Rating: 
Summary: Joys, noise and ploys
Review:
The modern liturgical expert, quips an anonymous wag in Why Catholics Can't Sing, is "an affliction sent by God, so that those Catholics who have not had the opportunity to suffer for their faith might not be deprived of the opportunity to do so."
This reminds me of a favorite joke:
Question: What's the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?
Answer: You can negotiate with a terrorist.
Terrorists who blow up churches could not be more effective than the experts who have imposed bric-a-brac decoration and theology, spilling over into the parish hymnal and choir loft with the most vapid, insipid and uninspiring music since Barry Manilow started writing jingles.
Churches can be rebuilt. But when the Mass has become something to endure rather than glory in, you know the experts have one-upped the competition.
My grim Sunday routine begins as I enter the church and am met by a "door-greeter minister" lacking a blue smock like the ones at Wal-Mart. After I'm seated by a "seating minister" - we used to call them ushers - I try to collect my thoughts under the soft glow of track lighting, but the "music minister" insists on warming up the audience, er, congregation. Mass begins, and the guitar orchestra starts whanging away as the priest sways in procession with altar girls in tow, most of the boys having given up what used to be a noble calling. The priest and his entourage enter the sanctuary unimpeded by communion rails which were removed to make everything accessible to all but the most feeble (surely wheelchair ramps have been installed somewhere to correct this oversight of the differently-abled). He turns around, bellows a stanza of what's left of the strummers and tubthumpers' folk song, and then calls out, "Good morning." If the response is weak, he repeats this until he gets better and louder results. That sets the tone of his role as the leader, not The Priest with the awful power to consecrate bread and wine into the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ. The innovations in ritual set the tone that the Mass is a plaything for anointed experts with a tin-eared aesthetic sense.
Each Sunday's Responsorial Psalm is composed of about four or five bars that no one figures out until after the fourth or fifth response. The writer is typeset below each ditty along with copyright information. Is there a big demand for these on Napster? Are the publishers actually worried someone might try to rip them off, or is it more evidence that the experts take themselves far too seriously? "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord," saith the Psalmist. This certainly qualifies as noise, although it sounds more dirgelike than joyful.
The same aesthetic sense of music, building design and decoration pops up just before communion, the Handshake of Peace, "one of those new things which made everyone feel a bit silly." Day relates the story of a
friend who extended his hand to an elderly lady praying the rosary. "The old lady scowled. She looked at the proffered hand as if it were diseased. 'I don't believe in that s***.'"
Day wisely observes, "Collectively, the people are quite shrewd. They may not know much about theology or the subtleties of liturgical symbolism, but they can instinctively detect poor or altogether inappropriate selections of prayers, readings, and especially music, which they might protest by not singing."
They're voting with their feet and their voices. Maybe that elderly lady was voting with her hand.
Rating: 
Summary: At First Side Splitting Hilarity, Then Sadness
Review: Day is correct, at least in my parish. I laughed uncontollably several times, and then when the goofy theological lyrics in some contemporary music were pointed out, I became sad at the havoc the anti-Catholic "Catholics" within the Church have injected into the Mass. Much of the pseudo-scriptural paraphrasing has been ejected from the readings (liturgy) of late, but the music remains a problem. I have given this book to others as gifts - they unanimously enjoyed it. Thank you for this work of love, Thomas Day!
Rating: 
Summary: Bitter, disjointed, and a waste of paper
Review: Do not fall into the belief that Day will describe a problem and then offer constructive criticism on how we, as Catholics, should respond to improve the situation. No, he just complains. It gets so boring hearing people criticise the Church (whether justly or no), who never expend the effort to
think of something to DO to correct the situation. There is no generosity contained within these covers.Scathing & bitter, yes. Well written, no. After 150 pages of Day's disjointed tirades, I simply gave up. I gave it one star simply because the comparison between what Day perceives as the current music situation and Bauhaus architechture was actually interesting and rather unique. Otherwise, it would have gotten 0. I must be truly blessed to have spent 37 years as a Catholic across the US and Europe, and only once attended Mass at a church which even vaguely resembled this depiction. Why spend $17? Pick it up at a book store and read the last 2 and a half pages - the only part of the book truly worth reading: a 10 point guide to a good music ministry. (The only concise, well written part of the book, which is concurrently the only part I would endorse.) Day's writing is internally inconsistent, disorganized and occasionally down right offensive. As a Catholic music minister at a parish which subscribes to all 10 of Day's points about good music ministry, I was bored to tears. I was also struck by the fact that he spent 150+ pages criticising Taste, *not* theological content. Who actually believes that Taste can be regimented? While repeatedly extolling Germany and Austria as shining examples of Catholic music heritage (as if every single piece of music written there was the equal of Bach or Mozart), he provides a scattered, disjointed argument (I think it was an argument) over 30 or 40 pages about "ethnic" Catholics in the US and their great music at Masses, but the high mass is awful, or maybe it was the low mass with their great "ethnic" enthuiasm in their folk music ... but folk music is bad, if it's American folk music ...??? Having attended Mass in both Germany and Austria, I can vouch that not every church there plays Mozart/Bach on Sundays. And, when I was in Vienna listening to the Vienna Boy's Choir at Easter Sunday Mass, not everyone was singing ... Suffice to say that Day's prime book he recommends (Gather III) contains not just one, but all of the music about which Day
complains. Why? Because the hymnal also contains all the music Day praises - it is well balanced. We are not Catholic because our tastes are Universal - it would be a very boring Church, if that were so. This book is written for people who already share the author's opinion. Preaching to the converted is not something for which
we should strive. This book will assuredly offend the "stunted Divas screeching in microphones" and "folky" liturgical directors, driving them away from any persuasive argument which Day might have offered. Of course, since he doesn't offer any, the fact that he's offensive to those he ridicules is probably moot.
