Author: John Schultz

If I Was a Pastor

If I Was a Pastor
***begin tirade***
I would ban “Sing of the Lord’s Goodness” from my parish. It’s a crappy jazz knock-off and the pronouns in the “inclusive language” version change so often it doesn’t even make sense. God help us if a tambourine player shows up to bang away at it.
***end tirade***

Taize Did you know that

Taize
Did you know that “Taize” rhymes with “Bichon Frise?” You get extra points if you know what a Bichon Frise is (hint: it is not served at French Restaurants.)
Amy Welborn has a post about the music of Taize:
I’m moved to observe that if We, the Church, dumped most of the liturgical music written since 1965, not to speak of about half of what was written the century or so before and is still sung, and replaced it all with Taize music, a huge bunch of our liturgical problems would be solved immediately, don’t you think?
As of the evening of the 2nd, there’s over 26 comments about it. Fundamentally, I disagree with her on replacing all the current music with Taize. Not because contemporary music isn’t crappy, but rather because Taize is best used for processions vs. anytime during the Mass.
Good things about Taize:
It’s repetitive. Sacred sounding by and large because of it’s simplicity. Easy to learn. Doesn’t have any cultural baggage attached to it.
Bad things about Taize:
It’s repetitive. So simple it sometimes sounds like it belongs in a kindergarten class. So easy to learn it’s frowned upon by groups of culturally educated folk. So “clean” from a cultural standpoint it lacks personality or passion.
Taize has it’s place: it’s best use is any long processions during a liturgy (communion, veneration of the cross, etc.) But there’s all sorts of great stuff for that time as well. The other fun part about Taize is it can be absolutely nerve-wracking for the countless Americans who like to control their own destiny, or at least know when the hymn is going to end. 5 verses total – it’s over after five (if you sing them all.) So you’ll do at least one and no more than five. Much of the music of Taize is sung over and over again.
I’m with Amy on dumping lots of the stuff written since 1965. I just think there’s other stuff out there that works just fine. And – the “dumping” process needs to be very gradual. More on that another time.