Fr. Z posts a great article on liturgical music from Michael Knox Beran at National Review.
But if good music does not always save the soul, bad music never does. When the electric guitar sounds during the Sacrifice of the Mass, the cherubim weep.
I don’t know about the cherubim weeping, but I can certainly shed a tear when this happens and it is not a tear of joy. As someone who plays the electric guitar and who is a certified head banger I never want to hear electric guitar used in the liturgy and think only very rarely that an acoustic guitar can be used in the liturgy properly.
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How ironic that this should come up on Christmas Eve. Have you forgotten that on Christmas Eve many years ago that favorite hymn, “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night), was composed for … the guitar. Proponents of the “authentic instrument” movement would say that a guitar is the only suitable instrument for this song.
But it wasn’t an acoustic guitar, was it?
“Have you forgotten that on Christmas Eve many years ago that favorite hymn, “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night), was composed for … the guitar.”
And not in the Catholic liturgy.
“Silent Night” sounds perfect when done Acapella.
It also bears little resemblence to most guitar songs.
Oh… forgot…
My favorite religious songs are Magnum Mysterium(though I listen to it all year) and “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”
They said that about the Electonic Organ too. Now most churches have some form of that, rather than the astronomically expensive Pipe Organ.
The only excuse for an Electronic Organ is if it is used with the announcement: “Our Pipe Organ drive is now in progress. Please contribute during the second collection so that we may have a more reverent and holy mass.”
Yes pipe organs are expensive, but people like them. I’m sure one could be financed in half a year at most.
Andy, Stille Nacht was heard for the first time in Oberndorf during a Midnight Mass as assistant pastor Fr. Joseph Mohr played his guitar. No, that is not a justification for using guitars at Mass…
Patrick: I heard a story stating that he played the guitar because the organ was broken.
Disregard my comment with religious songs… I had an ADD moment and posted a reply meant for Cafeteria is Closed.
I never want to hear electric guitar used in the liturgy and think only very rarely that an acoustic guitar can be used in the liturgy properly.
Much too kind. All guitars found in the sanctuary should be confiscated, ground into sawdust, the sawdust fed to dogs and the dog’s poop burned.
And I say this as a rock musician with sympathies for viturally all music including the heaviest of metals. To Obi-Wan you listen!
Maybe someday I’ll write a hymn utilizing an electric guitar. I’ll include a director’s note requiring the guitar be smashed–pianissimo–before the rest of the music starts. I’ll also write lyrics that make the song inappropriate for everything but the processional, so the mass itself would be free from power chords and hair thrashing.
Due to presumed exhaustion of organists after Midnight Mass, responses and hymns (mostly Christmas carols) at the 11am Mass today were reverently accompanied by a piano and guitar (NOT and acoustical one)!
If you’re going to have a guitar in Mass, for God’s sake use a classical guitar (you’ll recognize it by the nylon strings and the holes cut in the guitar’s headstock.)
Better yet, go with a bowed string instrument (violins, viols, etc).
Histor
P.S. Electric organs and pipe organs are like MIDI files and live performances, in my humble opinion.
With regard to pipe organ/electric organ: We purchased a digital “pipe” organ (a Rodgers) several years ago. Price: about $54,000. It’s run by electricity, of course; there are no actual pipes, but if you can tell the difference between it and a real pipe organ, I would be very surprised. This was a lot more feasible for us than the real article and we are very pleased with it. Merry Christmas and God bless one and all.
Organs are one of the easiest instruments to reproduce electronically. You cant tell the difference between a good electric one and a real one. Even the best Kurzweil electric piano samples have matched up extremely well against real ones in blind tests by piano experts.
Apologies to Father N. and Tim, but I was thinking of my actual experiences of an electronic keyboard set to “organ.” I didn’t know people had created the working article.
Umnnhhhh…
A 12-string acoustic using a gently ‘rolling’-chord accompaniment to “Stille Nacht” would be do-able, I think. No full chords, except perhaps at the end of the piece.
As a matter of personal taste, Id much rather participate in a well executed and reverent folk-music liturgy than a poorly executed traditional. Of course the great qualifiers are in the well executed and reverent descriptors. Id sooner chew on tin foil than endure a strummed chunka-chunka version of Pass it on. Last week I heard Christian Rap on a radio station (CRap for short). Id be in danger of chewing off my own ears were I subjected to anything remotely like it in a liturgical settingIt was trouble enough avoiding driving off of the road as it was.
Still, I find it difficult to rule out any instrument or music used in liturgy if it is indeed fitting to the worship and solemnity of the Mass. There was a time when the very best, most skillfully executed and most state-of-the-art contemporary forms of music were those used in the liturgy of the Mass.
To our modern ears those seem traditional and hardly innovative, but imagine the wonder and joy at hearing Victoria’s “O Magnum” Mass sung for the first time. Later, the pipe organ was the synthesizer of its day. Yes, there is the real danger that the music or the virtuosity of a musician might tempt congregants away from the true focus of the sacrifice of he Mass; however, I believe these can be properly trained out of a congregation. In the early days, one could be tempted to make rock stars out of a world-class choir or later, a pop idol out of a gifted organist. But it was the solemnity of the Mass and the universal understanding of its sacred nature that sanctified even the profane popular musical styling of a man like Mozart. What distinguished public chamber music from sacred music was often not the music itself, but the purpose to which it was put.
My objection to use of rock-band instruments in Mass is not based on the instruments themselves or the genre itself being inherently inappropriate to worship, but that it is temporally inappropriate to worship given the sensibilities of our day in relation to the dignity of the Mass and worship. However, in the long run, I suspect that it is the sacred Mass that makes sacred music sacred, not the other way around. Of course I could be way off base. If the world lasts that long, in another thousand years, will some group of Christians be discussing the dreadful lack of using the traditional wah-wah pedal during the Recessional hymn guitar riff? Pesonally, I hope not.
Your bro,
–Theo
While the discussion might have moved on, I was talking to a priest friend of mine who pointed out that while Stille Nachte may have been originally performed on the guitar, its mention in this argument is merely interesting. It does not aide the counter argument in any way.
Regarding organs, when I was in high school, an electric organ was purchased that used actual samples from organs and other instruments. A number of very fine musicians that played it and heard it agreed that it was a respectable instrument.
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