Jeffrey Tucker has an excellent article at The Chant Cafe, called "Why Is Catholic Music Such a Mess?". Be sure to go and read the entire post. Here's the opening paragraph:
I get this question enough that it justifies an article. Here’s the scenario. A long time Catholic of bourgeois sensibilities, a man who trying to hold on to his faith but doesn’t attend Mass on a regular basis, decides that it is time to try again. He goes to a parish not far from his house. The processional says to him: nothing has changed from the last time I tried this. He grinds his teeth throughout. By communion time, he is nearly losing his mind. The recessional hymn puts him over the top. He goes out to the parking lot cursing under his breath, mad all over again, recalling why he doesn’t go that often.
A little later in the article, Mr. Tucker suggests that a large part of the problem is this:
Most people doing music in the Catholic Church do not even have a rudimentary understanding of the musical demands of the Roman rite. They do not know what parts of the Mass constitute the ordinary structure of the Mass. They do not know that the propers of the Mass exist. They have no idea how the music is related to the word or the calendar (apart from Christmas and Easter). They have no idea what is mandatory, what is an option, what is the Church’s choice, what is the publisher’s choice, what tradition consists of, or how to tell genuine liturgical music from nonliturgical music.
This is because they have never been told…
This is because they have never been told…
It’s a short article, and even suggests a solution to the problem! Read the rest at The Chant Café.
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