John Ainslie in The Tablet

[presbyter]

Why either/or? Surely a confusion of categories here?

I’m confused myself now NT

If I may, let me try and draw something of a parallel with seminary formation in documents such as Pastores Dabo Vobis.

All I am saying is that I think it is necessary for liturgical musicians to acquire more than musical skills. I don’t think anyone is saying those with musical skills are spiritually suspect – how did you get that impression?

In my opinion, the formation of ministers of music should include components of the development of musical skills, liturgical understanding/spirituality and pastoral sensitivity and proficiency. Add to that an element of spiritual and human development. Nothing opposes anything else. It is a wholly integrated package.

Let us imagine I am seeking to appoint a Director of Music for Saint Elsewhere’s. As the diploma has been mentioned, let’s imagine a candidate waves his/her ARCO at me. Excellent as that qualification is, all it tells me is that the candidate has acquired skill in playing the organ and that he/she is capable of writing harmony and counterpoint in certain styles.

It tells me nothing of the candidate’s understanding of the pastoral ministry of music-making, nothing about his/her ability to work collaboratively with all the others who exercise other ministries in the parish, nothing about his/her “people skills”, nothing about his/her spirituality and appreciation/understanding of the liturgy. The list could go on……

Knowledge of the liturgy also requires teaching or directed reading.

Well yes but not at first – and I think Cullen’s outline for formation is weak here. The prime source of liturgical formation is the experience of active participation in the celebration of the liturgy itself. The liturgy is its own catechesis.

Think of the seminary parallel again. What primarily draws a man to seek seminary formation? It’s not reading documents and books – that’s secondary. It’s his realization of personal encounter with Christ in the liturgy, in personal prayer and in Christian witness and action that flows from the liturgy.

I am firmly of the opinion that there is a vocational element in wanting to become a liturgical musician and discernment of that vocation is fundamental.

Study of why and how the Church celebrates as she does is then, I suggest, that vocation bearing fruit.

The encouragement of spiritual commitment is something that is particularly the concern of parish priests…….

Gulp! I am having difficulty believing you wrote that NT. Try reading Colossians 3:12-17 ; Paul’s analogy of the body in I Corinthians 12; James 5:19 (or even Christifideles Laici )
Perhaps you are unaware of the theology of co-responsibility within a community for its salvation. Or, put briefly, loving your neighbour.

Becoming a liturgical musician involves undertaking a truly pastoral ministry. A community’s music-leader bears witness to the faith in all he/she says and does. His/her purpose is to serve the community in Christ’s name for his sake and the sake of his Body, the Church.

Let’s have skilled musicians whose prime concern is Christ’s concern – the salvation of the flock of which they are a part.

[John Ainslie]

Hear, hear, Presbyter. Perhaps this thread could lead to a draft job specification for a parish (school..., cathedral... ) director of liturgical music?

What the Tablet didn't mention is that the 1967 Instruction on Sacred Music can be found on http://www.adoremus.org

Meanwhile, here's a bit I read recently from John F. Baldovin's excellent Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics:

Another crucial aesthetic element is liturgical music. Thomas Day’s Why Catholics Can’t Sing was pretty much dismissed out of hand by the American liturgical establishment when it appeared in 1990, but not all of his observations were off target. Toward the end of the book he insists that there will be no decent liturgical music unless pastors take an active interest in it. He is right. If we are to have liturgies in which the music truly fits the celebration (as opposed to singing merely what people like), then pastors must take an active role in the selection of that music. There is a catch. The pastors would have to know something both about liturgical music and about liturgy. This requires the kind of adequate seminary training (and continuing education) that we are far from achieving, at least as far as I can tell. It should go without saying that such a program also requires adequately trained and adequately compensated liturgical musicians.

[presbyter]

There is one diocese where a few people began to explore something of what I posted above - at a first level - through the approach of distance learning. Two things got in the way - the Papal Visit and now, the need to introduce parishes to music for the new translation of the Missal. The project will be taken off the back burner in a month or three.

[nazard]

... from John F. Baldovin's excellent Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics:

... If we are to have liturgies in which the music truly fits the celebration (as opposed to singing merely what people like)...

Now that is a statement of an interesting conundrum. People have got used to having music they like. For many people it is not a celebration if they don't like the music, which is a point that I have no difficulty with, but it does make finding music which everyone likes a bit of a problem. Do you remember the Goodies and the Philharmonic Glee Club Rock and Roll Band?

So far this thread has concentrated on two problems: the quality of the musicianship and the suitability of the music, under various names.

The first certainly needs addressing, and although not a simple problem, it is far easier than the second. The second is a minefield, where I seem to have put my foot wrong many times. My impression of reading this board is that for every musical genre there is a contributor who praises it and another who prefers not to use it, sometimes using epithets like not liturgically suitable or not pastorally appropriate. The problem is that these phrases are not well defined, and not measurable.

