Liturgical Music in an Entertainment Culture

Head over to Spero News, and read my article on liturgical music in a media culture - and let me know what you think about it.

Comments

[Tony Miller]

Be happy to let you know. Check your trackbacks :)

[Todd]

Part of it is spot on; some of it misses the primary motivations of church musicians of the past 40 years.

One key change took place a bit before Vatican II: the advent of listening systems, mainly radio, hi-fi stereo, the Walkman, the cd player, etc.. People no longer are in the boat of "If you want music, make it yourself." They can just plug in. Add to this the advent of MTV in which music is no longer something to hear, but now something to watch.

We have fewer musicians these days. Kids want to play something fast and lose interest when confronted with the long practice hours it takes to become a decent musician.

And in parishes, even churches with big budgets are putting money into schools. A fortunate few have chosen to afford good acoustics and eschewed carpet.

What would be really interesting is to put together both the liberal and conservative complaints and good ideas and see where it went from there.

[Anon]

Very insightful.

I do not understand the impulse to offer (especially to the young'uns,) more of what they are exposed to in every other moment of their lives: more noise, more adrenaline, more frenetic activity, more glitz, more speed, more din.

We are producing a society of people who cannot bear to be alone with their own thoughts, and instead of offering a refuge, a place where they might encounter and recognize the voice of the Holy Other, we give them another opportunity to drown ou the still small voice.