On Christmas Eve, we had an unusual service in my church, in which a sequence of songs alternated with scripture readings replaced much of the liturgy of the word, in unconscious reflection of the Easter Vigil. Having just led a three week adult session on the Psalms, I was particularly attuned to the role of song in this service, and was struck by how naturally it flowed, and I wondered about that.
In the Psalms, we sing praises and laments. Most secular songs, or so it seems without having done a formal analysis, are songs of love and loss, the same themes, intended for one another's ears instead of the ears of the divine. But songs draw us, naturally and powerfully. As Steve Jobs said famously of music more generally, "It's in our DNA."
So the thesis emerged that our speaking voice is an evolutionary development of growling. Our words, our sentences, are mere growls, chewed into shape. Our speaking voice is our animal voice, with which we convey our lesser emotions. Steve Jobs' effort to express the depth of our attachment to music was rightly intended, but wrongly formed: our attachment to song goes deeper into our humanity than our DNA. Our singing voice is God's gift to us, which we return to him in praise and lament, and which we share with one another. A voice that can convey our highest emotions, through which the Spirit itself intercedes, praying with “sighs too deep for words1.” Our human voice.
Peace
1Romans 8:26.
9 comments:
I like to sing. I used to get a sore throat a lot but now realize I had an allergy -- I think to the perfume that people wear.
So i started taking pills, and can now sing through the whole service.
I also crossed myself this week.
Har har.
Happy New Year, Stu!
to sing is to pray twice
-some pious catholic saint said that
"lessons and carols"
is becoming a typical catholic christmass event sort of a concert before mass begins on christmass eve
my sense is the origin is in benedictine practice of readings chants and benedictions the major structure of the Divine Office
we do lessons and carols every day
bach's CHORALES were designed to be the sung catechetical pieces of worship
the christmas oratoria are a complete liturgical treatment of the themes of advent christams and epiphany - i am forever perplexed as to why we don't hear the christmas oratorios and are every year inflicted with crap around the MESSIAH by handel what a piece of crap i hate that music yeck
let's heare the christmas oratorios
i find it difficult to decide if i should sing like a cowboy sittin by the campfire or like a well groomed tenor in a church choir
duende
jh
Some churchly musick (like the Best of Bach) can be quite pleasing, at least until the choir starts to sing.
Frater jh is mostly correct tho' in regards to Handel's Missiah . Overrated, loud, and long.
Many anglican hymns sound fairly...authentic. Not quite as...the usual baptist-gozpel or preacherly as most evangelical music, tho' probably not sufficiently mysterioso for most catolicos.
Feliz Ano Nuevo, Mr. Stu.
A Happy New Year to all!
"Lessons and Carols." Our AIM (that's associate in ministry, which I think of as being a fancy deacon) picked this up in Cambridge (UK), and the claim is that the practice originated there during WW I. If so, the origins would be Anglican, rather than Catholic. But I don't know, and am just passing along what I've heard. It seems plausible, though.
I don't mind Handel so much as jh and J, but a steady diet is ridiculous. Once a decade or so is fine by me, which would provide apt opportunity for other forms. The thought of the first sopranos (aka Divas) hung out to dry on a high A completely justifies the work in my opinion ;-), YMMV.
My church choir knocks itself out for Palm Sunday rather than Christmas, having done the Mozart Coronation Mass and Rutter Requiem Mass in recent years. For Christmas this year, we sang selections from the contemporary "A Baby Changes Everything," on the fourth Sunday of Advent. In theory, I'd rather we held off until Christmas Eve, but people travel, and we'd lose too many choir members. FWIW, I'm a tenor, too, and had a brief solo.
Lutheran Churches used to be a solid part of the all-Bach network, especially for prelude/postlude. The repertoire has broadened in recent years, but Bach is a big part of it. I like to think that the Lutheran Hymns are authentic too. That said, I think that the one place where ecumenism has had its greatest practical contribution is in opening up the various denominations to music which has been historically identified with other traditions. I'm no great fan of "Shall We Gather By the River," which was a favorite of our former Pastor (and therefore something we sung ~6 times/year). My tastes run more towards "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," but I know that I'm idiosyncratic. I love the Taizé community's music, and I even like some contemporary gospel, as long as the theology is sound (too much of it isn't, I'm sad to say).
I think I've mentioned Matisyahu before, too. Great music. Messianic hassidic reggae. What's not to like? When I covered contemporary musical settings of Ps. 137, his was the only one that attempted to engage the second couplet:
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
Of course, no one tries the third, which ends with this...
O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!
I view this as the basis of a truly difficult exercise in Hymn writing.
i think and i may be mistaken
that the practice of lessons and carols as we know it today is indeed an anglican 19th century creation....yet i can't help but believe that the liturgical roots are in the benedictine practice of the vigil service of christmas eve which flowed directly into the midnight mass...much the way evensong is the adaptation of vespers
handels music was designed for the stage
bach wrote for church
and he wrote with zeal
the problem with hearing bach done very well is that everything else seems to pale after it...almost like...why bother with anything else
when there's this BACH
i recently was in the intimate presence of a cellist who played selections from the cello suites
i am still devastated
i can't think straight
i love taize
it is the heartbeat of ecumenical christianity
we sing many lutheran hymns here
and anglican 1980 hymnal
goin up to the spirit in the sky
jh
Bach's organ musick in minor keys sounds quite heavenly, tho' at times his major key music sounds a bit....overly germanic and slightly patriotic or something. I prefer some chant-like sounds to the endless baroque polyphony. The Right Reverend Eric Satie.........
you've got to give the writer
of psalm 137 credit for being honest
not pretty
perhaps not in touch
with the fullest dimension
of god's love
but honest about
his/her present state of mind
Sally—
you've got to give the writer
of psalm 137 credit for being honest
Oh, I do. The fury conveyed by the totality of Ps. 137 is like little else in the Bible. But who could question its authenticity?
Peace.
I even like some contemporary gospel, as long as the theology is sound (too much of it isn't, I'm sad to say).
I don't know if anyone is still following this thread, but I'm curious about this statement of stu's. What would be an example of a contemporary gospel song that does not have sound theology?
sally
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