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Welcome
This section will periodically report
new information about the site. Watch for updates. Last revision:
May 10, 2007.
Believers and non-believers are equally
welcome to this ecumenical Christian site. It identifies and explains
an aesthetic model, which has been at the base of western sacred
music for the last 1,400 years and continues to express itself
as we enter the third millennium.
The
Roman Catholic section was developed first in November of
1999, because of the immediate enthusiastic support it received.
The Anglican
section was developed in July of 2002, although sound files
by parishes in New York and elsewhere had initiated it much earlier.
Bethany Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, has initiated the
Lutheran section recently, thanks to sound files.
Sacred Music
America is developing directories of parishes and congregations
in the USA to help guide selection of places to worship. This
site lists them by invitation free of charge after selecting them
with the greatest care because their programs are believed to
contain examples of the musical model mentioned above. Sound files
give direct examples of the musical model of the beauty of holiness.
All of them are the actual music of the parishes and congregations
listed. Some were recorded live during worship services. These
files use "streaming" technology, which downloads as
you play them. To hear them your computer must have Real Audio
or download it
free of charge.
This site
does not guarantee that all the music of every service at the
places of worship it lists is consistent with its standards. If
you plan to visit any of them, call ahead to ask details about
the program for the specific service you expect to attend.
Aesthetic Wasteland
We live in
a time of established disregard for sacred music and scorn for
aesthetic values as such. The deplorable state of musical education
in our public schools has left several generations of adults who
are unable to read musical notation and totally ignorant of a
classical repertoire. In a misdirected attempt to be inclusive,
public education excluded any choral music that had Christian
content--thus eliminating essential parts of the aesthetic heritage
of the human species.
Church leaders,
submitting to the demands of a "religious market" economy,
have eroded high standards of musical competence. The most convenient
market strategy encourages clergy and worship committees to look
for a "product to offer" that appeals to the lowest
common denominator. For the sake of "user-friendly"
worship that requires no spiritual effort, or intellectual growth,
or acquired understanding, basic music, both sophisticated and
simple, is abandoned. Pop songs fill the void. In addition, the
conscious intention of providing "upbeat" worship forbids
the use of texts that witness to human frailty. The sonorous tune
and multivalent text of "O God, our help in ages past"
is replaced by simplistic refrains such as "Jesus, you're
the best!"
Mission of Sacred Music America
The overriding
purpose of Sacred Music America is to benefit those who have been
and are being harmed by the effect the aesthetic wasteland has
on church music. Another purpose is to encourage improvement of
the quality of music in churches to help prevent such harm in
time to come. The site has breadth of scope in its historical
perspective, future vision, and ecumenical nature. The musical
model it identifies is equally at home on all sides of the major
divisions of western Christianity.
The scope
is limited in some respects. It makes judgments only about music
in the Western European style. This limitation does not suggest
that other musical traditions are less important, but aims instead
at specificity. The site lists only parishes and congregations
in the USA. This limitation does not imply disregard of global
reality, but facilitates the site's mission of contributing to
healing a spiritual sickness in America.
Pittsburgh Catalyst
Sacred Music America was conceived in
Pittsburgh. This city has excellent secular and academic musical
resources, including its internationally esteemed performing groups
and the music departments of Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne
University, and the University of Pittsburgh. Even the subway
stations play music recorded in local concerts. There is nevertheless
an unfortunate discrepancy between the high quality of Pittsburgh's
aesthetic resources and, with some exceptions, the musical practices
in the surrounding Western Christian religious communities. During
the winter of 1998 a small core of Episcopalians and Roman Catholics
within a 75-mile radius of the confluence of the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers became astonished and concerned about the degradation
of western sacred music in their area. They witnessed how the
way bad church music had spiritually mutilated various individuals
they knew. It alienated them from God. Sacred Music America was
born from their wounds. Then the core came to the dreadful recognition
that the same kind of harm they observed locally was being done
to many elsewhere in the USA. They resolved to find a way to speak
for them and welcome them home throughout the entire American
aesthetic wasteland. Their decision was the catalyst, which produced
the mission of Sacred Music America. In spite of the way it was
born, this site does not dwell on criticism of bad music. The
tone of Sacred Music America is not polemical. It states its case
entirely in the positive when it explains the aesthetic model
essential to western sacred music in "God
and Music."
Sacred
Music America Home Page
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