MUSIC... IT’S NOT THE SOUND; IT’S THE MESSAGE; OR IS IT???

Hello Friends and Neighbors,                                                                                           11 July 17

This blog post is something I wrote quite a while back.  I've edited it a bit.  It's extremely long, but I wasn't sure where to cut it in two for separate posts, so here it is all in one big swoop!

1.  MUSIC... IT’S NOT THE SOUND; IT’S THE MESSAGE; 

2.  I CAN WORSHIP TO ANYTHING.

3.  THERE’S A MESSAGE IN THE MELODY.

The first two thoughts, quotes by two different people, are similar in basic concept... and yet the third point, a quote by another person may be in sync with the second point but not the first point. 

1.  Music... It’s not the sound; it’s the message;        That may be true (although I have heard opinions to the contrary) but there’s also another side to the issue...

            First, this opinion was given by a guy who was in a rock band before he got saved.  His opinion was that rock music was from his old life and that the beat itself was, if not evil, at least stirred up feelings from those days and should be avoided, not just by him, but by all Christians. 

            These statements were made by him in 1969 and so he was young (probably in his very early 20s) and newly saved at the time.  Perhaps he would see it differently now in 2017;  perhaps not.  It would be interesting to hear his viewpoint this many years later when contemporary music seems to be the rage in so many churches. 

            Personally, I have mixed feelings over the issue.  I think it may actually depend on more than one factor.  It might depend on one’s background--  what one grew up listening to and singing.  But I think more than that, it depends on one’s inner preferences which in part stem from not just personal choice, but innate, individual makeup! And these thoughts are not based on research--  only my personal opinion based on how I feel when listening to or trying to sing along with contemporary music. 

            On the other hand, if indeed there is a message in the melody line itself... if the music alone can minister to an individual...  then there is possibility that “I can worship to anything” may not hold true for everyone.

2. I can worship to anything.             First of all, when it was being introduced into the church where I was pianist at the time, I really gave it as much as I could in attempt to learn to play some of the songs.  KEY WORD here is ATTEMPT;  I tried long and hard, working with one or more folks on the music team who were accomplished in that genre.  We’re talking several years, not just days or weeks!  It never quite totally sunk in to my being-- maybe not even enough to say partially! 

            We eventually did learn several of the contemporary songs, but I always felt left out on some of them, doing them basically in my own way, with my own twist on the beat.  I’m not comfortable playing a new chord on the last beat of a measure while still singing in the previous chord--  Or singing in a new chord before playing it!  If this sounds confusing to you, well, it was and still is confusing to me.  I like harmony, and that to me is not harmony! 

            Those measures stir up confusion, not peace, in my soul.  Ending on a chord other than the one-chord also leaves my spirit in a state of unfinished business.  I need the resolution of ending in the one-chord;  when ending in the three-chord or four-chord (I don’t even know which is usually used) it just leaves me up in the air, emotionally and thus, spiritually.  It’s similar to reading a book, coming to the end, and the author hasn’t given a solid resolution to what seemed like were the main threads of the story. 

3. There’s a message in the melody.              Traditional hymns, on the other hand, bring me a sense of peace and strength--  a sense of well-being, joy, and deep worship within my soul.  It’s not just the words, although the words have some deep and joyous messages.  The music itself also ministers to my spirit in a way that  strict, true contemporary music--  i.e. Christian rock music--  has seldom done. *¹

            I think perhaps if I had not had to try to play the contemporary Christian music, I might enjoy listening to it a lot more than I do.  But often I just don’t even want to listen to it because it stirs up so many frustrating memories of feeling inadequate at the piano--  an inferior musician, compared to those who understood and felt the beat and rhythms of the contemporary songs. 

            Singing the contemporary songs*² is often even worse... I go through the motions of singing, but they often do not comfort my spirit or feed my soul like the hymns I grew up with.  Singing the old hymns (and even the newer hymns) is a breath of fresh air to my spirit.  If a church is going to use contemporary music, I also believe that it needs to be a combination of both.  The church we attend in Florida is a large church that actually has four weekend services (not counting Sunday evening.)  It has a Saturday evening and Sunday 9:30am contemporary service... and two Sunday morning services at 8:15 and 11 am with traditional hymns.  I realize this is not possible for a small church, but if one really feels contemporary is needful, then incorporating both styles into its services would be a great compromise, because my opinion is that traditional hymns are very necessary also.  The main reason I continued to attend a church in Maine for several years is because of my love and friendship with the pastor’s family. And the pastor always preached a great message. The church went strictly to contemporary after I married and started going to Florida for the winters, consequently I was no longer playing the piano there.  The music style (NOT the musicians!) just didn’t do that much for my spirit.  I seldom felt really uplifted from it the way I do when singing the traditional hymns, although the young, new musicians were doing a fantastic job! I was so proud of them!