Rating: 
Summary: The Mass is all about Liturgy
Review: I dont get the point of this book. Truly you could have a complete Mass without music. Do you really go to worship with the intent to be entertained? Who do you go to Mass for, for yourself or for Him?
Rating:
Summary: Irreverant but on-target critique of Amrican Catholic music
Review: I was born and raised in the post Vatican world, going to Catholic education from grade school through college, so I know how bad the music is first-hand. Sometimes stunningly bad. Day's book just reaffirms from a professional standpoint pretty much what I already knew, that contemporary Catholic music is a mish-mash of bad old Protestant hymns and bad new Catholic hymns - that nobody really sings well or too enthusiastically because there is no real beauty in them.
What I didn't know was how bad the music was before Vatican II, and the influence the Irish culture had on stifling musical development in this country. Interesting theory.
Day's solution - bring back some trace of professionalism - seems to make sense. I recently moved into a parish with a top-notch music program from one with terrible music and mediocre attendance. On Sundays when the whole choir is present and singing classics like Palestrina and de Lassus attentance is packed while on other Sundays it is at best respectable.
I really enjoyed this book. Day is a hoot of a writer: funny, irreverant, sarcastic and dead-on correct.
Rating:
Summary: Belabors the point, offers only reactionary solutions
Review: I'm a pianist at my parish, so this topic is near and dear to me. Day quickly makes some solid points about the role of music in the Mass and how, when it is misapplied, the congregation does not respond.
But what begins as an interesting analysis quickly turns into a rant against all things post-Vatican II. And so, where one stands on that issue will likely determine one's response to this book.
His criticisms, though belabored, can be spot on. But his only solution is to turn the clock back 50 years, which isn't going to happen. And on top of it all, he writes with a very nasty and derisive tone.
As someone who grew up in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II, I saw the first wave of "contemporary" music that unfortunately demystified the Mass and lost its integrity. And I've unfortunately been a part of choirs that clearly "performed" at Mass, along with expectations for applause, and I found myself embarassed. (Low point: singing "From a Distance", complete with the line "God is watching us from a distance" not 30 feet from the tabernacle containing Christ himself.) I've since discovered the error of my ways and found a ministry that focuses on the integrity between music and the Mass. So I can appreciate this point of view.
But I think the American church is maturing in its approach to music. Old hyms are being unwrapped and rediscovered, much of the lame 70's music is dying away, and most important a new generation of composers are turning out terrific music that properly meshes the traditional and the modern, returning to an integrity between the music, they lyrics, and the Mass.
So give this one 2 stars: some credit for it's valid criticisms, but it's a nasty screed that quickly becomes reptitive and just plain boring.
Rating:
Summary: It's About Time!!!
Review: It's about time that somebody came along and said what Thomas Day says in "Why Catholics Can't Sing". Day has assessed the state of liturgical music in the Church and has found it wanting. He demonstrates that we got to this state when priests and musicians decided to throw out hundreds of years of Catholic classics, and installed sappy and self-congratulatory songs instead. Particularly amusing is his observation that a well-known "modern" song, used frequently in the liturgy, has the same melody as the theme from "The Brady Bunch." Yet Day doesn't simply complain. In fact, I don't think he complains at all. He reports. Then he offers a number of helpful suggestions that are so commonsensical that no one could find solid grounds on which to argue them. Day's book gives voice to the many faithful Catholics who wonder, in silence, what happened to the awesome beauty of the Mass of their youth. When priests and musicians become more concerned with praising God and less concerned with entertaining the people, Catholics will begin to sing again.
Rating:
Summary: It's About Time!!!
Review: It's about time that somebody came along and said what Thomas Day says in "Why Catholics Can't Sing". Day has assessed the state of liturgical music in the Church and has found it wanting. He demonstrates that we got to this state when priests and musicians decided to throw out hundreds of years of Catholic classics, and installed sappy and self-congratulatory songs instead. Particularly amusing is his observation that a well-known "modern" song, used frequently in the liturgy, has the same melody as the theme from "The Brady Bunch." Yet Day doesn't simply complain. In fact, I don't think he complains at all. He reports. Then he offers a number of helpful suggestions that are so commonsensical that no one could find solid grounds on which to argue them. Day's book gives voice to the many faithful Catholics who wonder, in silence, what happened to the awesome beauty of the Mass of their youth. When priests and musicians become more concerned with praising God and less concerned with entertaining the people, Catholics will begin to sing again.
