2021 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress Theme Song
  • MarkB
    Posts: 754
    If you dare:

    Sounds like the B-side of a Duran Duran single.

    The rhyming of "us" with "promise" is laughable.

    The bridge is something else. And then the instrumentation gets wild.

    So repetitive. So repetitive. So repetitive.

    So boring.

    So 80s. So secular and inappropriate for Mass.

    This is the kind of composition, arrangement and recording that a garage band of 80s high school kids who are mediocre musicians would think is awesome.

    Archdiocese of LA, you've reached a new low, but at least you made me laugh. Does your chancery staff really think this kind of music is what Catholics want, never mind that it's not appropriate for Mass?

    This doesn't even rise to the level of being mediocre praise and worship music. It's just bad music. In my experience, no Catholic age 10-45 would find this appealing in the slightest. Not many older than that would find it appealing either.

    Could the Archdiocese be any more out of touch or clueless?

    A serious question: why does this sort of awful, objectively unappealing music still have a foothold in influential Catholic liturgical circles? So much so that in 2021 a liturgy committee in the most populous archdiocese in the United States believed this song is good music and appropriate for liturgy?
  • Is this really intended for the liturgy? As in, this could an entrance chant? I just can't imagine (because it is liturgically so inappropriate).

    But it's not only a US problem. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon the theme song of the World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon. I found it not very inspiring.

    Thanked by 2Elmar CHGiffen
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,225
    Well I suppose it is an improvement, it only seems like yesterday that they thought the youth liked 6th rate 60's folk music. Moving to the 80's and once again 6th rate stuff is a sign of moving with the times. In another 10 years they might have got to the late 90's, and 'popular music' (sic) that feature chant as a backing track. end purple text>
  • It's LA-Wreck. It's what they do. You want bad theology and bad liturgy, but with great music?
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • Comments were turned off on that YT vid. Wise. Very wise.
  • WGS
    Posts: 266
    Perhaps it's what you intended, but I see your reference to "LA-Wreck", and I mentally convert it to "LA-Dreck". We use a few Hebrew words in our liturgy, so surely we should be able to describe an exceptional presentation by means of a word in Yiddish.
    Thanked by 2Elmar sdtalley3
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,369
    It's especially important to include the rainbow imagery for that particular convention.
    Thanked by 1CCooze
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,443
    I'll start with what's better than expected: the overall direction of the text is not self-absorbed, but more typical of an exhortative hymn text. And they tried some counterpoint, a bit.

    I wonder if the refrain was originally conceived in Spanish rather than English. Promisa is a lot richer in melodic possibility and stress and rhyme pairings than Promise; in English, the melody has seems to be a much less skillful cousin of "A Spoonful of Sugar" with the awkward upward thrust of pro-MISS. Which raises a general question about melodies/tunes that work well in both languages, given the very different approaches to stress and elision (in the latter case, Spanish is still richly medieval, allowing a lot of rhythmic play).

    Hate the ostinato chord chosen for the verses. Bad imitation of prog rock, many things of which I love or can at least appreciate.

    A general rule of thumb: if people wouldn't want to sing it a capella, it's not really meant for the people to sing - rather, it's an instrumental piece with vocal accompaniment.
    Thanked by 1PaxMelodious
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 4,794
    "The bridge is something else." Yep, time for a bathroom break. And I shouldn't have come back.
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    As long as the NO is acceptable, anything will be allowed and possible within the walls of the church...
  • I don’t actually think the NO is the problem strictly speaking. Even Pius X felt the need to address drums in church in TLS so clearly some weird things were happening even back then. It’s more the spirit that seems to be embraced by many NO parishes that’s the problem.
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    You are entirely correct... I am not 'speaking strictly' about music or rubrics... I am addressing a much wider problem... (not about instruments, or music) but about vague notions. It is the scourge of the thinking of VII (and its ritual counterpart, the NO) that brings this to bear upon the entire Catholic church. As long as we allow, support and encourage alternate practices within the liturgy and acknowledge a 'parallel rite' to that which has always been maintained, we will continuously invite this scourge upon the church and her liturgy, and indeed the very heart of the faith.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • I haven't listened to this and really don't believe that I have to do that to myself - intuition tells me everything, and the above comments say it all, nor do I at all understand how anyone here could mentally tolerate listening to whatever it is for as many as two seconds - what does one expect these days? Let us talk of that which we love, not that which we don't.

