{"id":5679,"date":"2005-07-10T15:16:31","date_gmt":"2005-07-10T15:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html"},"modified":"2005-07-10T15:16:31","modified_gmt":"2005-07-10T15:16:31","slug":"dueling-musicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html","title":{"rendered":"Dueling Musicians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, the Catholic liturgy.<\/p>\n

This morning at Mass, our music minister was evidently on vacation. The music was provided by two different groups. Providing the offertory, one of the communion hymns and something else in an odd place (too long to explain) was a nice schola of 9 men whom I’ve seen and heard around – I think they float between parishes, providing music whenever they’re needed or permitted. Chant, other Latin pieces, mostly, although one other time, they did a Byzantine piece. They’re very good.<\/p>\n

And in this corner, a piano, guitar and vocalist (although I believe, from past experience, the vocalist and pianist were the same person – I couldn’t see this time, however. I recognized the voice) who, not because of their intruments, but because of the style in which they used them and the music chosen, gave a nice evocation of 6:30 at the Holiday Inn Lounge. <\/p>\n

It was many things. It was a good demonstration of the extremes of what’s possible to encounter in a Catholic Mass these days. Not good news, either. And part of the bad news is that the Chant\/Latin guys were relegated to a "performance" role – perhaps it’s one that they want. Perhaps that’s the role they see their group playing. But in this area, we’re not yet seeing any efforts like Those which the St. Cecilia Schola<\/a> is attempting to inspire and assist with.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Recovering Choir Director gives some attention to recent remarks by Fr. Michael Joncas<\/a> at the NPM convention (read through to the comments, as well)<\/p>\n

Don’t forget the survey – if you’ve not yet participated<\/a><\/p>\n

What the experience emphasized for me was, once again, the violence done , not to taste or aesthetics, but to the integrity of the liturgy as prayer. Not, again, by having sensibilities disturbed by poor "performance" or lousy "songs," but by the total effect of the liturgy being a bunch of words tied together or transitioned through by a bunch of discrete "songs" and "Mass parts" of varying styles (radically different in this case). I’ve blogged on this before, and it’s of course one of the things that really differentiates the experience of the contemporary Latin Rite from the Eastern Rite. The former, as it’s practiced in most parishes, gives a fragmented effect, rather than that of unity – a single prayer prayed, in voice and silence, by God’s people. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, the Catholic liturgy. This morning at Mass, our music minister was evidently on vacation. The music was provided by two different groups. Providing the offertory, one of the communion hymns and something else in an odd place (too long to explain) was a nice schola of 9 men whom I’ve seen and heard around…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDueling Musicians - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dueling Musicians - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ah, the Catholic liturgy. This morning at Mass, our music minister was evidently on vacation. The music was provided by two different groups. Providing the offertory, one of the communion hymns and something else in an odd place (too long to explain) was a nice schola of 9 men whom I’ve seen and heard around…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-10T15:16:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dueling Musicians - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dueling Musicians - Via Media","og_description":"Ah, the Catholic liturgy. This morning at Mass, our music minister was evidently on vacation. The music was provided by two different groups. Providing the offertory, one of the communion hymns and something else in an odd place (too long to explain) was a nice schola of 9 men whom I’ve seen and heard around…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-07-10T15:16:31+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html","name":"Dueling Musicians - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-07-10T15:16:31+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-10T15:16:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/dueling-musicians.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dueling Musicians"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}