A Reading List for Music in Worship

I am preparing to teach my first collegiate course in the subject I have lived for three decades: Music in Worship. So now I take three decades of attention, and shelves of reading, and pare it down to a “reasonable” Reading List for undergraduate seniors and seminary students. This is a bit like answering the question, “What is your favorite hymn?” Well now, that depends, doesn’t it! So many to choose from, and context is everything.

Music in Worship will meet as a seminar for three hours on Monday nights. Undergrads will read up to 100 pages per week; seminary students a little more. We will spend four weeks on basic definitions (worship, liturgy, church music, congregational song), eight weeks on historical matters (biblical times through today), then have three weeks of symposia (hermeneutics, history, and culture). In the final class meeting students will present, defend, and lead the class through their designs of a musical segment of public worship.

The Reading List

Required 

• Begbie, Jeremy S. Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
• Block, Daniel A. For the Glory of God: Recovering a Biblical Theology of Worship. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014.
• Dowley, Tim. Christian Music: A Global History. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.
• Pinsor, J. Matthew, ed. Perspectives on Worship: Five Views. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2009.

Dan Block’s book is to be released just in time for us to use this semester. His comprehensive view of worship, and his thorough treatment of biblical materials, makes this a must-have book in this discipline. Dowley’s Christian Music provides a chronological and global look at music and the Church. Pinsor’s Perspectives sticks with evangelical practice (appropriate for TIU and the students who will take this course), and puts the five practitioners in dialogue with each other. Begbie’s philosophical, historical, and theological reading of music is something that students (and worship leaders, and pastors) ought to be aware of and grapple with.

            In addition to these, seminary students will also be required to read the following, and to work through the question of whether or how music gives insight into theology:

• Begbie, Jeremy S. and Steven R. Guthrie, eds. Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011. 

Recommended/Suggested 

From the following titles students will select one book to read on their own.

• Best, Harold M. Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts. Downers Grove: IVP, 2003.
• Best, Harold M. Music Through the Eyes of Faith. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
• Brown, Frank Burch. Inclusive Yet Discerning: Navigating Worship Artfully. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.
• Day, Thomas. Why Catholics Can’t Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste. New York: Crossroad, 1993.
• Gordon, T. David. Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010.
• Hustad, Donald P. Jubilate II: Church Music in Worship and Renewal. Carol Stream: Hope Publishing, 1993.
• Johansson, Calvin. Music and Ministry: A Biblical Counterpoint. 2^nd edition. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998.
• Jones, Paul S. Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006.
• Kidd, Reggie. With One Voice: Discovering Christ’s Song in Our Worship. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.
• Myers, Kenneth A. All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture. Wheaton: Crossway, 1989. (2012 with new Introduction by the author)
• Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper & Row, 1951. (2001 edition by HarperCollins) with (or without) Carson, Donald A. Christ and Culture Revisited. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008. Recommended reading for seminary students. I do not want them to read Carson without reading Niebuhr first.
• O’Donnell, Douglas Sean. God’s Lyrics: Rediscovering Worship Through Old Testament Songs. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010.

This list is more clearly weighted to reflect my personal/professional/pastoral concerns, and I don’t apologize for that. (The list will almost certainly be changed, if not abridged, before the syllabus goes to print.) I will give the students a précis of each item on the list so they can choose according to their interests, questions, or taste. This course is designed to get students to wrestle with the issues of music in worship. The following semester course in worship is much more practical and focused on worship resources of all kinds.

There are still many books that I would like students to know about and read. But I have to remember that I’ve been at this a long time, and they are just getting started!

Feast of the Enunciation

A liturgy that sprang to mind whilst listening to new choral music in the car yesterday. 

Feast of the Enunciation

A service for the start of a new choir season

Director:

            Gather ye singers, with all your might,

            And let us sing with joy this night;

            And joy give ye to all that hear,

            Without an over-labored ear.