    All has not always been well in the Church.
    I remember reading somewhere that Italian organs of the late XIXth and early XXth centuries were outfitted with drums, cymbals, and other such peraphernalia, and that the typical music in many an Italian church was not terribly different from circus music - which puts it on a par with the specimen under discussion here.

    There have been horrors unbelievable to us visited upon the Church's worship for many centuries, and those of today have no lack of historical kin. It is spiritual ignorance and an incomprehension of the holiness of that which is holy. So, don't blame it on the OF (no, the OF, in and of itself, does not invite it) - it's people who haven't an ounce of respect or reverence, no sense or intuition of the Sacred, who know not the meaning of those words, and it's the zeitgeist of our times. As I've said numerous times elsewhere here, if the EF were still the only rite available, certain people would be doing these unholy things to IT.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,227
    And yet, the Pope, BP Barron, and of course Fr. Martin are addressing the "Congress." Anyone going to address the glaring issues? Doubtful.
  • G
    Posts: 1,391
    I only listened to a moment, but something in the vamp at the beginning had me singing, perhaps not inappropriately, "Cecilia, you're breakin' my heart..."
    Santa Cecilia, ora pro nobis
    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • That's four and a half minutes of my life I will never get back.
    Thanked by 1sdtalley3
  • Corinne,

    Did you mean to type "And, logically,......"
    These persons, whom you mention, don't appear to see the REC as presenting a problem, but a blessed new paradigm. Why fix it, if you don't see it as malfunctioning.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,227
    Fr. Martin, no doubt, sees it as a means to his desired end.
    Bp. Barron... so many questions.
    Francis... well, he makes some very (unfortunately-) obvious choices, more often than not.
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    MJO... try as you might, you cannot unhinge the NO from the REC, nor the REC from the NO... if the NO did not exist, neither would the REC
    Thanked by 1CCooze
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 2,854
    francis - I don't see a connection, where is it?
    If we are thinking of music then don't forget that Ray Repp produced his first 'music' for the Mass five or six years before the NO was authorised in Latin, nearly a decade before it was implemented in English.
  • Anyone who has perused the Vatican II documents will know that the Council was merely used as an excuse by local "authorities" to do as they please, rather than being some evil schism. Trying to pin a systemic failure in the Church purely on i.e. Bugnini is tempting but unhelpful.
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    rather than being some evil schism.

    Hmmm... curious!

  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    It is possible to abuse the EF as much as the NO. All it takes is complicit clergy.
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    [soapbox] anything can be abused... its the rampant, consistent and continual abuse that emerges with erroneous doctrine, and hence why 99% of abuse is where we see it. (sidebar... I am sure it is quite obvious to us all that the NO is quickly dissolving into thin air these days)

    Question... should the REC 'mass' continue next year and the year after? What is the solution to put an end to this kind of abuse?

    Question... is God offended by this type of thing, or is he just turning a blind eye, or is He perhaps clapping along with the crowd? What do you suppose is in the mind of God?

    Here is the opinion of the OP
    MarkB February 12 Thanks
    Posts: 421
    If you dare:

    and others:
    smvanroodesmvanroode February 12 Thanks
    Posts: 793

    Jeffrey Quick February 12 Thanks
    Posts: 1,687

    Jeffrey truly captures it... bad theology produces bad liturgy, and the music, of course, will kowtow to the same.

    I heard a priest say this:

    You can't chain a Ford Gremlin to a Ferrari and tell me they are both the same.


    btw Charles... Personally, I have never seen a single abusive TLM and I have suffered through THOUSANDS of abusive NO's. Many illicit and not a few invalid.

    I served for hundreds of TLM's when I was an altar boy and choir boy in elementary school, and then attended many TLM's throughout my entire life until the present. Is there an example you can point out to me?
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 2,854
    Have I been at abusive TLM's? Certainly, though not since about 1963. Just for one example, a priest I knew cannot possibly have articulated the words of the Canon distinctly so that he could hear himself. It was barely possible to scan the text with the eye in the time he took.
    Among the several hundred missae privatae I served up to 1963 one celebrant stood out. I happened across his obituary in the Benedictine Year Book some years later. It said "for him the Mass was the still point in a turning world", and I thought "exactly". Even as a twelve-year-old in the school congregation I was aware of 'something'. For the rest there was very obviously a spread from careful to slapdash.
    How would you rate a Mass where as the celebrant approached the altar, one of his fellow friars ascended to the pulpit, from which he led the Rosary throughout Mass, pausing only at the consecration, to turn and kneel? (central Dublin)
    And we wonder why we're seen as out of touch. The NO isn't going anywhere, regardless of the TLM's popularity (which is nowhere near eclipsing the NO even in conservative communities)
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    And we wonder why we're seen as out of touch.

