Wednesday, November 18, 2009

who am i?! (a little rant)

what credentials do I have? like seriously...

a bit of rambling,
I was talking to one of my teachers, and my teacher was talking about a few of the other students, "well, so-and-so is quite a bit older than you, and this other student so-and-so has been working in churches for years, and so-and-so is really experienced in these kind of things we are talking about..."

I'm not entirely sure, but it almost seemed like my teacher was questioning my (just recently expressed loudly) opinions on a couple of things, and the mention of the other students in comparison was to have me listen to their experience.

but as I think about it..well, who the heck am i? what right do i have to any opinions about organ music and church music?

well, even though I'm "only" in my mid-20s, I've been doing music in churches for the past 10 years, and believe me, I've run the line-up from charismatic praise-and-worship music, rock bands (with drums and everything), total folk-groups with just me and a few guitars, standard organ music (think: modern day Catholic, in which I hardly cared about proper texts or rules or anything like that, while playing all the "latest " Haugen/Haas,) playing organ for a Tridentine Mass, to playing in my current situation with hymns, english and latin chants.

I don't have experience? Yes, some people have more than I do, and certainly in years, but I do feel like I have intimately known all of the musical/liturgical experiences which I HAVE had...so don't sniff your nose at me, cuz I'm not sure I even know of anyone else who has had anywhere near my broad range of experience, especially in that short amount of time!

(maybe I'm just being prideful and i really dont know anything...if so, forgive me...)

3 comments:

totustuusmaria said...

This entry makes me want to go to Sunday Mass at Old St. P's to see what your experience in sacred music hath wrought.

It is possible that my brother disagrees with me -- we talked about this once -- but I have maintained for a while that the key to parish renewal is to get an excellent, dynamic, and prayerful choir/music director who has a good sense of sacred and religious music. Just say I were the pastor of a neighboring Church to St. P. What would be the chance that I would find myself in a (loosing?) battle to try and get you?

I think pretty good.

But I don't know. After all, I have great difficulty pulling myself away from St. Josaphat on Sundays to find out.

Mara Joy said...

I thought you have been to Sunday Mass at St. P's?!

I do agree with you, (but I'm not quite sure what you mean with your question,) I will certainly have to blog more on this topic.

Paul S. said...

To expand upon my previous comment, much of the "experience" of those working in Catholic music in the 70s, 80s, and 90s is the sort of "experience" that should automatically disqualify many of those people from continuing to work in Catholic church music.