Re: [Harp-L] Catholic Mass - and why religious speech and music differ from the everyday

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

For thousands of years, religious music and religious speech were deliberately kept separate from everyday speech and music.

Why?

So that religious observance could be made special.

When you enter into prayer, meditation, or a religious ritual or ceremony, you're leaving behind your everyday life in order to enter a special zone where you can be on a higher plane and connect with a state of mind (and, according to some, unseen beings and forces) that allows you to spiritually recharge, and to reflect on a moral universe that lets you reconnect with your core values and act, speak, and treat others in a way that is better for all and/or more in keeping with the tenets of your belief.

Do everyday language and music help you access that state by making it more familiar, or do they make it harder to access by trivializing it for the sake of easy comfort? I take no sides on the issue as far as others are concerned - do what works for you. (For me personally , the King James bible is one of the greatest collections of poetry in the English language, and I'm not particularly religious.)

Actually even popular music uses language in a way that differs from everyday speech. For starters, it often rhymes and generally has rhythmic meter. If
someone went around talking like that, it would seem remarkable at
least. But songs also use the words themselves in a different way, in order to evoke a special atmosphere where it's possible to believe in a fantasy world or an intensified reality that differs from everyday life.  If you think that everyday music is really an everyday occurrence, listen again. The genius of it is that we are willing to accept the belief that the subject matter and use of words are everyday, when they're not.

Harmonica content: I've played instrumental baroque church  music on harmonica in a large church accompanied by pipe organ. The long echo in the church made it difficult to stay in synch with the organ.

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Mon, 6/22/09, Stachnik, George C (ESS Competitive Podcasts) <george.stachnik@xxxxxx> wrote:

From: Stachnik, George C (ESS Competitive Podcasts) <george.stachnik@xxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Catholic Mass`
To: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, June 22, 2009, 7:23 PM

Some folks seem to have an idea that the music at a Catholic Mass is supposed to be quiet, and meditative, and ideally played on a pipe organ.  Personally, I don't understand why the music I listen to at Sunday mass should sound any different from the music I listen to the rest of the week.  

Case in point.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92dIVjrkO4 ; 

-Little George 


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