singing

Review of John Bell’s The Singing Thing Too

Posted on by stephenacowden

Several weeks ago I wrote a review of John L. Bell’s book The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song. I (finally) finished reading the sequel, The Singing Thing Too: Enabling Congregations to Sing (Wild Goose Resource Group/GIA Publications, 2007), and I’d like to share a few thoughts on this volume.

singingthingtoo

First, I want to emphasize that my taking so long to read the book in no way reflects the quality of the writing. The Singing Thing Too is every bit as helpful as it predecessor, and I recommend it for all leaders of congregational song. Bell warns in his introduction, “be prepared to have your musical, denomination and aesthetic sensitivities tramped on as you wend your way through these pages. But also be prepared to try things out. For this is a starter pack rather than a blueprint” (10). If you’re new to congregational song leadership you will find this book to be educational and practical. If you’re a seasoned song leader you will be encouraged and reminded of basic, yet important, principles of musical leadership.

johnlbell

John L. Bell

Bell discusses the difference between a choir and a congregation in a chapter entitled “Lion-taming for lambs or sheep-rearing for tigers.” This section is especially helpful for congregational leaders who have been trained as choral directors. (Here’s looking at you, ACDA folks.) There are important differences between choirs and congregations, and underlying Bell’s writing is the deep conviction that congregations deserve at least as much respect and devotion as choirs.

The chapter on teaching technique is the most practical. In fact, I wish that I had been given this chapter to read waaaaay back in my early days of undergraduate study. Music ministers have a tendency either to make congregational instruction too complex or to completely ignore the need for it. Bell gives excellent tips for using the mind, voice, and physical gestures in teaching a congregation to sing. He first emphasizes that the music leader needs to really know the songs he is leading. The leader should be able to teach without staring at a sheet of notation. She should also be able to sing the melody without playing it on an instrument. Congregants will assume that if the leader can’t sing a song then they can’t either.

Bell devotes several pages to a topic that I have rarely heard anyone else mention: rehearsing the congregation. A music minister would never expect her choir, orchestra, or praise band to perform a song on Sunday morning without having gone through it beforehand. However, I know that the act of teaching the congregation a new song can feel very ‘unspiritual,’ which is why we ignorantly “presume that it is by the alchemy of osmosis that a congregation should be able to sing immediately a song they have never rehearsed!” (19). Bell makes a strong case for a short congregational rehearsal prior to the start of worship. “Indeed, if we believe that ‘full, active and conscious participation’ is essential for good liturgy, we should view the teaching of new material as part of the gathering rite in which the community discovers its identity as a singing assembly” (29). If the congregation is going to offer its gift of song to God, it should be given time to practice a bit, or at least get to know the songs it will sing. Moreover, I’ve found that a short time of informal teaching can be a wonderful, relationally-focused prelude to corporate worship.

Finally in regard to teaching, Bell advises, “Think less about being the knowledgeable musician and more about being the enthusiast who would like to get his or her friends to sing a really good song” (27). And he’s right – this is really who pastoral musicians are. A skilled songleader functions more as an enabler or enlivener than as a director: “The good teacher does the job quickly, then the teacher gets out of the way to let the song be a common offering” (42). I suggest this should be a guideline for ministers, no matter their area of expertise.

Following the chapter on teaching technique is a lengthy section (with examples) about song types and how they may be used with integrity. “Musical integrity—and it is a matter of integrity—requires that we respect the different types and styles of tune, and sing and/or accompany them in the best way, which sometimes might be in the original manner” (82). I’ll confess that this chapter was a bit long for me, but it is a good introduction for someone with minimal knowledge of various types of congregational music.

Let me end by sharing a couple of especially poignant quotes, each worth a read and a re-read:

“Musicianship is not about one person being able to do everything, or adapting what he or she cannot do to fit his or her skill level. It is about discerning how any given tune can best be articulated” (109).

“Leading congregational song calls for more than technique. It depends primarily on the relationship which the musician forges with the assembled people and on his or her desire to enable sung texts to become meaningful experience” (123).

Now go read this book, and please share your comments!