Chorus:  Who washed Washington’s white woolen underwear, when Washington’s washerwoman went west?

Director:

            The Maker gave us all we need

            To make a sound that others heed,

            To sing with clarity and verve

            And not get on our list’ner’s nerves.

Chorus: The lips, the tongue, the tip of the teeth.

Director:

            Though there be grace for every ill,

            And words be printed, even still

            I shall insist on clarity

            And that your words please even me.

Chorus: Poppy, petunia, poppy, petunia, gladiola.

Director:

            When singing with the instruments

            We will be taxed, but never spent;

            The vowels will make our sound so dear,

            But consonants make meaning clear.

Chorus: A tooter who tooted a flute, tried to tutor two tooters to toot. Said the two of the tutor, “Is it harder to toot, or to tutor two tooters to toot?”

Director:

            “The people know these words,” we say;

            But still, let’s not get in the way.

            The less they have to work at it,

            The more our message they will get.

Chorus: The sixth sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.

Director:

            I’ll say this many times, you know,

            And you’ll grow weary, even though

            To shut me up all you need do

            Is take to heart, and follow through.

Chorus: Minimal animal, minimal animal, minimal animal, minimal animal.

Director:

             Before we get to work we should

            Catch up, relax, for schmoozing’s good;

            We’ve lots of music yet to make,

            But first let’s take a social break.

Chorus: A cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee cup.

[Here at the Director’s discretion, s/he may announce the length of a break, along with other notices of immediate and local importance.]

[Let there be ample coffee, according to choral practice at all times and in all places. As circumstances allow, let there also be an assortment of edible goods.]

[After the break, the Feast of the Enunciation continues with the music appropriate to the Proper of the Season.]

                          

Agree to Disagree about the Ways we Agree

It’s my take on the old saying: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (a description of Voltaire’s principle, often wrongly ascribed to Voltaire himself)

With a book I’m working through now, my attitude is: “I approve of what you say, but I regret like death the way you say it.”

This particular biography and appreciation of Isaac Watts is a strangely articulated celebration of the father of English hymnody. The author asserts – and I agree with him – that the church of the 21^st century would be richer for knowing the hymns of Isaac Watts, and for writing new songs along the same principles. Amen! But I’m afraid the tone of critique, expressed in short tangents and off-hand comments, must surely put off the audience this author would most like to reach? Of what value is my appreciation for Isaac Watts if the way I present my case puts you on the defensive? For whom is the book actually written?

Far better, it seems to me, would be to present the case simply and forthrightly:

·         Watts’s hymns are colorful, expressive, clear, and simple

·         He wrote lyrics to be sung to tunes congregations could easily and heartily sing together

·         He wrote directly out of his engagement with Holy Scripture, and the hymns are rich in biblical and theological references, allusions, and themes

·         300 years after his death, we are still singing many of his psalm settings and hymns; and we still have to reckon with Isaac Watts.

Therefore, we might go on to suggest, modern writers and composers of congregational songs would do well to study Watts—his work, his principles—and make them our own in appropriate and disciplined ways.

And may I learn, from this helpful but flawed book, how not to press my own concerns—in private and in public.

Musical words and verbal music

I am late to the party for Lawrence Kramer’s Why Classical Music Still Matters (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). But, hey, only seven years late!

Kramer is the author of Interpreting Music, which factors into my thesis. I knew about Why Classical Music Still Matters, which—as it turns out—is sort of the accessible edition of Interpreting Music. (OK, that may be a gross misrepresentation.) Kramer’s contribution to my thesis is a philosophical/musicological argument that music may be subject to interpretation under certain carefully bounded conditions. In short, music is on its own terms; but sometimes music cannot be understood solely on the basis of a technical analysis . . . something non-musical may also be going on. The music might just mean something.

