The trouble with Catholic church music

The problems with Catholic church music are frequently discussed, not least by Catholic music professionals.  I'd like to share a couple of thoughts on the topic.  

We've been discussing a recent NCR column by Thomas Reese, SJ.  Reese's main topic is the Eucharistic Revival, but he shared a couple of thoughts on the state of Catholic church music:

Liturgical music did experience an explosion of creativity, much of it good but some of it awful. Unlike evangelical Christian megachurches, Catholic parishes tried to do music on the cheap with volunteers and underpaid professionals. The multicultural nature of American Catholicism made it difficult to find music that was acceptable to the variety of age and ethnic groups that make up a parish community.

Perhaps there are people who have attended Evangelical megachurches who would insist that Catholic worship music is better, but if so, I haven't met them yet.

Reese is right that many parishes do try to produce music on the cheap.  They employ music leaders who don't have high standards, and who produce music that most people don't find very inspiring or beautiful.  Some of these folks try their best, but their best isn't very exceptional.  And some, I fear, don't really try their best; they settle for "good enough" (or not even).  Settling for "good enough" isn't the exclusive province of Catholic music; we also settle for it in our preaching, proclamation of the word, worship hospitality, and other aspects of worship.  

There are other barriers to making good music in Catholic parishes: for example, the church's acoustics may be poor.  Or the church building's layout may hinder more than help - as in those places with a cantor standing in the front at the lectern, while the accompanying organist is in the back and upstairs in the loft - in some cases, nearly a full city block away.  That isn't an ideal physical arrangement.

But while these factors are real and important, there is another reason, too.  The way we make music in Catholic churches is intentional, and based on a particular philosophy of music-making.  

When the 2nd Vatican Council decreed a reform of Catholic liturgy, it set this as its guiding principle:

14. Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.

In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit

That conciliar document, the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, included an entire chapter on liturgical music.  That chapter called for many things, not all of which (such as the preservation of the church's treasury of sacred music, especially Gregorian chant and polyphany) have been diligently observed in the post-conciliar church.  But that chapter also includes instructions such as these:

pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs (no. 114)...

118. Religious singing by the people is to be intelligently fostered so that in devotions and sacred exercises, as also during liturgical services, the voices of the faithful may ring out according to the norms and requirements of the rubrics.

119. In certain parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are peoples who have their own musical traditions, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. For this reason due importance is to be attached to their music, and a suitable place is to be given to it, not only in forming their attitude toward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius

What the liturgical music powers-that-be have taken away from passages such as this might be enumerated as the following principles of Catholic worship music:

1. Everyone should sing everything
2. People's music traditions should be incorporated into the liturgy

Try for a moment to put yourself in the shoes of a leader of Catholic music in the middle 1960s.  You've been told that everyone should sing everything.  This is new to Catholicism.  It would be helpful if there was an existing model to be adapted to this new requirement.  What were the existing models?

First of all, there were existing models of congregational singing within the Catholic church.  There was a tradition of popular singing at devotions - people sang "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" at Benediction, and Marian hymns ("Bring Flowers of the Fairest") at Marian devotions.  Second, there were long traditions of strong congregational singing in the Mainline Protestant churches: Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and others.  Many of these organ-accompanied hymns were imported into Catholic hymnals, from "Praise To The Lord. the Almighty" to "Crown Him With Many Crowns" to "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God".

Third, looking beyond worship, there was, at one time, a much stronger tradition of communal singing in the United States than there is now.  Perhaps that tradition already was waning at the time of the Second Vatican Council, but people at that time were closer to it than we are now.  That tradition would have included people gathered around a piano to sing popular songs; campfire songs; the singing of patriotic songs at community Fourth of July gatherings, and The Star-Spangled Banner at sporting events; movie theater attendees singing popular songs while "following the bouncing ball"; workers in union halls singing songs of the rights of workers and the dignity of work.  In the 1950s and 1960s, that tradition also would have included Civil Rights marchers singing during protests and marches.  Also, the so-called Folk Revival was percolating them, with performers such as The Weavers and Pete Seeger working to repopularize old songs like "Irene, Goodnight", and "folk" composers like Bob Dylan writing new compositions in a popular style.    

All of these streams of tradition, and then-current events, influenced the shape of Catholic post-conciliar music.  But another way of taking part in popular singing was taking shape, and it seems to me that this other way is what the Evangelical megachurches have latched on to.

As I think of it, the heart of this other model is a person driving in his or her car, with the radio turned on, singing along when a song s/he likes is played.  In the 1960s, it was The Beatles.  In the 1970s, it was Elton John and James Taylor.  In the 1980s, Bruce Springsteen and the Talking Heads.  In the 1990s, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.  It has been other artists in the ensuing decades.

The driver doesn't have to be alone; it could be a car full of friends, all singing along.  (cf a great, funny scene in the film "Wayne's World", with four young men singing along to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".)  

This mass-marketed pop music has become, as the FM radio stations used to claim, "the soundtrack of our lives".  It was omnipresent: in our homes, our cars, public spaces like shopping malls.  It's the music that soaked into our subconscious as we lived our lives.

Even though we all sing along to popular songs we like, most of those songs weren't really written to be sung along to.  They were composed for a particular brand-name artist to perform.  The recordings, which became the baseline, definitive versions, were intended to be sold in mass quantities.  The concert performances were high-priced spectacles.  These songs were recorded and performed by highly skilled professionals and professionally produced.  But this music wasn't really "the people's music"; people didn't sing them at Fourth of July gatherings.  They were for people to consume, not take as their own.

If this mass-marketed music paradigm was in cultural competition with the popular-singing paradigm which took root in Catholic parishes, then mass-marketed music won the competition in a rout.  It was not even close.  Unless they go to Catholic churches, the singing-along-to-slickly-produced-and-marketed-songs model of musical participation is all people know these days.

From what I'm able to tell, this style of music is what the Evangelical megachurches have glommed onto.  So they employ rock bands with lots of electronic instruments and amplifiers.  They don't give us 16-measure hymns; they give us power ballads with a "hook" we can all sing along to.  But the rest of the song, the parts that aren't the hook, are performed, in an emotive style, by one or more highly skilled and professional singers, accompanied by a highly skilled band.        

This music is so well-produced that it has spawned its own lucrative industry.  Christian Contemporary is an important category in pop music.  The top-flight bands and performers sell out large arenas.

This model, so far, hasn't seemed to lend itself very well to Catholic parishes.  It doesn't seem to fit our notions of liturgical worship, which call for ritual dialogue and ancient prayers and psalms.  To be sure, music in a more contemporary, pop style has found its way into Catholic worship.  But it's still played by the same organists and volunteer acoustic guitarists.  It's still led by the same volunteer cantors.  And it's still crafted for everyone to sing the entire refrain, or the entire song.  

This, I think, is the main reason people are so dissatisfied with Catholic music: it doesn't conform with the soundtrack of our lives.