1989 and the Need for Musical Diversity in Worship

Posted on by stephenacowden

Thanks to a friend of mine, I recently came across an interesting blog post entitled “liturgical lessons from Ryan Adams 1989” by James K.A. Smith, professor of Philosophy at Calvin College and a fascinating forward-thinker. (Smith’s book Imagining the Kingdom is on my reading list.)

Here’s the gist: Ryan Adams took Taylor Swift’s hysterically happy album 1989 and transformed the lyrics and melodies into a subdued reflection on the meanings behind her texts.

Jim Smith’s discussion of this transformation is brief (i.e. it’s a short blog post) so you should really go read it yourself. But for those who lack either time or motivation, here is a (too lengthy) quote:

“When you listen to Adams’ cover of Swift’s album, you finally realize how incredibly sad it is–that buried down beneath the perky melodies and auto-tuned precision of a pristine sound is a lyrical world of heartbreak, disappointment, and despair.

“Not until you hear Adams’ mournful rendition, in the gravelly timbre of his voice, does the truth of 1989 disclose itself. It’s like, up to now, the melodic tenor and sonic grammar of Tswift’s album was lying about what it said. The sound isn’t true . . . Adams’ cover tells the truth about the music, and thus tells the truth about a sad, broken world by redeploying Swift’s lyrical honesty in a sonic environment that fits.

“We live in a society that wants even its heartbreaking lyrics delivered in pop medleys that keep us upbeat . . . And this cultural penchant for a certain sonic grammar seeps into the church and the church’s worship, so that we want songs and hymns and spiritual songs that do the same. But as a result we often create a (pre)cognitive dissonance between the Bible’s honesty, carried in our hymns and psalms, and our pop retunings. Or we embed them in a sonic liturgical environment that endeavors to be, above all, ‘upbeat’ and positive–a weekly pick-up encouraging you to just ‘shake it off.’

“Worship should be a proclamation that tells the truth, not just lyrically, but sonically. And that means music that resonates with broken hearts.”

I’ve been ruminating on this. One conclusion we might draw is that contemporary worship music, the stream of song that sets ambiguous biblical catchphrases to happy-or-sappy major-key pop tunes, fails the Church by not selling laments for us to sing.

But I suggest we take from this a different lesson. Becoming aware of the cognitive dissonance in our worship materials points to the need for musical diversity in corporate worship.

Understandably, the music produced by, and for, white middle-class suburban America has a hard time dealing with lament. Some other cultures, however, have rich liturgical repertories that can compliment contemporary worship music. Certain selections in the global hymnody stream of song, for example, excel at setting corporate lament to music. Black gospel and some blues also do this well.

However, if a congregation uses only one particular thread of music to sew together its worship, it misses out on the beautiful tapestry of song supplied by all God’s people in all places at all times. To use a different metaphor, if a congregation is too enamored with how it sounds in worship, it does not hear the voices of other Christians – around the world and down the street – in the present or the past. This congregation refuses to join the great Song of the Church that, by grace, progresses from lament to glorious redemption in Christ Jesus her Lord.

Let us remember that Communion is not only between the individual and God; it is also communion among believers. We live together. Let us also eat together and sing together.

Praise Bands and Priesthood of All Believers (part 2)

Posted on by stephenacowden

In my last post (Praise Bands and Priesthood of All Believers, part 1) I wrote:

The role of musical leaders – whether praise bands, organists, or choirs – is to support the congregation’s voice. When musical leaders drown out their congregations by intention or negligence, they are demonstrating pastoral insensitivity and irresponsibility.

Now I’d like to investigate the cause of this problem, particularly as it occurs in the use of contemporary worship music – that which is developed and disseminated through the contemporary Christian music industry. (Here is where opinions will really start to diverge!)

Let me throw out an idea: Contemporary worship music is created and proliferated as an all-encompassing aesthetic experience. A contemporary worship song (take the overwhelmingly-popular “Oceans” for example) is written and recorded by a particular group of musicians (Hillsong United in our example). That recording is disseminated through record sales and electronic media (YouTube, Pandora, Spotify, radio, etc.), and these media are how congregants and worship leaders learn the song. Even live performances at large conferences tend to match the musical texture and form of the popular recording.