    Who is seen as out of touch?

    The NO has been the ultimate attempt at 'touch'iness to the max, over and over... the REC is the perfect example. How more 'in touch' can a crowd of people be??!!

    Nonetheless, I will wholeheartedly agree that we in our touchedness, have become entirely out of touch with the Almighty Himself.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    I remember - and this was before the Council - local priests competing with each other to determine who could say the fastest TLM. Some were, as Hawkins notes, not understandable they were said so fast. The mass was, at times, little more than a slap-dash-get-it-over with and get out the door. Most of the congregation had their heads buried in their rosaries.

    Also, there is no overwhelming demand for a return to the TLM and an abandonment of the NO. If anything, the TLM has caused the "suspect" and trouble makers to be assembled in one place where the chancery can better keep an eye on them and contain any trouble they can cause.
  • Vatican Two
    gave us the Novus Ordo of Paul VI - the Novus Ordo was given to us by the Church, but the liturgical havoc we experience was not its intended legacy.
    >The Council gave us, in addition to the NO, certain specific instructions, PRECEPTS, that -
    >The People were to know their parts of the mass in Latin - and to sing them at mass.
    >Our patrimony of Sacred polyphony was to be retained, and new music in that tradition should be composed.
    >Chant was to be retained and given pride of place (this, of course includes Propers)
    >Choirs were to be cultivated assiduously.
    >The organ was the instrument most suitable for liturgy (and no other instrument was so much as mentioned or thought of in the documents or by the Fathers of the Council).
    >Permission (not requirement) was given for English.
    >Permission for English in the new rite is not the same as permitting the rock, pop, faux folk and other music imposed on the mass by those who deign to disregard the above precepts. Such music did not exist in the minds of the Fathers of the Council - the two are mutually exclusive.
    >And, finally, neither the Council nor its Fathers, nor its documents even hint dimly that 'the people' had to sing everything. The distinctions between cantors, choirs, and people are quite clear. The tyranny of this nonsense flows from the fable, invented by those chic and abundant 'liturgists', and was undreamed of by the Council. (In fact is there anything in the documents about this new coterie of 'liturgists' which seems to have erupted from nowhere? No, there isn't.)

    >What happened? The cardinals, bishops, and priests, the entire clerical order, went home and did the utter opposite of all the above instructions. They LIED, yes LIED, and LIED, and LIED until nearly everyone believed them, convincing everyone that the Council had 'done away with all that'; because they returned home and decided that they wanted something else - and there was no end of wreckage that they were pleased wreak in the 'achievement' of what they now coined "The Spirit of Vatican Two', which wasn't Vatican Two at all, but a cruel caricature of it. Indeed, the Spirit of Vatican Two is a very different thing from Vatican Two. It bears no likeness at all - certainly not in liturgy, music, and ritual; to one another. We have suffered through half a century of The Spirit of Vatican Two's minion's determination to wipe out Vatican II,

    >Nothing in the Council said anything at all about guitars, combos, rock bands, mariachi bands, poor hymns (songs) whose texts are unembarrassed drivel.

    >It may and should be assumed with confidence that the Fathers of Vatican Two intended that the NO should be offered under the guidance of the above precepts - and they had nothing in mind of those things that people went home and did.

    >Thusly, the OF does not intrinsically invite the abuses with which we are all too familiar. To repeat what I have said elsewhere and believe firmly, if the precepts of Vatican II had been heeded instead of ground under foot by our hierarchy Roman liturgy today would not be fundamentally different from that of the Ordinariae of the Chair of St Peter - without, of course, the Old Church (Prayer Book) English, and a few other peculiarly Anglicanisms. The Ordinariates are the only 'dioceses' which are truly Vatican II. We would not exist but for Vatican two, and we embody all the Precepts outlined by the Council Fathers.

