A Letter From Marty Haugen To Jeff Miller

[CatherineM]

SMM-The only male voice we have is my contralto. We also have a man who used to be a priest, left to get married, and is trying to come back to the priesthood. He's basically volunteering for everything, and sings like my father who we never allowed to even sing happy birthday. We try to be as supportive as possible, but we don't let him take lead on anything.

[jeffpugh]

Hmm... that's too bad. Anywho, I know there's music out there somewhere just for Sopranos and Alto. Convents have gotten pretty far without tenor and bass. Anywho all I ask is that people try. Be "open minded" or something.

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' post='1532480' date='May 18 2008, 04:03 PM']Hmm... that's too bad. Anywho, I know there's music out there somewhere just for Sopranos and Alto. Convents have gotten pretty far without tenor and bass. Anywho all I ask is that people try. Be "open minded" or something. [/quote]

You'll be surprised...

a certain convent with a large influx of vocations has plenty of tenor and bass!

[Autumn Dusk]

Its silly to say modern music at mass isn't bringing people back to the church....one of the best catholic schools (Steubenville) and one of the orders growing astronomically (the CFR's) combine deep respect of the Eucharist with praise music IN MASS.

There weren't any Protestants before the 1500's. There were two rites...BUT....the catholic church prevailed as the solid form of Christianity. Liturgical abuses and many other happenings abounded, not like we see today, but definatly abuses. Just look at the story of St. Vincent DePaul to see how corrupt the clergy was thought to be. (he stayed at a woman's house and the woman sent her daughter, no more than 8, in to "entertain" him)

People had their own churches and had their own religious beliefs that some conflicted. These are the same human people who wrote those hymns.

And there is a difference when catholics sing a song and protestants do. Their worship is often self serving...their actions often about them and what they know. I've worshiped with Protestants. However, there is NOTHING like worshiping God in or out of Mass in His Presance. And some protestants I know agree.

[Piccoli Fiori JMJ]

I have found that when modern hymns are played on the organ, they seem much better, particularly on the ears. There are some great hymns that I rarely hear ever, like 'Come, Holy Ghost', or 'Holy God, We Praise Thy Name'. I love those. Simple and a little theology lesson at the same time.
I have had to deal with an Irish liturgical director at my home parish for years who thinks that everyone really enjoys the celtic selections from the 'Gather' hymnal, or that everyone enjoys a round of songs from the funeral section. I know that my mother and I really don't enjoy it. We have an electric organ that someone donated that we use maybe once a year (like Easter). I love going to Mass at the parish here at school because they use the organ for every Mass, usually with just the organ and a cantor. Nothing too special. They also whip out the latin for the lenten season too. Wonderful! This parish is heaven. A great mix of a contemporary architecture and tradition! The parish is well balanced.
I think that a balance between tradition and the good contemporary stuff is wonderful. I don't know too much about all the rules, but I know what is good and reverent. Some of the contemporary stuff just isn't tall enough to ride the ride.

[jeffpugh]

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' post='1530206' date='May 16 2008, 10:12 AM']As for Hagen:Daas...they make great ice cream - yum!

Oh..

Haugen and Haas....

The music is not so bad...not especially beautiful, but not quite as lame as The Wiggles. The lyrics are what bug the caro out of me though. When you look at the lyrics of more traditional music, you see that we are singing TO God, or ABOUT God.

With Haugen and Haas, more often than not we are singing TO ourselves or ABOUT ourselves. Seems very self centered to me. The Mass/Divine Liturgy is about honoring and praising God, not about lifting ourselves up.

Sidenote: this past Lent, one of the Haugen or Haas songs selected was an atrocious piece in which one of the lines was "as we remake ourselves..." FOUL! WE DON'T REMAKE OURSELVES - God remakes us if we cooperate with Him. Thank the Lord, that song NEVER showed up again...seems I was not the only one that caught that line...
So...my beef with them is the craptastic lyrics they write. Liturgically, theologically, and catachismically unsound.
Come dance in the forest come play in the fields....*BLECH* [/quote]
Well, I guess Haugen-Haas *is* better for the Mass than the Wiggles. You've got a point there. Besides the cheezy tunes and the fact that most H&H hymns are actually really hard for the average parishioner to sing, the thing that annoys me the most about the late 70's style modern hymns is the me-centric lyrics. They often focus on what *we* can do for God and not about what God has done for us. I know this isn't the universal rule, but I find so much more depth in the ancient texts often used for Gregorian hymnody. That doesn't mean all modern music is bad--I'm sure during Palestrina's time there were a bunch of hacks out there that composed cheezy early Rennaisance music too. But Catholic tradition forgets the bad composers and holds on to that which is good. Hopefully in a hundred years people will have forgotten that hymns like "We Rise Again from Ashes" and "Table of Plenty."