A brief comparison of several recordings of “Oceans,” available on YouTube, illustrates this point. Each of four I surveyed—two live recordings from large events and two studio versions—were performed by the Hillsong United musicians. The performances feature nearly identical tempos, remarkably similar instrumental and vocal timbres, and comparable formal structures. In the live performances, the audiences seem to know what will happen in the sequence of the song and they sing according to their expectations.

So form and performance practice of contemporary worship music, while established by the songwriters, is canonized by its distributors and is expected by congregants. When the church I attended last Sunday morning sang “Oceans,” the band played the song almost exactly how Hillsong United recorded it. And I suspect that most of the congregants expected the song to be performed in this same way. In fact, the lead singer altered her vocal quality to imitate the sound of Hillsong United’s singer Taya Smith, which speaks volumes about how she believes the song is supposed to sound.

Here’s the tricky thing about contemporary worship music: Most of it is conceived in the genre/market/realm of solo or small ensemble performance. This breaks down into two points. 1) It is created with performance in mind; and 2) it is created to be performed by soloists or rock bands. You may heartily disagree with this, which is okay with me. But do a little experiment. Take a handful of your favorite contemporary worship songs and sing them with a group of people sitting in a circle, facing each other. Don’t use any instruments. Listen to the melodic monotony of most verses when they are unsupported by instrumental timbres and harmonies. Also notice the difficulty of ambiguous rhythmic syncopation.

Better yet, try to teach a contemporary worship song in this setting.

John Bell offers a few thoughts on the difficulty of participation in contemporary worship music:

The congregation is confronted with a row of microphones behind which stand a row of instrumentalists and singers . . . If the people don’t join in, it will not be because they can’t sing or feel shy. It may be because the physical line-up of musicians reminds them of a concert where they listen rather than of a community where they join in. Or it may be because they haven’t been taught the songs; or because the songs are from the performance rather than the participative category, and the musicians have not recognized that there is a difference.

(Bell, The Singing Thing, 120).

Again, my goal is not to deride contemporary worship music. I’m trying to show that, in contemporary worship music, the musical aesthetic – the way in which the song is performed – is every bit as significant as the text and music itself. To illustrate this point, simply imagine “Oceans” played at a faster tempo, or with piano and organ, or sung by a choir, or by a small group a cappella. Any of these variations in performance would disrupt the “Oceans” aesthetic that is expected to facilitate corporate worship (or private devotion). In less technical language, that would just seem weird to congregants who are familiar with the song.

This raises some challenging questions: If a song is conceived in the style of performance rather than participation, isn’t giving it an excellent performance the best thing a congregation can do with it? Does the song need to be altered to encourage congregational singing? If a congregation and its leaders cannot replicate performances of these songs, can they use them at all? How does alternative instrumentation affect the musical aesthetic, and what does this mean for a congregation’s worship?

I welcome your feedback on this topic, as always.

Praise Bands and Priesthood of All Believers (part 1)

Posted on by stephenacowden

Critiquing the Church makes me nervous, because she is the bride of Christ. We should have a healthy respect for how various faith traditions rehearse their belief in worship, and certainly there is no place for pejorative mockery of the Church. All things should be done in loving unity for the building up of the body and to the glory of God.

So I critique not as a critic, but as a servant. And between opening my mouth and beginning to speak, I pause to ask God for help and humility.

This morning I attended a worship service at a local church that left me concerned about how recent worship trends are trampling upon long-standing doctrinal beliefs. And I’m concerned because I recently have participated in several similar worship services.

The church I visited today had a rather large population, and their worship space was a big room with deadened acoustics and lovely stage lighting. (“Do you see the pretty colors?” I asked my two-year-old daughter. She nodded in amazement, eyes fixed on the stage.) Enhancing (or distracting?) visuals aside, here is my issue: The praise band was louder and more polished than the congregation. It was so loud, in fact, that I could not hear any other congregants singing. When I looked around I noticed that some of the folks around me really weren’t singing, but I did see a few mouths moving. Nevertheless, due to the volume, sound amplification, and acoustic properties of the room I could not detect the congregational singing.

In essence, the praise band muted the congregation’s voice. I suppose the band members might have been able to squint through the spotlights to see congregants mouthing the lyrics, but otherwise they would have no way to know whether anyone below the stage was participating. I suspect that the musicians up front would say that they were leading the worship. But if neither they nor the congregants could hear the congregation’s voice, the truth is that the band was worshiping on behalf of the church.

