Russell M. Nelson:
"Many years ago, I had the privilege of hosting Reverend Davis at a performance of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Now, we are quite proud of the Tabernacle Choir, which has been recognized literally the world over. When the concert ended, I asked Reverend Davis what he thought of the program. “It was very good,” he said graciously, “but it was lacking in spirit. If you want to experience spirit in music, you should come to my church.”

So my wife and I did just that. And he was right. The energy in the Calvary Baptist Church choir was something to behold."

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-nelson-naacp-convention-remarks

Okay, I'll admit it, I have a soft spot for MoTab... But the biggest charge against them is that they stick to a formula, which they don't like to stray from. You'll rarely see MoTab dancing around or doing jazzed up versions of songs.

Dusty Rusty. The two choirs you are talking about have two different ways to do things. One choir is designed to get the spirit of body moving. The other choir is designed to get the spirit moving with the spirit in a quiet manner. Do you realize that you probably just gave your church choir the finger? If you have something negative to say about your choir you say it in the quiet of your office. I have attended other churches that have the choirs that have the spirit of the one you are talking about. I participate. I enjoy. But I prefer the quiet spirit of the Mormon choir more. It’s all about choice.

Bottom line as I see it is this. Dusty Rusty plans to make the Mormon Church like every other Christian Church. He is going after the bigger market share. Remember only so many people want Christian religion and Dusty Rusty and Bendy Wendy are determined to get the largest piece of the market share.

Folks I do not understand Dusty Rusty. Does his 14 top guys understand him?

Most if not all other churches don't collect tithes in the manor in which the mormon church does.

Most don't, but there are a few independent evangelical and fundamental churches whose fundraising techniques are beyond what most people would believe. The nephew of one of my colleagues put his pastor's name on his (my colleague's nephew's) personal checking account, and provided him with an ATM card, at the pastor's request.

The way MoTab presents /performs reminds me of parents who expect their toddlers to behave like statues in public places.

The Tabernacle Choir is lacking in spirit.

In other news, the surface of the sun is hot.

Hahahahaha! :)

Well Nelson isn't like Monson who adored that choir. It was his pet project. Which is funny because Nelson is the one who can play the piano and has perfect pitch. He is very musically gifted even if he doesn't exhibit it at all.

The trouble is that the choir music is all put together by Mack Wilberg and he writes the same music for every song. It's all too slow and they all have that same flutest that has to do a solo on every number (she's the wife of someone important, can't remember who). Mack is fine and all but they need some other people to write the music to give it some other perspectives and dimensions.

The Mormon church lacks spirit. That's probably what the Reverend Davis was trying to tell Nelson without hurting his feelings.

I like the Mormon Tabernacle choir. My never-mo dad, who hated the Mormon church, also liked the MoTab Choir and had one of their records. They have a distinct sound that sets them apart from other choirs.

Funny that Rusty is attacking one of the only good things about the Mormon church. The MoTab choir is world renowned. What is his motive for criticizing it? Maybe he will dictate that it can only preform religious music.

I think a lot of Mormons will be relieved when Rusty departs for the hereafter.

The MoTab is good.

It's not easy for me to admit that; from the time I was young I associated them and, for some bizarre reason, Gregorian chants and boys choir music, with oppressive religion. My first impulse on hearing them start a song was a visceral desire to run outside before the doors closed and the guilt-inducing homilies began.

Then one day a decade or so ago I realized that I was hearing Gregorian music and feeling no aversion. It was wonderful: not only did it expand the range of music I could enjoy without the aid of benzodiazepines, it also indicated that Mormonism had lost much of its power over my emotions.

The whole thing was a bit like A Clockwork Orange: even the best art can be ruined by association with negative feelings. It's good to get beyond that.

I wonder how many members of the church are missing Thomas S. Monson? He always seemed to be upbeat and positive and challenged the members to do better but I never remember hearing him reprimand or criticize. I've heard Nelson do it quite a bit.

I'm sure most the members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir believe in what they are doing and have plenty of spirit. It's just a different way of expressing it.

I think when Nelson is gone he will be quickly forgotten and let's be honest. Many will say good riddens.

"I think when Nelson is gone he will be quickly forgotten..."

