So at my digs I've been to my geographic parish for a couple of Sunday Masses so far. I've been to the ones at different times, and I haven't been to the noon one, but so far it seems like I have the choice, musically speaking, of Haugen/Haas and similar performed by a kind of quasi-aging-hippies folk group choir at the one, and the early Mass which has no music at all.
So which one do I do, if there's no other reason to prefer one to the other? Here're the pros and cons.
At the one, most of the songs are going to be (it seems) the sort of songs that I was complaining about earlier, where to make it sound halfway decent you have to sound all emotional-like. Which I hate, because for one thing, like many people I am usually pretty reserved, and also like many people I am somewhat discomfited by mandatory big emotional displays in Church. So, do I fake it (dreadful and weird in Church since God knows the heart), sing it in a neutral voice (so it sounds like I'm mocking the song), or not sing? And if I do one of the latter two, then I might set a bad example because I might look like it's out of contempt for the Church or Mass, which I don't want. What a bother, especially since it's not like that stuff is the Church's actual sacred music.
Now, many people would say "better no music at all than bad music" or music that makes the Mass look silly. In a way I can agree with this, but cantare amantis est. A spoken Mass with hymns added (instead of chanting the Mass itself) is non-ideal enough, but no singing at all on Sunday is all but inexcusable. So on Sunday I'd have the lowest of low Mass you can get really - Mass spoken in English in a chatty tone with no singing and no other efforts at solemnity.
I think what I have described in the above paragraphs might be the typically Italian-model lazy-liturgy bad habits in the former and the typically Irish in the latter. But I really don't have that much sympathy with either one.
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