The message from the folks up front, then, was either that the congregation’s voice is not important or that the congregation’s voice is insufficient or undesirable. This is unacceptable, not just to me, but in light of the essential Protestant belief in the priesthood of all believers. This is a doctrine handed down from the Protestant Reformers; Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli each made distinct statements about every Christian being ordained to the priesthood of Christ. The priesthood of all believers gives weight to the participation of the entire congregation in worship, and congregational singing is a visible and aural expression of this significant belief.

I firmly believe that the congregation should be the chief worshiping group in the Church. The role of musical leaders – whether praise bands, organists, or choirs – is to support the congregation’s voice. In his book that I recently reviewed, John Bell writes that “it would be salutary to enquire of church musicians what proportion of their time is spent preparing to engage the whole congregation in song over against the time spent in honing their own instrumental or vocal skills” (Bell, The Singing Thing, 119). This is a good test of priorities. When musical leaders drown out their congregations by intention or negligence, they are demonstrating pastoral insensitivity and irresponsibility.

 

Please respond with your thoughts on this topic.

Review of John Bell’s The Singing Thing

Posted on by stephenacowden

I recently finished reading John L. Bell’s book The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had the delightful opportunity to hear several lectures and sing in worship led by Bell at Baylor University’s Alleluia conference this summer. (Incidentally, I now recognize that much of the material for his lectures comes from the chapters of The Singing Thing.)

Bell discusses eleven reasons why people sing, in church and outside of it, and then writes about why some people do not sing. His writing is persuasive and laced with humor, and I appreciate the plethora of musical examples and stories that illustrate what he means to say.

When I was in seminary (oh so long ago . . . graduation is now 17 weeks in my past) I wrote an extensive critical review of almost every book I read on worship and church music. The urge to do so persists, but I will resist it and simply highlight a few points that jumped off the page as I read The Singing Thing.

 

First, a personal point. In regard to children and the song of the Church, Bell writes that “whenever anyone teaches a child a hymn or religious song, they may be preparing that child to meet his or her Maker . . . Children’s hymns should never be seen simply as a form of entertainment to keep the kids happy. These songs, in the future, will be evocative of God” (42). This served to heighten my awareness of the music and words that my own daughter absorbs, even at two years old. I’ve noticed that she is very good at repeating what she hears, and she can almost recite entire storybooks that we have read to her. As I encountered this section of The Singing Thing, my cognitive light bulb lit up with the notion that I deliberately should be teaching her songs that gently shape her understanding of who God is and what God does. And I should also begin teaching her important liturgical texts such as the Lord’s Prayer.

 

Throughout The Singing Thing, Bell emphasizes that everyone can sing, and that singing is natural rather than unusual. He writes a lot about this idea because it is counter-cultural for us. In the eleventh chapter on Why People Sing, he notes that people sing because God commands it. In no fewer than six psalms, God instructs us to sing a new song, and “God never asks people to do what they cannot. When God asks us to sing a new song, it is because God believes that we can” (106). To me, this is both convincing and encouraging. And the fact that he desires a new song indicates that we are creative beings and our relationship with God is ongoing.

Understanding that our singing, as an offering of worship, is important to God should prompt us to give it great value. Bell puts it this way: “When we sing we do something unique. For – never mind the song – there is no voice which sounds like ours . . . And if this utterance of song is offered to someone else, then we may be sure that it is a unique gift which no one else could offer. For no one else has our voice, and the song will last only for as long as we sing it. Then it is gone, and no one else will hear that particular rendering” (78). Every time a group of Christians gathers to lift its communal voice is a special, one-time event. This is why it’s important that we bring our whole selves as offerings to God.

