces by Hayley Westenra and none of those have found their way into our liturgies. And if it was that influential surely we'd all now have teams of alb-clad youngsters singing in the style of Libera. SoP's viewing figures are under 4 million while Britain's Got Talent attracts more than 18 million.

A few years before, things like Shine, Jesus, shine and Servant King would have been unthinkable in our liturgies.

Would they? A few ago many parishes had Make me a plate of mushy peas, Clean our drains, the cake-making song (Bind Us Together) etc which were themselves successors to Give teeth in my mouth keep me chewing and the acid-trip Colours of Day. Go back a little further and you'll find adaptations of Dylan's Blowing in the Wind and songs from Jesus Christ Superstar.

Some of Kendrick's music will stick and some won't. But I really don't think we can blame a TV show which, most of the time, is fighting with ruthless execs for survival, which has no denominational brand, and certainly no liturgical responsibility.

[keitha]

I am, generally, no fan of Songs of Praise, and watch it very rarely, however, I think SC is going a bit far in blaming it for what seems to have happened, and, in reality, I'm not sure that he is. It is just one of a number of factors that influences taste. What it boils down to is that, generally, we have had a liturgical music taste by-pass in this country (and, by the looks of it, in other parts of the English-speaking world). I have come to the conclusion that the Kendrick/CJM and similar stuff (but only where the text is theologically ok) does have a place in our worship, but not in the mass or other sacred liturgies of the Church, where I think we should only have music that enhances the meaning, beauty, solemnity and structure of the liturgy. In many ways, maybe, in seeking to encourage our congregations to sing, many have gone too far down the 'accessibility' route, with the result that the quality has slipped badly.

In addition, I think we have a real training/formation issue. There was a time when almost every school had someone on the staff who could play the piano to a reasonable level of competency and teachers could make time in the timetable for religious music teaching. Now, that time is rarely available and the staff generally do not have the talent to train the kids, so they are dependent on published CDs of 'easy listening' style music. I know of Catholic secondary schools with music departments teaching music to GCSE level that will not have any involvement in religious music. Indeed a lot of the staff are not Catholic or are what we used to call 'lapsed'. I am aware of school singing sessions which are really Karaoke sessions, sometimes to lyrics that are, IMHO, somewhat less than suitable for use with youngsters, let alone in a Catholic school. What on earth are we doing?

Whilst this is not really about Mike Stanley and Jo Boyce, all they have done is identified the need for something for use in schools and tried to meet it, in my view to the best of their abilities. I do not believe that they should be criticized for this. I do, however, think that what they do in relation to our sacred liturgy should be limited to very young children who should be moved on to more, shall we say 'sacred' music fairly quickly as part of developing some taste in the young. That will not be achieved without people doing something to help our schools and doing more to work with them, such as having properly run workshops and the like, much as Jo and Mike provide, as part of in-service training. The problem is, I guess, one of resource (in terms of finance and people). CJM has to be commercial to be able to do what it does and I imagine, they have set themselves up so that the cost can be met out of school training and similar budgets.

If we could only get this right we might help develop taste, liturgical formation, and involve youngsters more so that we see more of them.

[Southern Comfort]

I am, generally, no fan of Songs of Praise, and watch it very rarely, however, I think SC is going a bit far in blaming it for what seems to have happened, and, in reality, I'm not sure that he is.

You're right. I'm not attributing it to SoP in particular, but to the media in general. It just so happened that in the early 90s SoP was plugging the evangelical furrow rather relentlessly and, overnight as johnquinn39 says, we all somehow got on board. Coincidence? I think Nick is a staunch supporter of SOP but needs to be realistic about the influence of a programme which is mostly watched by older folk at home but which in the late 80s and early 90s was also the subject of great attention from parish musicians of all denominations. One reason for this was that at that stage you could see a massive broadening of what was broadcast ─ everything from Catholic psalm settings to Sing of the Lord's Goodness to Taizé to Dave Fellingham ─ as well as a huge diversity in performers and arrangements. Another more cynical reason was that the musicians all wanted to get in on the act, until they realised it was a closed shop ─ and yes, I know Nick will deny this, but it certainly was then and in fact gives every impression of being so now.

I have come to the conclusion that the Kendrick/CJM and similar stuff (but only where the text is theologically ok) does have a place in our worship, but not in the mass or other sacred liturgies of the Church, where I think we should only have music that enhances the meaning, beauty, solemnity and structure of the liturgy.

I think that position is very reasonable.

I do, however, think that what they do in relation to our sacred liturgy should be limited to very young children who should be moved on to more, shall we say 'sacred' music fairly quickly as part of developing some taste in the young.

