Hey everyone! Today I will be talking about how music and religion intersect in my own life. But before I get more into this, I should give a little bit of background. I come from a strong Catholic household and go to a church that still is mostly traditional in the sense of music that is played. My mom is the organist/ pianist and my dad is the choir director and they've both been the music directors at this church since I was little. Here's a piece that I heard my dad sing during Mass through my entire childhood:
The Catholic Church believes strongly in the use of music to promote full participation from the congregation in the mass. In the "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council it is stated that "to promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs." Because of COVID-19 there's been a lot of changes made and unfortunately the bishop of Charleston has mandated that the congregation refrain from singing until further notice. This has taken away part of the communal aspect of the Mass. This has been hard on me personally because singing music at church has always helped me with participating and with feeling like I was more than just a body in a pew. "On Eagles Wings" is one of my favorite hymns to sing at church:
The music played during the Mass in some churches has switched to a more contemporary style, but at the church I go to and grew up in the music is still more on the traditional side. There's songs sung in Latin and there's some Gregorian chants as well. We only use the organ and a couple of flutes as accompaniment compared to other churches that use guitars and keyboards and drums. Before the Second Vatican Council music had to follow these guidelines "Sacred music should possess, in the highest degree, the qualities proper to the liturgy, or more precisely, sanctity and purity of form from which its other character of universality spontaneously springs. It must be holy, and must therefore exclude all profanity, not only from itself but also from the manner in which it is presented by those who execute it. It must be true art, for otherwise it cannot exercise on the minds of the hearers that influence which the Church meditates when she welcomes into her liturgy the art of music. But it must also be universal, in the sense that, while every nation is permitted to admit into its ecclesiastical compositions those special forms which may be said to constitute its native music, still these forms must be subordinated in such a manner to the general characteristics of sacred music, that no one of any nation may receive an impression other than good on hearing them." I've always had more of a connection to the more traditional music but I remember listening to this one contemporary piece during a retreat that really struck me, here is "You Are More" by Tenth Avenue North:
Growing up around church and it's music has affected the kind of music I like to listen to today. In high school I mostly listened to Christian rock and to this day I still haven't been able to get into rock and pop music because I don't like the use of profanity and sexual content. Below I'll be sharing a few of my favorite songs that I used to sing at retreats back in high school. I hope you enjoy them because they bring back a lot of amazing memories:
That's cool about the Gregorian chant and older hymns. I personally prefer the older traditional songs for church services. Do you feel like the churches that use exclusively modern songs for worship are missing out on the older ones?
It's cool to learn more about the Catholic tradition. I am Baptist however, we are not very traditional. I've always wanted to learn more about the Catholic tradition in a more modern day experience so I really enjoyed reading your blog!
Hi Sabrina! Soul on Fire is also one of my favorite songs to listen to! This gave me more knowledge on Catholic traditions because my dad's side of the family is Catholic and my mom's side is Protestant (this is the normality where my parents are from), but I grew up on my mom's Protestant beliefs so this really opened my eyes on Catholic traditions! I also really like that you find singing with the church makes you feel more included because I also had that same feeling of belonging when I used to go to church and it's a great feeling to have. Well done!
Sabrina, I really love the songs you posted in this blog! They are so expressive and meaningful. Even in this hard time, optimism can be found. I know it must be hard that you're not able to sing during church, I dislike that too! I love singing in church, sometimes the songs can express more worship than prayer in my opinion. But, this pandemic gives us a chance to understand how important certain aspects of life and worship are. Once things get back to normal, we will stop taking things for granted! Thank you for this post.
Here's some cool stuff I found interesting about Arabic and Indian Music! As I was looking further into the music of India, I found that Indian classical music is actually split into two main "schools": Hindustani Music and Karnatak. Hindustani Music is the music of northern India that has Turko- Persian elements and is referred to as "the true music of India". There are two types of Hindustani Music: Classical and Light Classical. Classical music is often improvised and following the adherence to the raga formula more strictly. There is not much instrumental accompaniment only the tabla for rhythm and the tanpura for the drone part. The main artist's performance is not to be upstaged by the other instruments being played. Light Classical music are like classical performances but are less complex and the performance is much shorter. Below is an example of classical music and light classical music. In Arabic music you mostly here the oud as the main chord...
Music's been a really important part of my life because of my parent's love for it. My mom especially has been a musician her whole life so I decided to interview her for this blog. So before I begin I should give a little bit of background on my mom. Most of you know her as Mrs. Roche and she's the main accompanist here at Converse College. She received her undergraduate in piano performance and her masters in accompanying and has been playing the piano since she was pretty much able to walk. Me: What is your favorite memory or experience of music? Mom: Ohhhh that's hard.... my favorite experience? Gee there's so many to choose from but what I remember with great fondness is playing for operas and musicals at Brevard. Being in orchestra and you know making these shows come alive. Helping the kids learn it and then see the finish product when it was done. I never got to see any of it while I was coaching them I could only hear it and then to go to the final perfor...
Here are some "cool" things I learned as I delved more into Music of the Americas: 1) One of the many aspects of the Native American culture that I really enjoyed learning about was the different types of dancing. While I was exploring more, I ran across a type dance called the hoop dance. The hoop dance is a storytelling dance done with 1- 40 hoops to create shapes that represents the various movements of animals and other elements. It is preformed by a solo dancer who begins with a single hoop, evoking the circle of life and as the dance goes on additional hoops are added representing other life elements such as humans, water, seasons, etc. Throughout the dance, the soloist makes very rapid movements in which the hoops are interlocked and extended from the body to portray appendages such as wings and tails. Below is a video of Native American Hoop Dance champion, Brian Hammill: 2) Another aspect of the music of the Native Americans that I found really interesting was the dr...
That's cool about the Gregorian chant and older hymns. I personally prefer the older traditional songs for church services. Do you feel like the churches that use exclusively modern songs for worship are missing out on the older ones?
ReplyDeleteIt's cool to learn more about the Catholic tradition. I am Baptist however, we are not very traditional. I've always wanted to learn more about the Catholic tradition in a more modern day experience so I really enjoyed reading your blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Sabrina! Soul on Fire is also one of my favorite songs to listen to! This gave me more knowledge on Catholic traditions because my dad's side of the family is Catholic and my mom's side is Protestant (this is the normality where my parents are from), but I grew up on my mom's Protestant beliefs so this really opened my eyes on Catholic traditions! I also really like that you find singing with the church makes you feel more included because I also had that same feeling of belonging when I used to go to church and it's a great feeling to have. Well done!
ReplyDeleteSabrina, I really love the songs you posted in this blog! They are so expressive and meaningful. Even in this hard time, optimism can be found. I know it must be hard that you're not able to sing during church, I dislike that too! I love singing in church, sometimes the songs can express more worship than prayer in my opinion. But, this pandemic gives us a chance to understand how important certain aspects of life and worship are. Once things get back to normal, we will stop taking things for granted! Thank you for this post.
ReplyDelete