Anything that he did that is in the long run positive for TSCC will be attributed to other "prophets."

He is probably the most uncharismatic one of modern times.

Mormons are conditioned to be loyal to the organization. They support the organization without question in public at least but in private they complain. I saw this plenty from both my parents growing up. Even my TBM sister views Nelson as a silly old man.

What's funny is everyone likes church being cut down to two hours. I find it amusing the TBM members really don't like going to church all that much but they do it because they have been conditioned to do it or they want to fit in with the click.

Mormons really are a bunch of lemmings.

They just sound like a crowd of ordinary people singing. My high school choir was better trained and sounded more professional.

Blech Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They just sound like a crowd of ordinary people
> singing. My high school choir was better trained
> and sounded more professional.


I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you suggesting that your high school choir was better trained and sounded more professional than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or that the same is true of your high school choir as opposed to the Calvary Baptist Church Choir?

If it's the former, I call bullshit on your claim.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2019 08:31PM by scmd1.

"My high school choir was better trained and sounded more professional" than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

That seems pretty clear to me.

And since it's a judgment call, it remains in the realm of opinion, personal preference...

It is my personal opinion that the 300+ member motab's version of Handel's Messiah, with 90+ symphony orchestra is inferior to the 30+ vintage-instrumented ensemble, with a 32 member male choir versions that I listen to on YouTube.

Personal opinion...


Pistols at dawn?


(Whoa! That's gonna be my new screen name, pistols@dawn, when I sneak back here after getting run off for lewd & lascivious mopery in the 3rd degree!)

There is certainly personal preference, and I could get behind what you're saying. (There are several vintage and current groups that I would much prefer hearing over the MoTab.) That anyone's high school choir is "better trained" than the MoTab, however, is slightly more objective and stretches beyond credulity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2019 01:23AM by scmd1.

Pistols@Dawn is good, but I'm still holding out hope that you will return as Montezumas Revenge. Seems more fitting somehow.

More substantially, I agree with you and the Good Doctor: I am, after all, a Handel junkie and there are some awesome performances of the Messiah available from the good folks at iTunes. But the MoTab are no better than a high school orchestra? I think Bleeding Gums Murphy would have something to say about THAT.

I will confess that the discussion inspires some missionary guilt, however, for while serving time I did tell the occasional lie about the Choir. In my mission we were only allowed to listen to the MoTab: no other music was permitted. (It is hard to imagine a more arbitrary, sadistic rule.) Fortunately, few missionaries had any sense of classical music. So I made a tape of a gentile rendition of the Messiah and passed it off as the MoTab.

Even more profanely, I claimed that the fourth movement of my copy of Beethoven's Ninth* was performed by that august assembly and used that mischaracterization as an excuse to listen to the entire symphony. There was one missionary, a Sister Westbrook, who got angry at the long stretches of instrumental music and argued that she should likewise be free to listed to Country and Western, a statement to which I replied gravely that that was between her and God.





*Yes, I realize that I am reprising my earlier post about A Clockwork Orange.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2019 02:54AM by Lot's Wife.

You have to do what you have to do to get through a mission. I had a companion who had bootleg CDs of various groups including Nickelback, Puddle of Mudd, and The Offspring. The CDs had something called "The Three D's" emblazoned on them. The Three D's were apparently an ancient LDS boy band. The mission president thought it was fine because he listened to "The Three D's" back in his day.

Yes, I also frequented jazz coffee shops for a soda/hot chocolate and the opportunity to request specific pieces. (Sarah Vaughan, God rest your soul.)

And there was a department store that had high-end sound systems that played contemporary music. We could half-heartedly contact people while surreptitiously partaking of Santana or something more modern.

As you intimate, missions are horrible things--or at least they used to be. They wanted to "break" the missionaries, and in many instances the mind control and political brutality did just that.

What a brutal thing to do to vulnerable young people...

Of the LDS portion of the family, only two nieces and two nephews are old enough to have gone, and only one of the four has gone. He's in Chile, so he will at least come back fluent in Spanish, which will help when he finishes college and med school and joins the family business.

My dad is a little bothered at the grandchildren not hearing the call, but I don't think my mom ever liked the whole idea despite her otherwise TBM lifestyle.

