A SYLLABUS OF MUSICAL ERRORS

...I suspect that there were no sentimental commemorations of that occasion a decade ago or progress reports because the faithful do not wish to be reminded that the "new" congregational singing has been around that long and still remains a monumental flop...

...Certainly my experience is that the typical "liturgy planner" actually likes the with-it kitsch of some newer hymns, such as Sons of God...

...Perhaps 20 percent heartily approve of great musical participation for the congregation but they cannot agree among themselves on what kind of music is appropriate...

...Now, wherever they go, they are assaulted by "song leaders" and conductor-pastors who are determined to homogenize the faithful through song...

...But perhaps we should put the matter charitably by saying that commercial publishers have to give the public what it wants in order to stay in business...

...A decade ago "that sort of thing" used to be Praise to the Lord and not Gregorian chant...

...Perhaps another decade will have to pass before some liturgist gets himself censured for suggesting that congregatonal singing be discreetly dropped where the results are still pathetic...

...In other words, people made music actively...

...Others have vivid and fond memories of Gregorian chant hymns or Masses by Schubert, but they are now told that "the people" do not want to hear such things...

...They constantly remind us that a religion, as well as a city, that obliterates the landmark of its cultured history is usually left with something grim, sterile and without character...

...He even picked up the idea that all church music, except the carbonated variety he encountered at the "Guitar Mass," represents the hypocrisy of the adult establishment...

...The conservatives are still against it...

...They tried just about everything except giving a bullwhip and megaphone to the "song leader...

...Because they do not measure progress by the yardstick of what has been destroyed, preservationists are often dismissed as reactionaries in league with the Catholic Traditionalist Movement...

...let us hope they are not choked out of existence by their unruly neighbors in this prolific garden...

...One of the few constants will be the lonely voice of the preservationists reminding us that we alienate people when we arrogantly redesign their world in the name of progress...

...Alas, one can only say, "Father, forgive...

...Progressive," "liberal" Catholicism, however, has sometimes shown an almost brutal intolerance when dealing with these slackers who refuse to be utterly NOW...

...Bach to Joan Baez, he coldly replied that such hopeless old-timers "will simply have to get used to it," and, besides, folk music is what "the people" really want...

...A few of our cherished labels have suddenly lost their meaning...

...This explanation will not sound like paranoia to many Catholics who frankly resent the musical coercion that they now encounter in church...

...To remedy this situation many parishes established separate but equal services known as "Guitar Masses" or "Folk Masses" or "Masses for the Young at Heart...

...So, keep the old landmark, with the buildings that complement it, and build the modern extravaganza down the street...

...The reader will notice that each proposition here presented is not followed by a roaring anathema, but anyone wishing to add some appropriate reaction to an item might want to groan, growl, or mutter something about the folly of the human race...

...I. All these musical problems need some more time before they eventually disappear...

...At least these newer publications- all intelligently edited-provide a broad spectrum of music from the best to the worst...

...Successful renewal, as the urban planners have belatedly discovered, requires humility...

...During that time he never sang a standard hymn...

...As a symbol of this conformity, the people in the pews shall join the chorus of true believers in unison song...

...Rock, the most successful pop music today, encourages the audience to sway, swoon, and even to writhe in some sort of dionysian ecstacy, but not to sing...

...this ruthless action leaves the distinct impression that they must feel intense hostility to other aspects of their religious background as well...

...Any publisher who put out a supremely tasteful hymnal consisting only of fine old hymns and outstanding music by contemporary composers (e.g., Jan Vermulst's People's Mass) would, in plain language, lose his shirt...

...That intangible sense of familiarity and identity never seems to grow in this new, legislated environment...

...A landscape without architectural "anchors" in the past and a liturgy without some music that symbolizes continuity with the past are both guaranteed to produce "future shock...

...The next victims of "future shock" may be the once radical liturgists who were honestly convinced that singing Kumbaya would fill the churches and the conservatives who thought that progress was 90 percent demolition...

