Teenagers and Church Music: What Do They Really Think?

I don't think you can assign any meaning to the fact that kids put their hands in the air during certain songs. They know that's what you do during that song, so they do it. And they all do it, at the same time, because they are kids, and kids fear nothing more than the possibility of sticking out in a crowd.

Having your hands in the air makes it physically impossible to clean your nails or read your bulletin, but it definitely doesn't prevent kids from looking around to see how everyone else is positioning their hands or who the girl they like is standing with, or thinking about what they're having for lunch or who is going to win the game this afternoon.

Regarding the music itself, it's not just a matter of individual taste. For instance, my church is covered with icons. There are rules about iconography, and iconographers have to be well educated and have their work approved by the bishop before they can write icons. What if that wasn't the case, and some random person decided to cover the church with stick figures of the saints? Is it not possible to objectively say that those stick figures are bad art, and have no place depicting the saints on the walls of a church?

Music has objective rules too. Dissonances need to be prepared, chords should progress according to some reasonable scheme, voices shouldn't cross, etc. These are descriptive rules, based on what the Western human ear, tempered by constant exposure to European languages, finds to be consonant. When a piece of music breaks those rules, it sounds bad. Maybe just a little bad, and maybe you can't put your finger on what exactly bothered you about that chord or that melody. But you know something is off, and a music theorist could tell you what that is. It's just like how I couldn't cite for you specific rules about contrast in art, but I am bothered when important features don't stand out like they should.

My point is that pop music in general, and contemporary Christian music in particular, is generally not very well crafted. It breaks a lot of rules, because the folks who write it never bothered to understand them. And it covers these shortcomings in hand motions, emotional lyrics, flashy instrumentation and special effects.

We should give our best to God. Composers literally dedicated their lives, often becoming monks and nuns, to composing the old music to the glory of God. And I have no problem saying that the music they created is objectively, quantifiably a better offering to God than 95% of contemporary Christian music.

Very interesting posts, all!

May I just say that I've even talked to non-Christians and even those who don't go to Church all the time, and they have even said often that they love old style, traditional psalmody and music.

I think a lot of people, especially men, see a certain "gravitas" and sincerity in the 'old style' of worship that appeals to them and while it doesn't go down like candy, it nourishes the soul. That doesn't mean sometimes modern instruments can't be utilized reverently, but that's what I find when I talk to people and ask them about Church and their preferences.

If people are not singing, it doesn't mean they are not participating, personally I find the interior participation far more important than the exterior participation.

Why is this music "wrong"? Note, I'm not asking why you don't like it. Personal preference is everyone's right. But why do you label it objectively wrong?

I like Contemperary Christian music. Outside of Mass.

I listen to it, I sing to it, I go to concerts (Hey, I met Matt Maher!!!!!! How cool is that?!)...

but I do NOT believe that this music is appropriate for the Holy Mass. I will stick to the traditional and beautiful hymns that are aprropriate for their settings.

I agree



I used to be good friends with Matt Maher, still listen to his CD's every once in a while



Amen. I just thought of something the other day. Most contemporary music is a happy go lucky type of tune, and it's great to listen to when your life is going swell. But at every Mass there is a person who lost a loved one or who had a really tough week, and I don't know about you, but for me if I heard the "Happy Dance"(yes there is such a song which includes dancing ) song during that time, I might be liable in hitting someone.

Having said that, Gregorian Chant, I think, is fitting for a person at any stage in their life, the simplistic, awe-inspiring beauty of the Gregorian Chant I think is universal in its appeal.

I spent all of last night, listening to my Gregorian Chant CD's and following along using the music in my Liber Usualis (so I can develop a better sense of how to sing it), I never slept better in my life after doing so, the joyful solemn peace in my soul was indescribable. Not to mention the fact that I was singing songs which were written by St. Thomas Aquinas or singing the Propers of the Mass (which is singing the Mass(Psalms)).

I play chant softly sometimes before I sleep and set it on repeat, then I go to sleep to chant and wake up to chant.

Personally, I think it has to do with using the 'ordinary' within the confines of the sacred. Nothing could be more sacred than Holy Mass, and rightfully we should use the extraordinary--to take us beyond the sensible realities and aid us in contemplation of the unseen, and in comprehensible.

As you wrote in another post-- we are a sacramental people- our senses are meant to aid us in worship--but it must be a properly ordered view of our senses. The reason incense is used- is to obscure the senses- to remind us that we must see beyond the seeable.

The praise and worship music at the Mass we go to--is actually far more theologically sound than the music at every other Mass at our parish. But still it's style is that of the ordinary, andappeals to the senses in an ordinary way- rahter than challenging us to move beyond our sensibilities.

Anyway--that's my horribly uneducated take on it anyway