Sometimes music is inappropriate because it refers to the wrong aspect of the faith, for example, singing "While shepherds watched their flocks by night" on Palm Sunday, but more subtle bad practice is more difficult to define. For example, would it be unsuitable to sing "Father God I wonder" to the Flintstones tune at mass? Would it make a difference who the congregation were? Is there any guidance out there, perhaps an instruction from the Bishops, a textbook or a course?

[mcb]

I think we do need to look for the practicalities of musical performance [...] This could be done [...] by reducing the number of masses with music

This I think is no solution. Something Sacrosanctum Concilium asserts is that the Mass is inherently a sung event. To my mind it simply makes no sense to argue that the basic experience of the Mass should be music-free, with music as an optional ornamental extra if and only if the protagonists have attained a qualifying standard of some kind. With liturgical music as with every aspect of living out our faith, we give the best we can; it's not for anyone to judge that our meagre offering might be too poor to be worth making.

None of which changes the need for musical, liturgical and pastoral formation for musical ministers; indeed it makes it all the more scandalous that collectively and institutionally we neglect these things.

[presbyter]

In my best ICELese, nazard has nails, a few, upon the head hit.

[John Ainslie]

Yes, thank you, nazard. There are indeed no easy answers to the questions you raise.

Since church music is faith that has become a form of culture, it necessarily shares in the current problematic nature of the relationship between Church and culture. In this relationship there are problems on both sides...

These are the opening words of an essay entitled '"Sing Artistically for God": Biblical Directives for Church Music', written in 1990 by one Joseph Ratzinger, published in the collection A New Song for the Lord. The concluding section of this essay, entitled 'Consequences for Today', has three sub-sections:

Against Aestheticism as an End in Itself
Against Pastoral Pragmatism as an End in Itself
Openness to Tomorrow in the Continuity of Faith

I recommend it to readers for meditation, along with his earlier essay 'On the Theological Basis of Church Music' in Feast of Faith - though bear in mind that this one was first published in 1978.

[Southern Comfort]

Hear, hear, Presbyter. Perhaps this thread could lead to a draft job specification for a parish (school..., cathedral... ) director of liturgical music?

They already exist, of course, though, as already noted, the question of liturgical/theoloogical/spiritual qualification is somewhat lacking because this is so difficult to quantify. All that can easily be said is that the candidate should have a good working knowledge of the documents, and even this does not guarantee success. Within living memory one current cathedral director of music at interview demonstrated an excellent knowledge of the church documents on liturgy and music but since being appointed has simply not worked in accordance with any of them.

What the Tablet didn't mention is that the 1967 Instruction on Sacred Music can be found on http://www.adoremus.org

Probably better to go to the source: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_instr_19670305_musicam-sacram_en.html — archived, so more difficult to find on a simple Google search.

I think we do need to look for the practicalities of musical performance [...] This could be done [...] by reducing the number of masses with music

This I think is no solution. Something Sacrosanctum Concilium asserts is that the Mass is inherently a sung event. To my mind it simply makes no sense to argue that the basic experience of the Mass should be music-free, with music as an optional ornamental extra if and only if the protagonists have attained a qualifying standard of some kind. With liturgical music as with every aspect of living out our faith, we give the best we can; it's not for anyone to judge that our meagre offering might be too poor to be worth making.

Curiously, I did not read nazard's comment as asking for more Masses without music, but rather having less Masses, all of which have music. I thought that what lay behind this was a comment on the dilution of resources by having (a) too many Masses which (b) all have different musical resources. There are not a few parishes where there may be one music-less Mass but three or four others with a multiplicity of choirs, cantors, organists, folk groups, etc, all doing their own thing at different times. Systematizing this might be rather a good thing. Retain the music-less Mass if you must, but combine the others to give fewer of them, each with more resources than now is what I thought nazard was asking for.

In my best ICELese, nazard has nails, a few, upon the head hit.

Or, as Vox Clara would doubtless have corrected it last year, nazard, upon the human upperwork, several nails has impacted.

[nazard]

I wasn't actually asking for anything. I was just pointing out that, given the mismatch between resources and requirements, one or the other needs to be trimmed. I was, upon reflection, wrong. There are actually at least four options when resource is not adequate.

Consider the situation of trying to paint a large object with a small pot of paint. Four solutions spring to my mind:

(1) Paint part of the object.

(2) Get some more paint until you have as much as is needed and then paint the object.

(3) Spread the paint very thinly over the object painting it and produce a result which is totally ineffective.

(4) Adulterate the paint with some other liquid, perhaps mud or custard, and paint the object.

I leave it to the reader to decide which of these is closest to what we are doing with liturgical music at the moment.

[contrabordun]

Within living memory one current cathedral director of music at interview demonstrated an excellent knowledge of the church documents on liturgy and music but since being appointed has simply not worked in accordance with any of them.

Line management and/or contract of employment issue.

[HallamPhil]

It all depends on whether the cathedral in question wishes its employee to follow the guidance within church documents. If they don't it won't be a contractual matter at all but a rather all too regular missed opportunity.

