Music in Church…that old gripe
Corporate worship requires others. We need to choose and write and sing those hymns and songs that make us require one another. We need to get less interested in Christian karaoke, or trying to imitate the worship CD we play in the car. Four-part harmonies (or even two-part harmonies), call and response, canons (or rounds) cannot be sung alone. And simple, ancient melodies (like those of folk tunes) that teach us to ride a particular arc of pitch and rhythm (rather than the glitch and surprise of so much solo music) can bind us together as well. I want to write, sing, and lead such songs. This requires, often, more work, better, singing, deeper commitment.
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We should be very careful what we put in other people’s mouths. Because songs only exist when they enter and leave the bodies of others (either when they are sung or when they are heard), writers of hymns and leaders of singing need to be more careful than ever about the kind of textual relations we have within our bodies (see provocations three and four above). Too often we sing, over and over, lyrics that break under the weight of repetition. Precisely because music lodges in our senses, our memories of the texts with which music is joined will form some of our most powerful spiritual and theological experiences.
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Songs must praise, but they must also lament (we have almost no space for lament in much of our worship). They must speak for individuals, yet they must always reckon with us as members of a community. They must turn us toward God, toward one another, and toward a world beyond the ends of our tongues.
