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Silence Surely Beats Sacred Muzak
I wish to address a trend that is just now beginning to grow as a practice in Catholic churches.
BY W.A. Young April 8-14, 2007 Issue |
Posted 4/3/07 at 7:00 AM
I wish to
address a trend that is just now beginning to grow as a practice in Catholic
churches.
There is still a chance that it may
be nipped in the bud — and so I write upon it before, perhaps, I have laid a
solid groundwork for an understanding of the principles by which such a
practice should be rejected by those who have an administrative or performing
capacity in the Catholic Church.
This is the burgeoning practice of
playing recordings of music in church — most often of Gregorian chant — as
“piped-in” background music during the hours when a church’s doors are open and
there is no Mass. Churches are beginning to imitate the commercial practice of
playing Muzak, and they often begin by playing recordings of chant.
One would like to be able to say
otherwise, but the arguments that fairly criticize commercial Muzak apply
fairly to playing sacred music as Muzak in churches. The critique of pervasive
technology has been set forth by writers since the middle of the 20th century:
Jacques Ellul, Malcolm Muggeridge, Marshall McLuhan and George Grant — to name
a few. Their words stand as a witness and warning that technology can
ultimately dominate every environment and every person, leaving no room for the
sublime.
The secular world in America has for
the present lost the battle against Muzak and its abuses.
The commercial world already abuses
Muzak in a way that is totally irrational. Muzak itself tends to abuse. As soon
as someone gets sick of any aspect of it, it is changed, but not given up —
because it is perceived as a necessity. It is always approached with more care
in the beginning than in the end and it always reaches the stage of the
ridiculous — and is still not given up.
Muzak in church will be subject to
the same abuse that already dogs the commercial sphere. There are many serious,
rational and provable arguments that show the folly and subsequent disaster
involved in the use of church Muzak. Each of these arguments takes time to set
forth and I will here give only a snapshot of one or two of them.
Music is made by people — by
musicians. The more you use recordings to replace real musicians — no matter
that you don’t have the money to keep musicians available in person — you
contribute to the decline of the real practice of performing music. It
naturally follows that you contribute to ignorance of the performance and
analysis of the very music you are spreading.
Not only do you add to ignorance of
performance, but you also set up a form of competition to the live musician. It
is easier and cheaper to replace live music with recordings. You reinforce
whatever economic or social force it was that drove you to use Muzak in the
first place. (That social force turns out to be, ironically, technological life
in the rest of the world.)
The above — which could be proven in
more extensive writing — does not even address the question of whether truly
sacred Muzak is possible. Is it possible that a music which expresses devotion
can be set out by a machine — for an audience that can devalue that music at
will? (That is, the audience may more easily interrupt it, ignore it or not be
present at all for its performance.) Can music played by a machine for no one —
can that music be called sacred? Does that music express anything in the heart
of a living person that can be called devotion?
All over this country, in the
secular world, every day and every night, machines play music — often for no
one or else for those who do not listen, replacing the live musician — as
ignorance about music grows, and serious musicians cannot find work.
At
the Cathedral in Santa Fe, N.M. — truly one of the seminal places of Catholic
history in the United States — Muzak is already playing. And it has already
departed from playing Gregorian chant. Those praying in the church have no
choice but to hear it.
The specter of technology which
spreads by its own inner logic — so that eventually it dominates every
environment, leaving no room for the sublime — is raised. Gregorian chant is sublime,
you say — but I say: When it is played by no one and forced on everyone,
someone will change the music. The one thing you won’t have is silence in which
to pray, but you will have a machine playing music.
Even if it is not changed, you will
still have a machine playing your sacred music — and there comes the specter of
uncontrollable technology — into church too.
Webster Young is a
classical music composer.
WebsterYoungLinks.com.
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