[NorthernTenor]

Presbyter: I believe you are asking liturgical musicians for things that are outside the scope of their role as such, which is to help ensure the Mass is sung. At the least, this will involve leading (or in the case of an instrumentalist, supporting) the parts we hope the congregation will sing, such as the dialogues and the responsorial psalm refrain. Ideally, it will also include those elements of the text that we wouldn’t necessarily expect the congregation to sing, such as the introit, the verses of the responsorial psalm and other propers. There is no reason why the people who fulfil this role should also have a particular spiritual or pastoral role, by virtue of their function as musicians. To suggest otherwise is to confuse different functions. The situation of director of music is essentially the same. It is his job to organise and rehearse the other musicians and select settings of the liturgical texts, in consultation with the clergy as appropriate. Ideally, she will also explain liturgical context to the musicians where they may not be aware of it. All of this requires a range of skills and knowledge, but not of a kind that makes them any more or less spiritual or pastoral ministers than other members of the congregation whose activities support the celebration of the liturgy. If you insist otherwise, you will find it difficult to get people who can do both jobs well: you shouldn’t be surprised if you get poor musicians, and as the other skills are ill defined when they aren’t simply part of your own job description, you’ll probably be dissatisfied all round.

The other thing that disturbs me about your comments (and to some degree those of one or two others here) is the impression they give that that trained musicians are probably spiritually suspect. I don’t think it too fanciful to suggest this reflects the Gallican streak that is still evident in elements of British Catholicism. I can’t tell you how off-putting it is.

I’m sorry to say that your comments are a good illustration of the kind of attitudes that have driven many Catholic musicians away from liturgical music. On the one hand is the suspicion of beauty in excellence; on the other, the ill-defined demand for a commitment to non-musical responsibilities and party enthusiasms. I greatly sympathise with those who think life’s just too short. Fortunately, John Ainsley’s letter to the Tablet leads me to hope for better.

[HallamPhil]

Perhaps you watch too much daytime TV, NT? The surname of the Chair of SSG is spelt as it is at the topic line of your posts and not as in the TV cook et al!

[musicus]

Perhaps you watch too much daytime TV, NT? The surname of the Chair of SSG is spelt as it is at the topic line of your posts and not as in the TV cook et al!

But I've never seen them both in the same room at the same time.

Moving on...

[Southern Comfort]

There is no reason why the people who fulfil this role should also have a particular spiritual or pastoral role, by virtue of their function as musicians. To suggest otherwise is to confuse different functions. The situation of director of music is essentially the same. It is his job to organise and rehearse the other musicians and select settings of the liturgical texts, in consultation with the clergy as appropriate. Ideally, she will also explain liturgical context to the musicians where they may not be aware of it. All of this requires a range of skills and knowledge, but not of a kind that makes them any more or less spiritual or pastoral ministers than other members of the congregation whose activities support the celebration of the liturgy.

It is difficult to know exactly what NT means here, as his phraseology is fuzzy. It may be that I and others are misinterpreting him. However, I would say this.

Any minister of music who does not realise that a part of her/his role is to act as a spiritual "guide" (for want of a better word) to other members of the community through the ministry of music is lacking something. Any director of music who does not realize that part of her/his role is to help develop the choir's spirituality and prayer life is lacking an essential dimension of the "job" — and I am assuming that s/he realizes that the same is true of his/her relationship to the assembly, if not the entire parish. Not only do ministers of music have to be people of prayer but they have to be ready to walk alongside the community on the journey, as indeed every member of the community does, and accept that they have a form of leadership role by virtue of what they do. This will be just as true of the humble parish guitarist as of the cathedral director of music. Often ministers of music do not realize that they have a responsibility to the community in more than just the provision of music for services.

I do not believe that you can compartmentalize the job of a minister of music into (1) music, (2) liturgical savvy, (3) spirituality. All of these go together as one. Joseph Gelineau has been very eloquent in the past (not least in the Universa Laus document) about the need for musicians to be "more than mere technicians" who lend their expertise to the enterprise without being in the slightest committed to it in a spiritual sense. If the musician is only a musician, we are heading for trouble.

Far from driving away those who are only interested in music, I believe that insisting on this will emphasize that not only is there a vital connection between liturgy and life but there is an equally vital connection between liturgical music and life. Yes, some may not be able to go that far and so will seek other avenues for fulfilment, but for many others the opportunity to grow spiritually, and to help others to do the same, through a ministry of service is one that can gradually be acquired. But it requires open minds and hearts. Experience of an authentic and prayerful liturgy will bring about a change in the participants, including those who minister. To put it crudely, grace rubs off on people. You may not start out by thinking that you are a very spiritual sort of person, but God has a habit of getting in by the back door when we are not looking, and transforming us without us perhaps even perceiving it. However, anyone who is threatened by the prospect of this and resists it will, as I say, probably do better to look elsewhere for job satisfaction. There is plenty to be had in the concert hall as well as in church.