From my Dad's distant past:

The Church's one frustration,
It is the chancel choir.
T'will never sway the nation,
Nor set the world on fire.
While organ's pedals thunder
and fill us all with ire,
We all with scornful wonder
From services retire.

Tune: Aurelia
Words: unattributed

Given that the old boy remembered these words from his childhood in the 1920s, I suppose that there has always been uncomfort in the pews regarding the music.

I had occasion recently to visit a small rural parish church which had both a modern(ish) electronic organ and an old pump organ, the latter with no visible evidence of current use. Being that there was no one about that weekday except my family and I, I tried both organs. The new(ish) one sounded like crap, every single stop. The old pumper however, sounded like angel's wings. Except for obvious bellows work there wasn't much wrong with it. I'd love to have one of things in my home! It seemed to me another indication of where the sound of church music is going. The timbre is not right to my ears. Compared to that weepy electronic abomination, I'll take a folk band or any day. And therein is the rub. We make do with what we can afford in our churches, assuming that much of what we give is for the glory of God in "outreach" rather than in worship, and it seems of late that outreach and worship grow apart.

Peace, Mooh.