[ThomasMore]

Real musicianship wasn't questioned then either.

The question then is:

Is the organ, guitar, lyre, harp or cymbal the problem...

or is it the music itself?

[Desdemona]

The question then is:

Is the organ, guitar, lyre, harp or cymbal the problem...

or is it the music itself?

It's the music itself. I mean, take one of the great Christmas carols, for example. "Silent Night" was written originially for guitar (it was Christmas Eve and the organ was broken. Gruber had to do something). This, in any instrument, is viable and beautiful and moving.

The stuff in the current "hymnals" is so bad, the material used in Level I piano books surpasses it. It's that pedantic. Funny thing is, that people like me, who are pros, yes, go to Mass and sometimes even cantor, but actually work in the protestant churches because the music in the Catholic church is written by people who don't know what they are doing.

Not only that, the post Vatican II crowd took the music for the masses mandate off on a tangent and decided real musicians "performed" too much. So, we work in the protestant churches. Forget, even with the Catechism clearly laying it out, that musicianship is a profession. There aren't that many paid positions in the Catholic churches. We have to pay for development of skill somehow. It's a dirty secret that some of the best musicians in the protestant churches are actually Catholic. Just a little something to keep in mind and pray over.

[ninenot]

OK--here's at least part of the story. The organ is preferred by Church authority (hundreds of cites available) because: 1) its variety of tones produced by different stops represent "all of creation" praising the Lord--birds, people, critters, etc. 2) It is activated by wind ---pneumos--breath--and is thus, 'natural,' as is the human voice (there's also some minor theological stuff here about pneumos/life, etc.) 3) Unlike many other instruments, the organ is not percussive (as is the piano and to a lesser extent the guitar)--the organ's keys do not have to be struck repeatedly to sustain tone; thus it is inherently less overtly rhythmic than those other instruments.

As to "good music:" First, it has to be art, thus beautiful and true: having perfection of form. If it has text, the music MUST illuminate the text. In music using text from the Mass or the Bible (sacred music) the text is the WORD--and obviously takes precedence over the music. Chant is regarded as THE pre-eminent song of the Church because it is beautiful, text-dependent, and 'universal.' I like to say that Chant is not masculine (e.g., not a march) and not feminine (squishy hymns.) It has no rhythm other than the text's.