    >By far, most cardinals, bishops, and priests have changed the Church's intended liturgical image to one which they themselves have manufactured out of whole cloth. This is, in a word, tyranny. A tyrant, properly understood, is one who seizes or exceeds his (or her) authority - this is the mark of all tyrants, secular or ecclesiastical throughout history. They set themselves above the law, deny all superiors (while demanding the obedience of their inferiors), and rule with impunity above the law. The fault of our liturgical abuse lies right at the feet of these hierarchs - NOT THE MASS OF PAUL VI. Not a single bishop or priest has had the backbone to say 'this is unworthy, you may not do this here'. No! They wallowed in it and egged it on - it was what they wanted instead of the Precepts laid out by the Council

    >And, I will stress one more time that the unfortunate manner of music and celebration which we see in the greater number of our churches IS NOT, SUI GENERIS, THE FAULT OF THE NOVUS ORDO!!! It may be, and often is, celebrated with the splendour of the EF and the Ordinariate Use. It is disobedient and disrespectful people who presume to do these things and the clergy who egg them on who are to blame. They are doing what they wish - not what is laid out for them in the Council's Precepts. Blaming the NO for this lamentable praxis is rather like blaming the BCP for the same sort of things being found in Anglican and Episcopal churches. It's not the rite - it's the people - whose pastors are insouciant about it all. We are in a situation analogous to Moses descending from Sinai with the Law and finding the Israelites dancing 'round the golden calf.

    >This awful music and liturgical chicanery are the impositions of men (and women!) who do as it pleases them because that's who they are, who are (willfully) uneducated in the Church's musical patrimony, and, astonishingly, don't realise that they should be embarrassed at the absurd impropriety of what they do where they are doing it - and the clerics (and most, is seems, people) like it- it pleases them. None of them have the slightest intuition of the sanctity that they have invaded. I and others here have heard or heard of numerous priests, even bishops, who have said with a bald face that 'I don't care what the documents of the Council say, I WANT....

    >Rome never has and never will have the backbone or even the care to enact the stern discipline needed in these matters. The Vatican will defend only the 'core values' of the faith, cry out about the ghoulish evil of abortion, and its social teachings (for which we may be thankful), but, it seems that there is very little other that it cares at all about. - certainly not liturgy, music, and the profound sanctity of the mass. It is dumbfounding to be asked to believe that the church which gave us the wise Precepts outlined above is the same Church which puts on a weekly variety show to the tune of various idioms of catchy and profane music every Sunday. In light of all this, it is not at all farfetched (as I have said here before), to posit that if the EF were still the only rite available these people would be doing the same things to it! Can you imagine pop propers, jazz ordinaries, faux folk hymnody, clever Latin motets in, say, a calypso or country western style, etc? - all in Latin, or course. There is nothing that requires that the music at an EF mass must be chant or polyphony, that it be Taverner, Monteverdi, or Mozart. All it requires is the Latin ritual next. So, if there were no OF or Ordinariate Use to be had these people would be having a heyday visiting their crimes on the only available victim, the EF. As always, it is people, not the rite that is the problem. We do have many people who are good and take the Council's liturgical Precepts to heart and love them - then there are all those barrels of rotten apples.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,227
    the liturgical havoc we experience was not its intended legacy

    I keep hearing this. Yet, there are plenty of documentaries about Vat II that seem to think otherwise and are pretty convincing.
    I'm sure the Pachamama stuff wasn't intended to be heretical or anything, either. Plenty of people still think it was no big deal.

    As they say, The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
    Thanked by 2francis rich_enough
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 8,787
    I had no idea that the band Chumbawumba had become Catholics. ;-)

    Anyway, the "Three Days of Darkness" are back!
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    My take:

    Saying a rosary at a Mass is not an abuse. (being led from the pulpit may be a stretch, but it would be hard to call it an 'abuse' per se. Especially comparing it to the abuses that it suffers at the hands of the NO.) With the rosary, you honor the Queen of Heaven, and Jesus would be grateful for your participation, as she was actually 'living' the sorrowful mysteries during the crucifixion (first Mass) on Calvary. She was most likely also recalling the words of Gabriel at some point during the event, "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee". Jesus was also mumbling at that point, except when he could bring himself to clearly cry out the Seven Words.