Things have surely changed. Missions are more optional now, and the costs of not going--or of returning early--far lower than in the past.

One day no one will be left who believes our stories.

A cousin of a cousin was sent to [I think} the Adriatic South Mission. He served mostly in Macedonia and Albania and developed a fairly serious intestinal condition related to endemic parasites. He was sent home about fourteen months into his mission, and the family flew in from all over North America and Canada to celebrate just as they would have had he done the full two years. I was quite happy for him that his family took it so well.

Several years earlier, a brother-in-law's nephew developed microscopic ileitis in Chile. The mission president's wife, who had no medical training beyond basic first aid and CPR, had diagnosed him over the phone as having IBS and was treating him with generic pink bismuth medicine. Another of his uncles flew there, demanded his passport from the mission president, and had him air-evacuated. The kid lost three feet of his small intestine. His parents wanted nothing to do with him because he lacked the faith to stay. He's in grad school now, but when he's on break, he's with either my bro-in-law's family or with one of his other two uncles. He wasn't even allowed in his parents' home when he returned. Now he wouldn't go home to his parents if he were paid to visit them.

I really hope it's better for today's kids. I tell my nephew in every communication to let me know at any time if there's any reason he does not want to stay. I do think they're mostly treating the kids better now, but all it takes is one rogue mission president, or even a really bad AP or zone leader if the guy is given enough unquestioned authority.

Oh the Three D's! One of the D's was in my ward and went to prison for sexually abusing his daughters. Good times. Gotta love those good Mormon boy band types!

I had no idea. Thanks!

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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>
> I will confess that the discussion inspires some
> missionary guilt

Lot's wife? "Guilt?" Shirley, you jest!

In my mission we were only allowed to listen to the
> MoTab: no other music was permitted...Fortunately, few missionaries had any sense of classical music. So I made a tape of a gentile
> rendition of the Messiah and passed it off as the
> MoTab.
>
> Even more profanely, I claimed that the fourth
> movement of my copy of Beethoven's Ninth* was
> performed by that august assembly and used that
> mischaracterization as an excuse to listen to the
> entire symphony.

Mme Lot, you are so sublimely seditious. Please tell me you pulled this off with Carmina Burana!

We've hit the verbal jackpot lately.

Birdman: "the charlatans with their quivering lips."

EOD: "Everything was done with vigor, or as then say in Spanish, vigor."

Caffiend: "sublimely seditious."

It is a joy to be in contact, however indirect, with people who evince such linguistic style!

You apparently don't know enough about choral music to recognize the serious flaws in their performance. I do. Maybe stick to arguing about subjects you actually understand.

(did we forget?) 'spirit' is very difficult to define, Russ knows this.


I slow dirge of voices & instruments can be 'spiritual' to some & awful to others.

It's what used to be called a 'pot shot', to me what Russ says is kinda like what we hear from Donnie Trump; it appeals to a few, but not a majority or plurality of people who hear/care about it.

Revision: Russ' stmnt was a Cheap Shot.


btw, my fav motab tunes are Deep River & Columbia Gem of the Ocean. their patriotic songs are OK I guess, but when they do religious tunes... I tune them Out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2019 08:11PM by GNPE.

GNPE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> (M)y fav motab tunes are Deep River & Columbia
> Gem of the Ocean. their patriotic songs are OK I
> guess, but when they do religious tunes... I tune
> them Out.

For my money: I like their treatment of traditional Protestant hymns--Samuel Wesley, that sort. Their Messiah (at least, the one I have) is very serviceable. We're talking personal taste here. And their Battle Hymn of the Republic with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra is the gold standard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2019 01:46AM by caffiend.

GNPE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I slow dirge of voices & instruments can be
> 'spiritual' to some & awful to others.


I love this description: slow dirge of voices! Put me in the awful camp. I have never enjoyed the motab choir. It's main "thing" is that it's colossal, but it's hard to do much with such a huge group. It's like a cruise ship is good for moving people, but not good for water skiing.

I think the one "lacking in spirit" is Ole Crusty Rusty.

And, when he does smile or make an attempt at doing so, it appears forced and fake because his demeanor most always is pompous, ornery, sterile, stern, and indignant.

