Sunday Afternoon Music Directing, and Where the Problem Lies

Ya know, like Monday morning quarter-backing? (Some sort of sports metaphor, I believe, :oP)
There is a thread at The New Liturgical Movement by the Great Bow-tied One, asking, in sincerity, what do you do when you encounter bad liturgy.

JT actually is asking specifically about music, but the question can apply to the priest, the servers...

And of course, there is a difference between the right thing done badly and the wrong thing done.

One does not go up to a lay reader after Mass and say you weren't loud enough, or you speak too quickly for someone with a heavy accent, or that's not how you pronounce braziers.

Or does one?

I've heard plenty of lousy homilies in my life, and never told a priest afterwards what I thought.

On the other hand, I did go up to a priest one December Sunday and ask him why he said the Gloria, that I thought that... (He dismissed me, telling me that I was confusing Advent with Lent.)

And since I often compliment servers, both at my parish and elsewhere, I felt entitled to speak to a couple of rowdies who whispered, joked with and jostled each other through the consecration.
I just reminded them that even though the priest couldn't see them behind him, they were directly in the line of sight of someone, in this case me, a stranger, as I looked toward the altar during the EP and that it was unfair of them to be so distracting. I wasn't "mean," as is my wont, because teenagers don't need to be handed an excuse to quit serving.

Musicians are a different matter, because I have a conversation piece, so to speak.
Hi-I'm-from-I-play/sing-at-St-YadaYadas-traveling-just-curious-what-was-that-swell-postlude?

And I admit have climbed to many a loft and been given the skunk eye for my pains.

Musicians who set up "up front" aren't usually so proprietary about their territory.

Anyway, if something has been egregious, I will instigate a conversation, but usually only to determine chain of command, disguised as a survey of "how they do things elsewhere."

Oh, the cantor picks the music five minutes before Mass? Oh, the pastor decides what Ordinary? absolutely everyone is volunteer and the priest doesn't care if there's music or not and only steps in if he objects to something?

In my experience, the really awful stuff results from either 1) pastors who don't know and don't care, or 2) highly committed, highly organized and highly supported musicians immersed in a highly entertainment-oriented style of music.

Not a lot can be done about the latter by a visiting musician. They have worked hard to do exactly what it is you might object to, and they have the backing of large commercial enterprises to affirm them in their choices.

Take the cantor at the cathedral confirmations who, having sung the requisite three verse with the congregation of the Moore Taste and See at communion pretty "straight," and happily finding herself needing to fill time proceed to HOWL the same verses all over again melismatically as a solo -- do you think she would give my suggesting a performance style with less affect might be more appropriate more weight than that of dozens of people congratulating her that she "stole the show"?

Do you think the girl in the well-circulated picture from a Mass at last years RelEd Conference with the skirt slit up to there, writhing and wailing emotively into a mic' is unaware of her fame, and the opprobrium she earned from some quarters?

Do you think she cares?

Do you think any of the choristers whose feelings were so hurt by the contempt showered on the music at the papal Mass at Nationals Stadium "saw the light" and said, ah ha! hence forth I shall not sing such stuff even if offered the opportunity to sing at a papal Mass?

Even had more of the admonishments been delivered charitably, (and many were, although meanest is always loudest,) I don't think so.

I know too many musicians who flatly deny that their are any such things as rubrics regarding liturgical music, that "the Pope or some other old guy in the Vatican has any right to tell me what to do," or, (and this is the one that almost made me lose heart,) that the texts, not the music, but the TEXTS of the propers are inherently more appropriate to be used at their appointed places in a Mass than some popular favorite.

In fact, and this one was jaw dropping, I have a "liturgical musician" friend who, when confronted with one proper said not just that it was not more appropriate, but was completely INappropriate, not just for the Mass for which it was assigned, but ever.
And the fact that "the Church" said so, in so far as She had issued the Missal, was irrelevant. (This was in the context of one of those Ya can't sing Mary songs at Mass moments...)

So, invincible ignorance, no?

This guy makes a small fortune coordinating a huge music ministry at a wealthy parish and he is not "unaware" of the existence of the propers and the gradual and legislation on music... he just doesn't give a rat's hindquarters.

There is nothing to be done.

By US.

About THEM.

Which brings us to the first most likely situation leading to egregiously inappropriate and bad music liturgy: pastors who don't know and/or don't care.

That's where the education needs to happen. That is who needs the admonishment, the prayers, the instruction, the help -- PRIESTS.

And while there are old dogs who can still learn new tricks, I think you'll get better return on your investment, (of time and effort,) if you concentrate on seminarians, young priests and Catholic schools.

God send us holy priests. God send us many holy priests.


P.S. I absolutely reject the notion, given voice in that thread, that we are "guests" at a parish simply because we are not registered members, which I shall express over there.

Such parochialism is what has led to the Rite of Making-It-Up-As-W-Go-Along at St. Thewaywedoithere's.