            We’ve attended the contemporary service on Sunday morning in Florida a few times and it’s the same thing.  The musicians are doing a great job, but the music is just music, basically, to me.  It doesn’t sink down into my spirit the way traditional hymns do.  And listening to a great southern gospel style quartet or a great blend of a ladies trio or any combination of voices in any number singing the great old hymns of the faith can’t be beat in my opinion.  They can be rendered slow or fast... depends on the occasion and the moment, but the words and music of those old hymns are a combination that ministers to me in a way that few contemporary songs have ever done.

            So overall, I can agree on some level that it probably is not the music, but rather the message, but as far as worshipping to anything...?  Well, I guess I would have to argue that since we are all created as distinct individuals with different likes and dislikes, desires, dreams, and on and on, that perhaps there is something about the music itself that ministers.

            We don’t all have the same favorite color or food or climate--  (some like it hot, some like it cold...!)  --so why should we have the same taste in music?  Why is yellow, bright sunshine yellow, my favorite color?  I didn’t one day look at the spectrum of colors and say,  “I’m going to choose yellow for my favorite!”  Yellow is the color that draws me; just seeing something yellow makes me feel happy, contented, joyful, peaceful.  Yellow ministers to my soul!  Why?  I don’t know.  That’s not to say I don’t get some of those feelings from other colors as well.  Deep orange, deep red, blues, greens, purples...  and pastels are beautiful in certain situations.  Depending on where they are and how they are used, many if not most of the other colors will also bring out some of those sensations, BUT...!   Yellow is my above-all favorite!  Case closed!  Even black has its place at times, but it doesn’t bring out the emotions that other colors do, and it definitely doesn’t do for me what yellow does!
            Food--  we all have such varied taste in foods.  What some folks love, others cannot possibly put even a small taste of it their mouths.  Just the smell of it will make them walk in the other direction.  Are you a vegetable lover or a meat lover or some of both or do you strongly dislike some of both?  I’m for the vegetables.  I will eat meat (if I HAVE to!  lol!) but I seldom, if ever, actually crave it!  And some meats are definitely more tasty to me than others!

            And as to weather... I always used to say, “I’d rather sweat than shiver!”  Well, I’m modifying that now to “I’d rather not do either one!!”  Having lived in Maine all my life, I know what shivering is all about in the wintertime!  Now having spent several winters in Florida and staying long enough usually to experience at some of the sweating, I can truly say, “Neither one is optimal!”  I have learned that as we say in Maine, “I’m spleeny!”  There’s a middle ground where the temperature is comfortably warm and comfortably cool. I prefer staying in between the two!  It’s in between needing to turn on the furnace and needing to turn on the air conditioning!  Try somewhere above 65 and below 80!   Now some folks love the Maine winter temps with snow and some folks love the Florida summers... I’ll take the opposite of both!!!

            And getting back to music, I think I’ve finally determined that my preference in music isn’t JUST a choice, just as yellow isn’t a conscious choice.  It IS ME.  Although I was exposed to many colors as a young child, and I was not exposed to contemporary Christian music (basically because it didn’t exist at the time!) but I’m thinking that my preferences for things aren’t always so much a choice as they are a part of what makes up my personality... ME!

            I think I can find a middle ground in music... some of the contemporary music is okay... I’m not super excited over most of the middle ground music on the contemporary side, but some of it really is okay.  But that said, most of that still doesn’t really minister to my inner being like the old hymns and southern gospel style.  Note that I said “MOST” because there are some that I really do enjoy.  But I think that the accompaniment to the music makes a big difference also in how it sinks in or not.  The style, the instruments and how they’re played, the rhythms, the melody... some are melodies very varied melodically and others just repeat the same short melody lines over and over, which to me can be very boring and unsingable in a worshipful way.  It depends on the song.  The same could be said for some of the old hymns of the faith... In fact there is such a hymn that took me some time to get used to and to be able to appreciate the words and meanings because there was just a bit too much repetition in the melody.  It mostly depends on the arrangement of the melody and how the rhythm fits in with it. 

