Music and Memories

Humor me–listen to the song first. I’ve spent the last couple of hours indulging in a rare occupation for me–listening to music.  I don’t own an iPod (well, I have an iPhone now but I don’t use it for that).  I usually don’t turn on the car radio.  My CDs, cassettes, and records are all [...]

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I’m not the only one . . .

Given my earlier posts about liturgical music, I had to share this, even though it skewers some of my own favorites from the Glory and Praise days.

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Bad Songs Revisited

Last time I wrote about bad church music I said there was another song I wanted to write about but I couldn’t remember what it was.  I knew it wouldn’t take long before we sang it again, and sure enough, last week, there it was.  I’m sorry, again this is a song that everyone else seems [...]

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Liturgical Music Redux: Bad Songs

You know, I think this blog is really good for me, because I get things off my chest here and then I don’t have to rant about them in real life anymore.  And I also think that’s why (aside from getting busy with the start of school) I lost steam on my Liturgical Music “Week.”  [...]

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Liturgical Music V – Performance Issues

So I had to get into it some time.  It’s not always the song’s fault.  The songs don’t pick themselves.  They don’t perform themselves. No, I am not going to criticize individual choir members.  Not only would that be ugly, I don’t have the right to do that unless I am willing to go up [...]

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Liturgical Music and Inclusive Language

When I was a freshman at Georgetown, Father von Arx, a history professor, handed back my first paper marked with the following:  “May I suggest you try using inclusive language?”  Now, I didn’t have the slightest idea what he meant by that, and I didn’t find out for years.  And a good thing, too, since [...]

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Liturgical Music III – The 80s and after

Continuing with my post about the development of my own perspective on liturgical music brings me to what seemed like an exciting time to me music-wise:  the beginning of the Glory and Praise years.  For us at St. Joseph this actually began, I’m guessing, around 1978, when a group of UT students began coming to [...]

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Liturgical Music II – the 70s

Before I expound further on this topic I thought it would be appropriate to set the scene with a brief background of what my experience has been with church music.  If you, like me, were born in the late 60s, you will probably relate to this.  If any pre-Vatican II folks are reading, I wish [...]

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Liturgical Music

I’ve contemplayed writing about liturgical music for some time.  I think I will make this “Liturgical Music” week (remember “Education Week” back in the first days of this blog?) although I am not promising to write every day! I am only a lay person, with a lay person’s understanding of this topic–I want to make [...]

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