No, I don't agree with this at all. We should be starting our very young children off on mainstream liturgical fodder. I've been consistently astonished over the years how often music which has quite obviously been designed for adult congregations has in fact "taken" with young children. I look at pieces like God has chosen me or many of our foundational Mass settings and psalm settings in support of this view.

We have a duty to form our young children, and this means exposing them to music which, to our surprise, they can inhabit just as we can, even though only at their own level. What I don't think we should be doing is feeding them pap, which will only make it much more difficult later on to wean them off it onto more suitable material. Let's start as we mean to go on. Adolescents are always saying how much they want to be part of what the Church does (and yet we continue to exclude them ─ but that's another thread). They'd have a much better chance if they had been brought up on the sort of solid foundation that we all value so much.

If we could only get this right we might help develop taste, liturgical formation, and involve youngsters more so that we see more of them.

Absolutely agree ─ and see remarks above.

[keitha]

I had not seen SC's response to my post before the thread went off for its purgatorial cleansing ( ). We are pretty much in agreement. In relation to the very young, I accept that they are capable, generally, of picking up fairly meaty stuff - the youngsters in our great choral foundations show that to be true and my experience supports this, however I was suggesting that the simpler stuff should be limited to the very young (I am thinking of 5 and 6 year olds), but we should be moving on from this for 7 year olds.

My concern is how we set about working with our children. In my view, the only suitable place for doing this in significant numbers is in our schools (it could be done within the parish, but we only see a relatively few children at mass). This means providing suitably trained teachers. My concern is how we create sufficient interest in our schools and provide the teaching staff with the skills and support to do the job - something which is greatly exercising my mind at present because I am with SC when he says that we have a duty to form our children.

[nazard]

..the simpler stuff should be limited to the very young...

I would like to second this point. I have seen too many children leave the church because they are insulted by the way we treat them. Infantile material is for infants, and hippie - folkie material for grannies. Get that wrong and give it to the children and next week they will be on their way to football practice.

[Nick Baty]

Same could be said of the grannies. We have so much to choose from that there is no excuse for selecting third-rate material. But quality is a very subjective area. And there's a difference between simple and simplistic: some Gregorian chants are simple but moving; some Taizé chants couldn't be simpler but they create a prayerful atmosphere. We need to be sensitive to what works in our communities – ie what helps the assembly to pray.

[keitha]

Nick, which league do the grannies play in? Can we come and watch?

[Dot]

Rewinding back to the top of this thread: what's the difference?
The question could be, in the light of my experience today:
Q/ What's the difference between a parish priest and a parishoner?
A/ You can't argue with a parish priest (even when they are liturgically incorrect)

My PP approached me today and said, "There are no musicians around next Sunday morning; could you play the hymns?"
I replied: "and it would be good if we could sing some parts of the Mass unaccompanied." I should add that PP is familiar with me leading singing as well as playing (though he may not class me as a musician, judging by his first statement).
What do you think his response to this was?
"AND IT WOULD BE GOOD IF YOU COULD OBEY YOUR PARISH PRIEST!"
I did manage to make some comment to the effect that the Church expects parts of the Mass to be sung as a higher priority than hymns.
So he questioned whether I would play at all, and I said perhaps he ought to give me a list of what I should play. he retorted that there was a list of suggested hymns at the back of the hymn book, and walked off.

Dear liturgist, what would you do in my situation?

Dot

[Mithras]

The first thing is to establsh what your PP means by "musician" and ask him what he thinks you are if you are only called in beauase of the "musicians'" absence; the second would be to refer him to GIRM; the third is to ask him why he doesn't obey his employers - yes, that's us, folks, we who pay his wages. Is the Catholic Church the only institution on earth in which the employees tell the employers what to do and get away with it? (Sorry to any ordained readers of this probably to be deleted post - your behaviour in this area of clergy-laity relations is, I am sure exemplary - you wouldn't be here otherwise.)

M

[Nick Baty]

what would you do in my situation?

Walk?

[Psalm Project]

Seems to me that the line of communication is a bit estranged!
Did he use the word 'Obey'? or is that embellished? (was it a jovial or serious tone?)
Seems to me - from reading your blog - that both of you may not be tuned into the same frequency! Get talking!
It is possible both of you do not have an appreciation of where you both are coming from... TALK to each other and hammer it out in a nice way - You are smarting because you see it one way. Your PP may be oblivious to your feelings. I say again - Go talk to him - You might be surprised at the response once you clear the air.
I've been there in the past!