...Occasionally, passionate preservationists may appear to confuse Christianity with jeweled crucifixes and glittering basilicas, but they have a few profoundly important insights which explain why congregational singing is still on the sick list, even after ten years of intensive care...

...The statistics we do have show that more and more American Catholics are staying home on Sundays, and it would be interesting to know what percentage of the stay-aways could no longer force themselves to sing Gonna Sing, My Lord and Take My Hands...

...Recently, the chairman of a diocesan Commission on Sacred Music, who characterized himself as a liberal on matters liturgical, announced to a gathering of organists and choir directors that he would do everything in his power to make sure that folk music became the standard type of music used in the local Catholic parishes, since only this music generates enthusiasm...

...The older generation of Catholics is hopeless when it comes to congregational singing, but things will improve as the younger generation gradually takes over...

...Alienated people do not sing...

...The jerry-built replacements, which are then hastily superimposed on the landscapes always have a desolate and temporary quality...

...It was is if I had asked if indulgences were given away as bingo prizes...

...Making music actively by singing has now become such an uncomfortable experience for Americans that a celebrity has to be brought in to sing the National Anthem at sporting events...

...Perhaps less than 10 percent of the congregation makes a musical sound...

...That sort of thing is not done anymore," was the indignant reply...

...Let us suppose that young Aloysius has regularly attended the parish "Guitar Mass" from his tenth birthday to his twentieth (1966-1976...

...Indeed, a number of my friends who used to be called "liberal" or "radical" Catholics are beginning to long for the old "High Church" liturgy and the better music that was supposed to go with it...

...Stalwart-probably your neighborhood church-first invited the congregation to sing hymns during Mass...

...For the puzzled reader an explanation is necessary here...

...In other words, congregational singing-at the expense of nearly any other type of music-has become the new symbol of conformity and "triumphalism...

...In addition, the musical arrangements are often so clumsy and awkward to sing, the music may sound slightly comic if sung by a choir...

...But the publishers were still willing to take a chance...

...To wit: (a) When all the planning experts indiscriminately bulldoze a neighborhood (or an ancient musical tradition), they also destroy a subtle sense of "belonging" and "continuity" that once existed underneath all the grime...

...If you page through the typical leaflet missal or hymnal you will notice that over half the music was written within the last ten years, mostly by people whose only creative gift is the ability to produce bathos...

...Surely some members of the American Catholic hierarchy can never be called "conservative" again, since they virtually wiped out a centuries-old tradition of liturgical music...

...This once-radical philosophy defined "new" as good and "old" as inherently bad...

...c) Some sociologists tell us that we are constantly being brutalized by something called "future shock...

...the planners and experts gave them something they never really wanted...

...When was the last time the Rolling Stones invited an audience to join them in singing a chorus or two...

...But, to rephrase Victor Hugo, all the armies in the world cannot hold back an idea whose time is going...

...Then about three years or so ago, the mood of desperation slipped, quite unnoticed, into one of indifference...

...I do not have to add that during a typical Sunday Mass with singing nearly all hymns are met with the same chilly silence...

...an enthusiastic "song leader" exhorted us mightily with gestures, and certainly everyone knew the piece...

...In desperation some parishes scattered choir members throughout the congregation...

...I offer two examples: This writer once had the privilege of hearing elderly Catholics ridiculed from the pulpit because they dared to say the rosary, when they were supposed to be singing the latest hip hymn...

...A good set of scientific statistics here would be very revealing...

...Surely the world has gone mad if a "liberal" Catholic is now someone who tries to impose a strict, universal conformity to a liturgical style based on studied casualness and the Nashville Sound...

...Is there, by any chance," I added, "a Solemn Mass with some choral music...

...So many of those in authority seem genuinely frightened by the preservationist proposal that the young should learn to sing something old, like portions of the plainchant Mass of the Angels, as well as standard hymns and religious songs in popular style...