 

There is another theme that runs through Bell’s writing: the tension between individualism and communalism in worship. He does not give this as much weight as the idea that singing is for everyone, but he mentions the tension frequently. Bell believes that corporate worship is a communal offering, and he states this in no uncertain terms: “Public worship is not private devotion, and ministers and musicians have to be clear that encouraging this kind of individualism is the enemy of corporate liturgy and community singing” (129). I agree. Many churches, however, tend to downplay the sense of worshiping together because such activity is uncomfortable to people in an individualistic culture. Bell notes that “the commercial music scene is now very diverse, but there is a common strand in much of it – namely that it is geared towards performance rather than participation . . . Therefore when the Church invites people to sing hymns, it is doing something profoundly counter-cultural. It is both presuming that all can sing, and providing material specifically written so that the whole community can participate” (118). What does this mean for the worship planner? “The discerning pastor or pastoral musician has to be able, for the good of the rest of the congregation and the integrity of the event, to help those choosing the hymns to distinguish the difference between what is individually evocative and what is suited for community singing” (41). In my view, the grey area between individually evocative and suited for community singing is continually expanding, especially in the praise and worship music sold by the contemporary Christian music industry.

 

In addition to emphasizing the communal nature of worship, Bell voices concern about the materials sung in worship. Referring to Amos 5, Bell writes, “When the song of the church has become tantamount to sentimentality or deliberately avoids the hard issues of the day or the real issues in people’s lives, God has every right to tell us to shut up” (84). Again in regard to praise and worship music, I am concerned that most of the current texts do not address hard issues. Yes, they mention difficult feelings and therapeutically try to ease our anxieties, but rarely do they address tough issues outside of the individual’s inward experience.

(Sidebar: If it seems that I am unfairly scrutinizing the praise and worship genre, I probably am. I could also point out general deficiencies in other streams of congregational song, but praise and worship happens to be the stream that currently holds much of my ministerial and academic focus.)

It’s not that I think all praise and worship songs are bad. Most of them are pretty good. But I have found few that are excellent for the purpose of corporate worship. Bell judiciously writes, “We are creatures of our culture. We cannot undo that, nor can we fail to be influenced by trends in music as in literature. But the Church’s musical mandate cannot be dictated by gifted artists or ‘Christian’ publishers with their eye on the profit margin. The voice of the performers will always be heard, and devotional CDs can always be purchased. But they are no substitute for the voice of the people actively praising their Maker” (120). When planning the songs that a congregation will sing, I am not very interested in who wrote the song or when they wrote it. What concerns me is whether it is excellent music and text, and how it fits with the theology and experience of the congregation as a corporate body.

 

If you would like to join me in exploring the case for congregational singing, I recommend you read The Singing Thing. Next up for me: The Singing Thing Too: Enabling Congregations to Sing.

Unified Diversity

Posted on by stephenacowden

Oh how good it is when the family of God
Dwells together in spirit, in faith and unity.
Where the bonds of peace, of acceptance, and love
Are the fruit of His presence here among us.

So with one voice we’ll sing to the Lord,
And with one heart we’ll live out His word
Till the whole earth sees the Redeemer has come
For He dwells in the presence of His people.

-“Oh, How Good It Is” by Keith and Kristyn Getty, Ross Holmes, Stuart Townend

I spent the last two weeks at church music conferences. The first was the annual conference of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada , which met in New Orleans. The second was the Alleluia Conference hosted by Baylor University in Waco, Texas. The Hymn Society focuses on congregational song, and Alleluia also addresses choral music and children’s music. Both were great.

The group singing at these meetings is always very significant to me. To be sure, gathering a few hundred trained musicians and creative-types yields some beautiful sounds, especially when the music is picked and prepared by excellent leaders. But the truly wonderful aspect of such assemblies is that people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and beliefs come together and willingly pour their hearts, minds, bodies, and voices into the corporate praise of God.

It is this sort of unified diversity that constitutes the people of God, and it is best understood as an artistic expression of the great Creator: Many voices, one song. Many colors, one canvas.

A hymn sing is a microcosm of the Church. When one person drops out of the singing for a moment to catch his breath, the others faithfully continue on, and the absent voice is only noticed by his close neighbors. This is analogous to the pastoral role within the church and of the church in the world. On the other hand, when everyone stops singing except one person, the broken silence is painfully obvious. Sometimes this person is singing an unexpected solo because she misread the music or misunderstood the instructions. Occasionally, however, the soloist is correct and the rest of us are too anxious to join in the song. This is like the prophetic role in the church and of the church to the world.

The Church and its appointed ministers are called to be both pastors and prophets. Both are servant roles. Both require humility. The two roles come together to form the Church’s song of praise to God and message of redemption for humankind. Praise be to God for this high calling and the beautiful harmony that it produces!