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Views from the Choir Loft

Is Recorded Music Okay for Children?

Fr. David Friel · July 27, 2014

Y NOSE HAS BEEN buried in Sing to the Lord lately as part of a research project on which I am working. In 2007, the USCCB promulgated Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship (SttL) as a replacement for the twin documents, Music in Catholic Worship and Liturgical Music Today. To say that the new document is an improvement would be an understatement, but it is not an ideal text, either.

Two weeks ago, speaking about the Children’s Liturgy of the Word, I took issue with the prevalent notion that young people somehow need to be accommodated in the work of divine worship. As a former child, I find this to be an errant hankering—a perspective that is often well-intentioned, but fundamentally condescending and lacking in foresight. True, St. Paul advises feeding first with fluids, preparing the way for solid food (1 Corinthians 3:2). But the admonition is to serve milk (real food), not plastic fruit.

This all came to mind as I read paragraphs 93-94 in Sing to the Lord. These are the paragraphs in which the US Bishops deal with recorded music. The section begins well:

Recorded music lacks the authenticity provided by a living liturgical assembly gathered for the Sacred Liturgy. While recorded music might be used advantageously outside the Liturgy as an aid in the teaching of new music, it should not, as a general norm, be used within the Liturgy. (SttL #93)

Had the section stopped there, I would have been content. But in the next paragraph, one reads this:

Some exceptions to this principle should be noted. Recorded music may be used to accompany the community’s song during a procession outside and, when used carefully, in Masses with children. (SttL #94)

Having just acknowledged that canned music “lacks the authenticity” required by the sacred liturgy, why is a caveat provided for “Masses with children”? Are children not worthy of the best forms of liturgy? Having just rightly identified the inappropriateness of recorded music, why is its “careful use” proposed as acceptable when children are in tow?

In his commentary on SttL, Fr. Dennis Gill says it well:

Recorded music should not be used in the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy… It is not the voice of the believer, the voice of the worshiper and, as such, is always inappropriate in the course of the celebration of the Eucharist, the other Sacraments, and the Liturgy of the Hours… Even in cases identified in Sing to the Lord when recorded music seems advisable, like outdoor processions, every effort should be made to actually sing in those circumstances. 1

These pages have demonstrated numerous times before that children respond very well to true sacred music. (For example, see this—Our Lady of the Atonement I, this—Our Lady of the Atonement II, this—Gregory the Great Academy, and this—Youth in Favor of Sacred Music.) If you have never experienced it for yourself, try it out. Children take naturally to chant, and there are so many resources available for teaching it to them. It is time to put the Glory & Praise cassette tapes away and to bust out the Ward method books. If you want to get started, I highly recommend checking out the work of Maestro Wilko Brouwers, the Words with Wings series available from CMAA.

It is so much more rewarding to challenge children to chant than to settle for the crudeness (and hoakiness and banality and utility and frivolity) of recorded music.




NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   Gerard Dennis Gill, Music in Catholic Liturgy: A Pastoral and Theological Companion to Sing to the Lord (Mundelein, IL: Hillenbrand Books, 2009), 29.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Catholic Youth Choirs, Gregorian Chant, Justine Bayard Ward Method of Singing, Our Lady Of The Atonement Academy, Resources for training in Church music, USCCB Sing to the Lord Document on Music Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and serves as Director of Liturgy at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“Naturally the accompaniment of the organ is merely tolerated during the office of the dead, but in fact, in nearly every parish this toleration has become a habit.”

— Henri Potiron, 1958

Recent Posts

  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension

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