    MJO... please refer to previous link on VII above and counter any of the points made in that exhaustive critique.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    The rosary is a private devotion. Mass is a public liturgy. They are not on the same level, although I have nothing against the rosary. It just doesn't belong at mass and isn't a substitute for it.
  • francisfrancis
    Posts: 9,666
    On the contrary, our fathers have practiced this and other devotions during Mass for centuries. Pius X wrote in his catechism “the rosary and other prayers do not prevent us from hearing [Mass] with profit, provided we try as far as possible to follow the parts of the Holy Sacrifice” (Question 490). Garrigou-Lagrange confirms the same [3].

    The rosary is profitable because of what the Holy Mass is. It is the unbloody Sacrifice of our Lord on Calvary. As the Offertory Prayer says, the Mass is offered in memory of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of Blessed Mary [4].

    What is this commemoration but the holy rosary? The Holy Mass is a sacramental presentation of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. The holy rosary is a meditation on these very mysteries. St. Thomas says, “the whole mystery of our salvation is comprised in this sacrament [the Mass]” (ST III q83 a4). Thus, praying the rosary at Mass is indeed one profitable way to assist at Holy Mass. This is true especially for souls who may have to attend the New Mass and struggle with distractions. We offer the following meditations for the Holy Rosary at Mass.

    Charles... we might not want to hijack this thread... start another on this perhaps?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    I think Pius, good man though he was, was wrong on this. People need to actively pay attention and participate in the Mass. I believe Vatican II realized this because the Mass is not a private devotion.
  • I believe there was a lot of deliberate malfeasance after the council by countless souls. That said, we are a few generations out from that now, and most run-of-the-mill catholics were not taught any better, and thus do not know any better. It's akin to being born into a long line of protestants... at some point there is diminished culpability because you've never known any better. You can't reject a precept you've never been taught.

    Similarly, you can't willingly wreck a liturgy when all you've ever known is crappy novus ordo.

    It all reminds me of the portion of Bp. Athanasius Schneider's recent book Christus Vincit when he discusses the abuse of "extra-ordinary" ministers of holy Communion. As he puts agrees with Diane, (paraphrasing here) "They'd never be ministers if they really understood the reality of the situation." That is to say, if they had any genuine understanding of the Real Presence, eternal tradition, the true and proper nature of Holy Orders, etc.

    I feel much the same way about most modern church musicians. Much of the chicanery (to echo MJO) is perpetrated by those who simply don't know any better. As such, there isn't ill intent, even if the results are catastrophic. (And they ARE.)

    I am so grateful to God for having largely cut the scales from my eyes. I know better, and thus avoid these things at all costs. But we are also faced with a secondary issue: that of current "tradition" (I use scare quotes here very deliberately). Many of us fight the good fight but are cornered at every turn. Mercifully, I have a very supportive pastor however even he is forced to temper me regularly. It's a very sad situation in a certain respect.

    I suppose in some ways it is like the process of losing weight. At some point you just have to suffer to expiate for past sins. But, we are catholic, so we are suffering for the sins of others. (Although, to extend the analogy, at some point surgical intervention is required...)
  • Jackson,

    Ask the people who organize the REC if they believe that what they're doing is in line with what the Council asked them to do. Ask them if anything close to the Ordinariate practice is in line with what the Council asked them to do. They clearly believe that the shenanigans which make some around here cringe are exactly the most proper activities.

    To Serviam's point, however, a drunken stupor excuses culpability to the degree it was induced by someone else.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    Serviam, I would add that many Catholic musicians don't know much better. In reality, many are poorly paid and don't have music degrees. Blame cheap a** pastors who will spend on luxuries and frills for their own aggrandizement but aren't willing to pay for top notch musicians for celebrating the liturgy. Find Aunt Edna who will cheaply play garbage on the organ - left foot only on pedals - and who doesn't even remember what good music is supposed to sound like. She probably couldn't play it, anyway. Pastors love Aunt Edna.
    Thanked by 1Elmar
  • The Bridge is an homage to the Mamas and the Papas.
  • They should have used this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f6Q29S_Azk
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,227
    Charles, yes - many who are [poorly] paid at all don't have music degrees, but had the right in with the right priest at the right time, while those with music degrees are just left wishing they had any say, since they're volunteering their time, knowledge and talents for the love of the liturgy... because, as you say, their parishes/dioceses don't believe they should shell out money when they can get it for free. Nevermind that they'd rather go on paying someone on the payroll, finding more jobs for them to do, than to add anyone else to the payroll.