...The distinguished musicologist Walter Wiora once pointed out that we live in a society that is becoming more and more passive towards music...

...As if by some tacit, face-saving agreement between clergy and laity, the voice of the "song leader" moaning into a microphone has now become the surrogate for the congregation's voice...

...Our society changes so fast and so often, we desperately seek visible symbols of continuity...

...By the same token, there is really very little money in publishing an old hymn in the public domain, even though the piece may be a gem...

...The fashionable journals on liturgy and the diocesan commissions on music are sometimes reminiscent of the legendary urban renewal experts in the 1950s who drew up elaborate plans for improving a neighborhood without ever consulting the residents or even taking a walk around the place...

...Why also, in the process of encouraging the people to sing, did they vigorously suppress the last vestiges of a great musical tradition in the few parishes that still maintained it...

...Most of these well-meaning amateurs just wanted to see their names in print...

...The Catholic parents who remained tight-lipped during a hymn were unconsciously telling their children that intelligent people just do not sing in public places...

...Ten years ago the parish of St...

...b) Urban renewal, like the renewal of liturgical music, should not be a matter of demolishing the old and replacing it with the new...

...For the next millennium or so there are bound to be a few lingering fossils, like this writer, who actually enjoy singing in church...

...Thomas day, whose articles have appeared in America, Catholic World and Musart, is an assistant professor at Lehman College in New York with a Ph.D...

...All things pass...

...they rave about bleak urban renewal projects and denounce shabby but stable neighborhoods as slums in need of a bulldozer...

...With all their faults, the hymnals and missalettes published by the World Library of Sacred Music, Benziger Brothers, the Gregorian Institute and J. S. Paluch still contain music far superior to those ghastly novena hymns of yesteryear...

...they realize that if one-just one-of these new hymns makes the Big Time, they can collect royalties, as long as the copyright remains in force...

...In 1965 or thereabouts something began to vegetate, to be sure, but the results have hardly been wonderful...

...The year 1975 has passed and nobody seems to remember that it marked an important anniversary...

...perhaps just one special Mass a Sunday should be set aside for us or perhaps a few select singing parishes...

...Let us begin...

...Ten more years of this charmingly cynical arrangement will not improve matters...

...It may sound contradictory, but the preservationists also have the distinction of being the new "non-conformists" and dangerous "liberals" who refuse to fall in step with everybody else...

...Everybody but management senses this...

...Not long ago I telephoned a prosperous American cathedral, known for its conservatism, and asked the hours of the Sunday Masses...

...One could be cruel and insinuate that publishers have on their desks a sign with the immortal words of H. L. Mencken: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public...

...Musical quality is irrelevant, as long as all sing together...

...Since 1965, how many parishes or dioceses have bothered to consult "the people" on their musical and liturgical preferences...

...In the language of commerce, American Catholicism has produced a musical Edsel...

...This is not entirely a whimsical suggestion...

...in musicology from Columbia...

...The adults pass on to the young not only a rich repertory of music but also the underlying idea that singing is a fitting and proper way to worship...

...For the longest time I could not understand why so many conservative clergymen took to congregational singing with such a vengeance...

...When reminded that some people prefer J.S...

...What started out with such enthusiasm and good intentions a decade ago is now, in the majority of places, a perfunctory routine hurried through as quickly as possible...

...Yet Silent Night remained embarrassingly silent...

...III...

...Then, when they are old enough, these youngsters go to church with their parents but they now sing the same "beloved," tried-and-true "adult" hymns their parents sing...

...My own unscientific suspicion is that about 50 percent of the American Catholic population still views most congregational music as "alien," something abruptly foisted upon them by fiat...

...In the past ten years there has been a wonderful flowering of musical creativity in American Catholicism...

...At first this type of congregational resistance (or shall we call it hostility) caused considerable alarm among those, myself included, who believe in the value of musical participation...

