Guitarist Turned Schola Director – FSSP Seminary Faculty Member Recounts Being Mysteriously Moved by Sacred Music

The National Catholic Register has just published an interview with Mr. Nicholas Lemme, director of the schola cantorum at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary (FSSP) in Denton, Nebraska, on his “conversion” from rock music to Gregorian chant, including the influence of the CMAA on his journey.

What courses do you teach at the seminary? 

I primarily teach how to sing Gregorian chant, which the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council state is to be given “pride of place” in the Church’s worship. My classes are mainly devoted to learning the Solesmes method of interpretation, but we also take a look at the history of chant, its function in the liturgy, its spirituality and its influence on other forms of Western music. In addition to this, I’ve recently started giving a class on the power of music in general. How that class was made possible is an interesting story.

I remembered that, during my “subtle conversion,” I had gradually stopped listening to the conventional rock music produced from the ’60s to the ’90s. The lyrics in those songs were filled with promotion of vices such as pride, disobedience, vanity and lust — none of which corresponded with the virtue I was hoping to acquire. Most of the records I had in my music library were removed in a very matter-of-fact way that seemed natural to me. I didn’t need to put a lot of reflection into it.

It wasn’t until my first year at the seminary (while discerning a vocation) that I discovered there might be more to the story. I had grown accustomed to the beautifully structured seminary life. We had regular times for prayer, manual work, study and recreation. During the times of prayer, we would chant the Divine Office, and, of course, there was also chant (and some polyphony) at Masses. We were enveloped in a beautifully mysterious atmosphere, where our minds and hearts were drawn upward into the realm of the Divine.

After four months of not listening to recorded music, I decided to do some recreational listening on my iPod. A heavy-hitting, rock-influenced jazz instrumental came on the mix. I was startled out of my little piece of heaven into an atmosphere of agitation. What was previously an almost temptation-free environment had become a battleground filled with anxiety.

You had already come to dislike rock, so what was new about this experience? 

What really got me thinking was: There were no words to the song, so those were not the concern. The music itself was agitating me. Everyone, whether musically inclined or not, will agree that certain types of music tend to evoke certain emotions. The sentiments felt upon hearing Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries are assuredly not the same as those felt upon hearing Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina.

However, where the connection is often missing, as it had been for me, is from the specific emotions to specific vices or virtues. Take anger, as an example. Anger itself is not sinful, but once it has gained entrance into the soul, it is very difficult to control and can lead to sin.

So if the topic is presented, it should be done in a way that somehow engages the intellect. This is possible through Allegro of Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8, but not through Metallica’s House of Puppets, which negates the intellect by its coarse, mindless grinding.
Once the emotion of anger is presented without any reference to rationality, its influence can easily lead to vice. An angry person finds it more difficult to pray and forgive or to be patient and generous. Christian living is impaired without the affected person even knowing how that came about.

This connection between emotion and virtue was a huge revelation to me, so I began reflecting on the topic and looking more deeply into it. I found that what was revealed to me was actually a concept that has been with us since antiquity.

Plato expressed the force of music in his Republic this way: “Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.”

Father Basil Nortz, ORC [Canons Regular of the Holy Cross], has written and spoken of how it is essential to realize that it is not only the lyrics of a song that will affect us. The music itself enters into the deepest recesses of the soul to influence us there even more profoundly than words. The reason for this is: Words must first be understood by the mind, but music is immediately grasped by the emotions, regardless of previous training or culture.

So you disagree with adding good lyrics to rock music? 

Let me put in this way: I wouldn’t be moved in quite the same way by hearing the words of Agnus Dei set to a fast-paced, heavy-drum beat. In reality, it would obliterate any positive influence the words would have had. The words really need to match the music; that’s good art.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote before his papacy in The Spirit of the Liturgy that, “Not every kind of music can have a place in Christian worship.” In order to determine what kinds of music do have a place, he gave this criterion: “Does it integrate man by drawing him to what is above, or does it cause his disintegration into formless intoxication or mere sensuality?”

Additionally, he stated in A New Song for the Lord that rock music is “thoroughly opposed to the Christian notion of redemption and of freedom.” Therefore, he continued, “Not for aesthetic reasons, not from reactionary obstinacy, not from historical immobility, but because of its very nature, music of this type must be excluded from the Church.”

The ontology (or the very being) of music should determine where that music is found. I have yet to find a culture or religion that does not have its representative music. Early on, rock music represented and shaped my own culture, or way of life. Now, I now tend to be drawn, and to draw from, music that elevates the soul without negating the intellect. Gregorian chant seems to be the paradigm of this, but other examples can be found that encourage the pursuit of virtue as well.

This is a fascinating topic that will occupy my thoughts the rest of my life. There’s still so much for me to learn, but I’m grateful for having my eyes opened to it, and I hope to pass it along well to the seminarians.

I would consider the subject properly disseminated to them if they appreciate music’s power over their souls and live out what so many great thinkers have taught about music — not only from a liturgical standpoint, but from an ontological one as well.

There’s a mysterious and strong influence exerted through music, so we should delight in making the effort to seek out those types of music that ennoble and lift us higher. The ultimate goal is to sing the praises of almighty God in heaven, and we begin to do this on earth in a most notable way when we engage in reverent Christian worship.

Read the rest here…