    But that isn't a good excuse for the garbage that goes on in liturgies - be it disregard of rubrics, seeming lack of devotion by priests/bishops, or indifference to quality/appropriateness of music.
    What's worse is the lack of [substantial] change when such is brought to the attention of a pastor or bishop who could do something about it.

    Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate made it quite obvious that things since Vat II have not been done up to snuff. I don't think people get to keep claiming ignorance, just because it's easier to continue than to change.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    I would agree, but some really are ignorant - it's not an excuse.

    I knew a local Catholic musician who couldn't understand why I was critical of "Glory & Praise." She said, "what's wrong with that music. I've been Catholic all my life and that is the music I grew up with."
    Thanked by 2Elmar ServiamScores
  • This goes along with the idea that whatever one grew up with, or however it was first learned, was the original thing. The fact that many hymns, even "traditional" ones, have been altered in various ways over the years would surprise most folks.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,227
    The fact that many hymns... have been altered

    To many, the realization (that they really didn't start out that way!) may be a relief.
    Thanked by 1Elmar
  • Elmar
    Posts: 400
    I think this is really at the core of the problem. I would add: "That's the music I was attracted to (or whatever liturgical 'innovation' for that matter) when I was the age to oppose what my parents' generation was doing.
    This is the kind of 'achievements' that my parish council wants to 'preserve', which btw attract zero adolescents nor young families.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    I remember being told that the "new" music was part of the "new church" to attract and hold the young people. As I remember, they left anyway.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,227
    Bad excuses for bad music. Very sad, indeed.
    My children love beautiful music.

    The last thing I need, though, is for them to hear music that makes them want to get up and dance, jump, or whatever else.
  • Elmar
    Posts: 400
    I don't want to judge too much on the music quality, though; especially the choir is not that bad and willing to improve. The problem I see is rather, their questionable standards of acceptable music for liturgy - "this is/isn't wat the congregation wants".
    That which felt good when you were young cannot be bad, full stop. I admit that I have to fight this same thing about my own preferences. I do love good music, but childhood and adolescence memories can be stronger at times.

    I am sure that those youth camps with 'new' music, critical discussions on church teaching and all this helped me in the end to remain a practising catholic; in which case the 'new' music was good music of course.

    Reminds me of this one: "Seriously, what was so good about communist East Germany?" - "That we were young then but old now."
  • It has been said that most people prefer the music they 'grew up with' (though some have obviously not grown up). For me that was Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc, etc., and I despised all the stuff that everyone else listened to. Plus my family listened to the Texaco Saturday afternoon broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera every week (and my mother would sing along on all the arieas. I have never been able emotionally or mentally to tolerate trashy music, sacred or secular. If hearing two seconds of it out in the public I will flee as quickly as I can.

    At a seminar at the Alice Pratt-Brown School of Music at Rice University several years ago a variety of well known rock stars' music was played, discussed, and analysed pretty as you please in a study-lecture which also included chamber music excerpts. The examples were played for only about one to two seconds, and with that tiny sample everyone (else) in the seminar identified 100% of the samples. And, astonishingly, scores of rock music were studied and analysed in great seriousness along with Schubert quartets and other gems of the Western canon. What, oh Waht are our universities coming to?
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Elmar
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 2,854
    I recall being gripped by the third movement of Stravinsky's Symphony in three movements, when I was five, and it was hot off the press. I am eternally grateful to the BBC schools broadcasts for providing classical music for our kindergarten exercise periods "Music and Movement". But the downside is that I am the last to find out what is happening in our local community, because I cannot tolerate the noise played by the local radio station.
    A couple of years ago I enrolled in a free on-line course at an Australian University - Music Psychology: Why Does "Bohemian Rhapsody" Feel so Good? I completed it no wiser than before, and that is despite having previously performed it with our community choir.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,475
    When I was a child, I was taken to a performance by the local Symphony. It was the Nutcracker, btw. I think I fell in love with symphonic music at that point. Later, we changed churches to one that actually had a pipe organ. I was entranced by the instrument and the lovely lady organist who encouraged my love for the organ. I never really liked some of the music of my youth. Disco was fun dance music when I went "clubbing" and stomped my platform shoes on the dance floor - no one could actually walk in the things. Certainly, I knew the popular music of the day even before the disco era. But I always knew it didn't belong in church. I was another of those young Saturday fans of the Met broadcasts every week.