...an ageless Gregorian tune...

...Perhaps it will take twenty years before some wildly liberal Catholic publication dares to suggest that recitation-not singing-may be the "American way" of liturgical participation...

...Yet there is hope...

...Official" Catholicism has decided to ignore these few backward souls and their sentimental feelings of nostalgia...

...That sort of thing" means Gregorian chant, grand organ solos during Mass, nearly all independent choral music, and, in short, just about anything that a congregation cannot sing...

...For example, the Vatican 11 Hymnal (Seattle, 1974) contains a considerable number of small typographical errors in the music--the sort of mistakes that an amateur would not catch...

...fashions changed so frequently that the congregation at the "Guitar Mass" had to use disposable mimeographed sheets of paper...

...I have a tentative answer which will probably soon appear in an official decree with words something like this: "The pre-Vatican II methods of liturgical uniformity and conformity shall be expressed today in congregational singing...

...Who would have ever guessed in 1965 or 1966 that the conservatives would (forgive the slang) co-opt the whole congregational music scene...

...And those who miss the weeping strains of Mother at Your Feet is Kneeling are now finding substitute sources of drippy sentimentality in Take Our Bread and the music of Sebastian Temple...

...A Christmas ago I saw this theory utterly demolished during Midnight Mass in a crowded church outside Philadelphia...

...The following Syllabus of Musical Errors touches upon some of the more naive misconceptions that contribute to this epidemic of silent vocal chords in Catholic churches...

...In many ways the aggressive "song leaders" and members of diocesan Commissions on Sacred Music belong not to the radical avant-garde that leads us into the future but to the tail end of a pseudo-modern philosophy that is now being slowly discredited...

...Every day another picturesque farm is turned into a bland shopping center, magnificent old city landmarks become predictable glass skyscrapers, and an imposing religious ritual is replaced by an irritating session with a "song leader"-always in the name of progress and the betterment of mankind...

...In churches and chapels you often come across stacks of little xeroxed booklets put together by some amateur in "the Spirit-guided community...

...their range of musical preferences goes from Tasteful Anglican to Freaky Scene, and they show little willingness to compromise...

...In our own culture, many years ago, families and friends would sing the latest songs around the piano...

...It taught that society (maybe even human nature) could be improved if people lived in sensible modern apartments designed by Le Corbusier and rode about on clean freeways instead of narrow streets...

...Now the time has come for Aloysius to enter the adult world, but in the past ten years he never acquired a repertory of "beloved" hymns that will serve him for the rest of his life...

...Finally, perhaps as many as 30 percent of American Catholics sincerely miss the old religious music that was once part of their cultural experience and perhaps even part of their cultural identity...

...others heard that flutes were better for accompanying people than organs...

...Finally, why did bishops who prided themselves on their conservatism show so little interest in conserving the best music from their religious heritage...

...At the bottom of this mentality is a profoundly low opinion of people and their ability to know what is good for themselves...

...According to this theory 1965 was a bad year for congregational singing in Catholic parishes, but 1966 was a little better and by the year 2000 the rafters will shake from the joyous vocal noise from the people below...

...If you think about it, this represents an astounding reversal, a superbly executed flip-flop...

...What may look like a garish eyesore to the expert may, in fact, be a lovable old landmark to everyone else...

...Certainly the present method of decreeing the singing participation of all believers is getting nowhere...

...Some just want to be reassured with a sobbing rendition of To Jesus Heart All Burrrning, but the experts have now decided that Shalom, My Friend is far superior...

...About ten years ago, after a few liturgical fiascos, many Catholic parishes gave up on the idea of parents setting the musical example for their children...

...V. Liberal Catholics want congregational singing...

...This is why they have dared to suggest that things like a Solemn High Mass-complete with Latin, incense, and angelic music-must be allowed to survive (somewhere...

...As long as that soloist's voice comes crooning out of the amplifiers, the congregation is presumed to be singing...

