[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.

[ThomasMore]

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.

I agree! It's unfortunate you have to play in a protestant church. Time to get the old hymnals together. Is your pastor adverse to that idea?