Nelson already took the Mormon Tabernacle Chlir's name away from them, and now he wants to take away their reputation and dignity, as well. He wants to throw his weight around, to control, and to rule. He and Wendy certainly lack that "fatherly and motherly" image that Monson and his wife projected. Nelson is the man who preaches agains unconditional love, and, as far as I'm concerned, that says it all.

I have an opinion about the MoTab, which is the same opinion I've always had, when I was both a Mormon and an ex-Mormon, based on my own music education and taste in music. When I was a Mormon, I thought the MoTab was great publicity and a great image for the Mormon church.

I lived in a socialist country (I won't mention the name of the country, because I loved the people, and the beauty of the place), as an exchange student, for a school year. I won't go into detail about socialism, because politics is not allowed on RFM, but it made me appreciate America. There was a radio station, called "Radio Free Europe", and for many months, the the station was intentionally blocked by static. One night, I was finally able to tune it in, it was The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing The Battle Hymn of The Republic with Eugene Ormandy, and I cried like a baby! Voices from home!

That said, I think too many voices make the choir sound muddy. Bigger is not necessarily better. Before the choir director put an age limit on the singers, the voices were too old and had too much vibrato to blend well. Opera choruses have a lot of vibrato, but, maybe the voices are more controlled, better trained--I don't know--but the opera and symphony choirs have spoiled me for other choirs. IMO, Mormon music sounds amateurish. I know that many of the new Mormon hymns are not written by trained musicians or educated poets. Like, Mormons seem to think that the arts require no training at all, whether it be music, painting, sculpting, architecture or writing.

However, when I was a Mormon, I didn't bad-mouth the MoTab, like I do now. I had friends that just loved it. We were given their Christmas albums as gifts, and my parents played them all Christmas, and we didn't get tired of them. Like, they were "classics", that never got old.

Nelson must be very egotistical! He must lack respect for his Mormon minions, to be so critical of his church's beloved choir. What was the point? Did he have any constructive ideas? Did he have specific suggestions, such as speeding up the tempo a bit, or bringing in new arrangers, or praying more, or charging the choir money to join, like a club?

I don't see any point in this, other than for Rusty to throw his weight around, and show-off that he had the power and authority to say anything he damn well pleases. He is ambitious and selfish to the point that he would throw his own cult members under the bus, to try to align himself with the Black Baptists. I'm sure the Baptists didn't appreciate the comparison, and took Nelson's comments as being condescending and insincere.

Nelson was comparing apples and oranges, anyway. There's room for all variety of music, for everyone, whatever they prefer, for whatever reason or occasion.

Rusty, let's hear you sing better. Let's hear you perform your music with "spirit."

Nelson is right. This was many years ago when they still carried the satanic name m.... n in their name. Now that they proudly proclaim the name of our lord and saviour, even the Temple Square, they indeed do have the spirit.

If only they were still Mormon.

What sort of oaf would use the words, "lacking in spirit?" That is not just rude, it is being rude on purpose. Rusty Nelson didn't realize when he was being disrespected to his face.

Mormonism isn't about Being Nice!

It's not in the 3-fold mission of ChurchCo !!

Yes there are high school choirs that are on par with the Mormon choir. After all, the Mormon choir is composed of mostly high school level experience. Mostly amateurs. Together they do make a loud noise. Impressive.

A trained musician might call it chloroform in . . . They’re bland but ok for a group of amateurs. Mormons get excited about the Mo Tab because most don’t know any better. It does serve to drive them back to the scriptures I suppose. Christ, what a dreary choice. The Book of Mormon or the choir.

Plenty of non-members enjoy MoTab. Their style is a bit rigid and old fashioned, but they are still popular.

The name change was a bad move - at least in terms of brand recognition, and may cost them in the long run.

What they lack in spirit they make up for with conformity.

... Chloroformity...

elderolddog Wrote:
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> ... Chloroformity...


hahaha! Good one. :)

donbagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What they lack in spirit they make up for with
> conformity.


+1 :)

It's okay; the Tabernacle choir, or whatever the hell they call it these days, is just trying to accurately reflect the level of "spirit" in a typical Mormon congregation's singing.

They're pretty good on that scale! They often nail it!!