...At least in the old days, as they explain it, they were left alone...

...Yet, in spite of this, the Seattle Archdiocesan Commission on Sacred Music gave this publication its enthusiastic approval, and the editor, according to one advertisement, presented a copy of this shockingly unprofessional hymnal to the Pope...

...It is now outre to suggest that a Sunday Mass celebrated without music was a legitimate custom with a cultural basis and should be preserved, if a congregation so wishes...

...All too often the talk about "involving the people" in liturgy and tailoring liturgical music to fit the needs of "the community" is based on the assumption that "the people" is just a vast, sullen herd of believers in need of some spiritual and musical vitamins...

...The time has come, therefore, to throw out all the old labels of "liberal," "conservative," etc., and find some different ones...

...Even commercial folk music now requires the audience to listen respectfully to the message rather than to sing along...

...About five hundred worshipers stared blankly into space when they were supposed to be singing Silent Night...

...Music that represents individualism or aestheticism (organ solos, choral masterpieces, and the like) must be looked upon with the gravest suspicion...

...Congregational singing is the wave of the future...

...It would seem that every third Catholic who can peck out a tune on the piano has written a folk hymn or People's Mass...

...Then there are the more pretentious amateur efforts...

...For a start, I would like to propose a new label that will accommodate a growing but neglected portion of "the people": the "preservationists...

...Excommunication will probably be threatened for anyone who even toys with the idea that old-fashioned novenas, the Requiem Mass, Vespers in Latin, and even awful Victorian hymns (which I detest) should be kept for those who find them personally comforting...

...The adherents of this pseudo-modernism (and I never met a "liturgy planner" who wasn't one) are the sort of people who refer to any old gingerbread building as an "eyesore" that should be demolished...

...In "primitive" cultures the whole community sings or plays instruments at public occasions...

...These liturgical happenings have been surprisingly successful but, in the long run, they cause what I call the deadly "Peter Pan Syndrome," described in the following paragraph...

...Usually, about half the music in one of these booklets was pirated from various sources with little regard for the copyright laws, and the other half was composed by the compiler...

...In many ways the belated introduction of so much musical participation at this time represents a nostalgic, perhaps even slightly reactionary attempt to turn back the clock to those far simpler times when people were not afraid to sing...

...In our fast-moving culture today's benevolent idea is tomorrow's tyranny...

...If the wonderful flowering of American Catholic church music has turned out to be a rather unsightly garden of weeds, we can at least console ourselves with the knowledge that a few splendid blossoms have also appeared...

...Hymnals were provided...

...If they have foisted on us some recently-composed hymns that are the musical equivalent of junk foods, it is because they realize that quality, like nutrition, does not always sell...

...Preservationists, I regret to report, win only a small portion of their battles...

...Unfortunately, these and other responsible publishers may be squeezed out of the market by a rather disorderly crew of competitors: the zealous amateurs...

...Today the stereo and phonograph, both passive forms of entertainment, have replaced musical instruments in most households, and the family that sings together is considered, at best, eccentric...

...In those ten years Aloysius's pastor and teachers in Catholic schools carefully protected him from anything that resembled "adult" music-for example, a hymn more than five years old, a chorale harmonized by Bach, or, (Heaven forbid...

...The new parlor game among American Catholics is to describe to one another the sense of loss they experience in church, when, for example, they hear a "song leader" drone his way through an insipid desecration of a psalm...

...In Protestant denominations children learn, in Sunday School, plain bible hymns that appeal to the young...

...Let us all gasp...

...These are the kind of individuals who say it might be better to renovate and recycle a handsome old building, rather than tear it down...

...In the last half-century we gained the long-playing recording and quadrophonic sound but we lost the barbershop quartet, the singing waiter, the singing telegram, the bouncing-ball sing-along at the movies and the Sunday musicale in the parlor...

...Like Peter Pan, he never grew up . . . musically, in this case...