Rating:
Summary: Joys, noise and ploys
Review: The modern liturgical expert, quips an anonymous wag in Why Catholics Can't Sing, is "an affliction sent by God, so that those Catholics who have not had the opportunity to suffer for their faith might not be deprived of the opportunity to do so." This reminds me of a favorite joke: Question: What's the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?
Answer: You can negotiate with a terrorist. Terrorists who blow up churches could not be more effective than the experts who have imposed bric-a-brac decoration and theology, spilling over into the parish hymnal and choir loft with the most vapid, insipid and uninspiring music since Barry Manilow started writing jingles. Churches can be rebuilt. But when the Mass has become something to endure rather than glory in, you know the experts have one-upped the competition. The grim routine begins as I enter the church every Sunday and am met by a "door-greeter minister" lacking a blue smock like the door-greeters at Wal-Mart. After I'm seated by a "seating minister" - we used to call them ushers - I try to collect my thoughts under the soft glow of track lighting, but the "music minister" insists on warming up the audience, er, congregation. Mass begins, and the guitar orchestra starts whanging away as the priest sways in procession with altar girls in tow, most of the boys having given up what used to be a noble calling. The priest and his entourage enter the sanctuary unimpeded by communion rails which were removed to make everything accessible to all but the most feeble (surely wheelchair ramps have been installed somewhere to correct this oversight of the differently-abled). He turns around, bellows a stanza of what's left of the strummers and tubthumpers' folk song, and then calls out, "Good morning." If the response is weak, he repeats this until he gets better and louder results. That sets the tone of his role as the leader, not The Priest with the awful power to consecrate bread and wine into the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ. The innovations in ritual set the tone that the Mass is a plaything for anointed experts with a tin-eared aesthetic sense. Each Sunday's Psalm Responsorial is composed of about four or five bars that no one figures out until after the fourth or fifth response. The writer is typeset below each ditty along with copyright information. Is there a big demand for these on Napster? Are the publishers actually worried someone might try to rip them off, or is it more evidence that the experts take themselves far too seriously? "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord," saith the Psalmist. This certainly qualifies as noise, although it sounds more dirgelike than joyful. The same aesthetic sense of music, building design and decoration pops up just before communion, the Handshake of Peace, "one of those new things which made everyone feel a bit silly." Day relates the story of a
friend who extended his hand to an elderly lady praying the rosary. "The old lady scowled. She looked at the proffered hand as if it were diseased. 'I don't believe in that s***.'" Day wisely observes, "Collectively, the people are quite shrewd. They may not know much about theology or the subtleties of liturgical symbolism, but they can instinctively detect poor or altogether inappropriate selections of prayers, readings, and especially music, which they might protest by not singing." They're voting with their feet and their voices. Maybe that elderly lady was voting with her hand.
Rating: 
Summary: Has its moments
Review: The tilte of this book greatly intrigued me when I first noticed it on Amazon, being a Catholic who finds many "church songs" particularly annoying or even abhorrent. Thomas Day makes many good points, particularly on how much of the current selection of Catholic music has diminished the sacredness of the Mass, but he unfortunately turns this into a polemic against nearly every change in the Mass since Vatican II. As a result, I view the author as being somewhat out of touch with the fact that we, as the laity, cannot simply choose to return to the pre-Vatican II days of the liturgy unless we actually attend the Tridentine (Latin) Mass instead of the "new" Mass.
Day's critique of the St. Louis Jesuits, and other songwrtiers who have tried to infuse folk and rock elements into Catholic liturgical music, was stong and effective, although he belabored his point a little too much. Also, his critique of Caruso-esque cantors was generally right on from what I have witnessed in my years of attending Mass regularly. What Day fails to realize, however, is that some Catholics today actually do like this kind of music, or find it appropriate for teen or youth Masses. Although I am not one of those people, Day does not realize that they may actually be more inclined to sing by hearing church music that resembles somewhat what they listen to on the radio. In fact, the guitar/folk Masses at my parish have greater participation from the congregation that at the Masses that emphasize more traditional music, such as "Praise to the Lord" or "The Church's One Foundation". If Day wants Catholics to sing, he might want to rethink his thesis just a little with the idea that modern church music does actually encourage some people to participate more than traditional music.
In conclusion, this book has its moments, but was not at all a convincing argument against returning to the pre-Vatican liturgical music. My hope is that more parishes will do a better job balancing their selections of modern religious music with traditional hymns. In my humble opinion, this book is only worth reading if you are Catholic and you cannot stad modern liturgical music or the post-Vatican II "new Mass" liturgy.
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