            So yes, it’s not the sound, ultimately.  It IS the message, but if the sound is an irritant to an individual’s inner psyche, then the message probably isn’t going to get past the sound.  It’s called packaging!  A child is quite apt to choose the brightest, prettiest wrapped package over one wrapped in plain brown paper.  And adults are probably not too far away from doing the same thing.  When it comes to music, given a choice, I’m much more likely to walk into an auditorium where there’s a rousing southern gospel quartet singing, than into a room with a band playing and singing a contemporary song.  It’s what I like... the blend of great four part harmony with a great piano accompaniment that lifts my spirit.  To take the comparison further, fill that first auditorium with a congregation lifting their voices to “How Great Thou Art” or “Great is Thy Faithfulness” or “In the Sweet By and By” or a multitude of the other old standard hymns and fill the other auditorium with a loud band, no matter how well they play and sing, leading the congregation in one of the latest contemporary Christian songs, and well, at this point, I probably don’t have to say which auditorium I’d quickly enter! 

            I don’t appreciate “loud” just for the sake of being loud!  I have come to realize as I’ve gotten older that my ears are very sensitive to very loud sounds.  So I cannot appreciate loud music when it’s so loud it is uncomfortable in my ears.  I’ve been in services when that was the case, and at least once or twice I had to leave the auditorium because of the loudness;  it was just too uncomfortable for me.  I couldn’t enter into singing the songs because first and foremost, the decibel level was just way too high.  It was contemporary (the congregation was singing along with prerecorded music) but I don’t remember if the songs were some I could enjoy or not.  The loudness of the sound cancelled out any possibility of enjoying the music.  On that note, I was at a concert at the Bangor State Fair one time when I would have enjoyed the music; the songs, the words, the message, the accompaniment were all a style I would have enjoyed immensely. The sound itself would have been great, BUT the volume was WAY too high for comfort.

*¹ After writing the above, I started reading the, Spiritual Anorexia, How Contemporary Worship is Starving the Church by Doug Erlandson.  The author stated several reasons why he believes churches should not change over from traditional to contemporary.  He does not say that contemporary music should be totally omitted from the worship service, but on the other hand neither should traditional hymns.  One of his points that rang true with me when I was reading is that contemporary music, rock music, is meant to be performed by a vocal band, not sung by a congregation.  It is performance music and it doesn’t have a lot of “sing-a-long-ability.” *² I have often felt that way, not about all contemporary worship music, but about a lot of it.  I have gotten used to some of the older contemporary pieces and some of them are not so bad, but I still don’t get the same inner peace and strength from most of them that I get from most traditional hymns.  I especially am moved when singing the traditional in a congregation where the hymns that are meant to move along are sung with gusto and the ones that are contemplative and searching are sung with the tempo that assists that experience. 

            Music IS an experience. It can be a great experience or not so much.  Mr. Erlandson also states that there is much repetition of phrases in the contemporary and that those standing up for contemporary can cite Psalm 136 as a case in point for using repetition in writing such music.  But, he goes on to say that in the Psalm, there are lines stating points why God’s “mercy endureth forever” between each “His mercy endureth forever.”  It does not just repeat the same phrase over and over without other phrases. 

            There is also in many contemporary songs a repetition not just of word phrases but also of melody phrases.  This is sometimes true in traditional hymns but again it’s not predominant as it is in so much of the contemporary. 

            Mr. Erlandson also states that one of the excuses folks use for switching away from the old hymns of the faith is that folks today like to sing what they know and that contemporary music in necessary to draw folks into church today.  His argument against that is that he knows of a church where they use most, if not all, hymns and that the church is strong and growing numerically.  Granted it is only one example, but I still say that if the music is presented right (not all slow and dead sounding) then folks of all ages will be able to enjoy it.  There’s nothing wrong with giving an old hymn an upbeat rhythm and being sung like folks mean what they’re singing.  And just HOW are folks today going to know these old hymns if the churches are throwing them away?

            Another point he made in his book, although a minor one, is concerning the hymnbook itself.  Many churches today, even for the traditional services, are using technology casting the words on a screen up front instead of using the hymnal.  Although there is nothing inherently wrong with this, it is more difficult for those who read music to learn a new hymn sometimes, depending on the hymn.  I can usually sight read a song I’ve never seen before and follow along with the piano or organ without much trouble at all.  If I don’t have the notes in front of me, I may have to hear it two or three times or more before I begin to “get” it.  Even then, it is far easier to sing a new-to-me traditional hymn than a new-to-me contemporary song.  As Mr. Erlandson said, one can usually easily feel (hear) one’s way through a hymn but contemporary music often seems to have no rhyme nor reason to its patterns.  Hence, its sing-a-bility and learn-a-bility levels are much lower as a general rule.

Well, here are my thoughts on church music.  You're more than welcome to disagree with me.  As I've said, these are my opinions.  That's how I feel and your taste may be totally opposite to mine.  And that's fine with me.  I can agree to disagree and still be friends!

Until next time, it’s always night SOMEwhere, so Good Night and God Bless!
Romans 15:33 May the God of peace be with you all. Amen 

Blessings, 

Mona in Maine