When I was growing up, I served at the “high” Mass in my parish, where there was a rich diet of Gregorian chant and the occasional attempt to sing polyphony led by an enthusiastic and competent choir. It was very different from the kind of music we listened to at home, but I grew to love it. If my contemporaries went to the “low” Mass, they would not have had an experience of church music at all – unless they went to Benediction, where they sang hymns.Half a century on, many of those contemporaries are still bemused at the need for the Church to sing at all; and they have passed that sense of bemusement on to their children. Parish singing rarely raises the roof, apart from special occasions. And, when I meet their children to arrange a wedding or funeral, th