In Why Classical Music Still Matters, the author addresses specifically music written since the mid-eighteenth century, our “Classical” music (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) and “classical” music (art/concert music in the wake of those eighteenth-century masters). From this period on, he asserts, music was written primarily to be listened to. And (again, all too briefly stated in this post) “classical music still matters,” in no small part, because it helps us develop the skill of sustained listening.

But today I want to highlight a specific comment Kramer makes about “song,” specifically the nineteenth century art song. Franz Schubert set the standard for the Romantic art song (the Lied), effectively pairing poetic lyrics sung with piano accompaniments that serve as equal partners: equal in musical importance, equal in story-telling, equal in suggesting meaning.

“The result is neither a dialogue nor a synthesis, although it may have elements of both; perhaps it is best called a concurrence. In the vocabulary favored by Kierkegaard—Schubert’s younger contemporary—the song simultaneously makes words more musical and music more verbal. Words, which belong to the sphere of reflection, take on the quality of sensuous and emotional immediacy proper to music, while music assumes the free intelligibility of thought.” (Kramer, Why Classical Music Still Matters, 116. Emphasis added)

Here is another way to think through what I’m trying to say about why the music matters in what we sing in church. If music can be more (or less) verbal, then I want to be attentive to what music is doing in its concurrence with the words we sing. I want to give adequate credit to what may be an equal partnership between words and notes. Does this or that tune, one or the other accompaniment, sell its partner short, or lead it into a fuller depth of meaning?

What a tune does to a text

I’ve been reading Gordon Giles, The Music of Praise: Meditations on Great Hymns of the Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004). Giles is an Anglican vicar who has served at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. He has compiled hymns for each Sunday of the church year—Advent 1 through Christ the King.

Each week’s reading begins with the words in poetic form. (A “hymn” is the words, meant to be sung but distinct from the “tune.”) A short reflection follows, including some history of the text and tune, observations about how text and tune work, the relevance of the hymn to the particular Sunday, and a prayer.

I’m learning some new hymns. And I’m learning some new tunes, as well. Even with familiar hymns, the English often (usually?) sing different tunes than we do in the States. The book comes with a CD including twenty-one of the hymns, with choir and organ.

I don’t go looking for this sort of thing whilst reading a book like this . . . But I have sat up and taken notice of several of Giles’ comments that speak to my “soap box” issue. Namely, that how we sing affects our understanding of what we sing. Here are just a few examples I have noted along the way:

·         “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” – The tune Rockingham, to which it is invariably sung in Britain and elsewhere [ed. note: though, not, alas, in most evangelical churches in the US] is an exquisitely lyrical, flowing tune, which illustrates that love and sorrow, flowing, mingled, down. Words and music mingle, and we are slowly but surely swept along on a gentle tide of contemplation and worship. The major key is used, perhaps surprisingly, but therefore with greater effect. There is no lugubriousness here, no wallowing in the minor key as we sing of what a shame it is that Christ died. This old and famous hymn tune does not want to say that, or to make us say it; it wants us to boast in the death of Christ . . . And yet it is not a proud tune either. The triumph of the cross is muted, and the direction of the hymn is not outward; we are [not] telling it abroad, but rather internalizing our meditation on the suffering and the glory of the cross. (106–107, emphasis added) I just want to highlight here the idea that the tune functions in our contemplation, worship, and understanding. We understand the words differently with different tunes. I do not say “wrongly,” but differently. The notes matter.

·         “My Song Is Love Unknown” – It is no surprise that a specially written tune by an eminent composer [ed. note: John Ireland wrote the tune LoveUnknown specifically for this text]  fits the words so well, or that it manages to combine those two elements of inward reflection and outward declamation. It is written in the key of E flat major, when we might expect a minor key, but it conveys a hint of melancholy in its distinctive use of downward suspended notes in the tenor part. [ed. note: music theory alert] Thus, in the first verse, at the end of the first line, the music appears to rest on the word ‘unknown’, and does so on what appears to be a major chord (A flat, the fourth of the scale), yet, as the tenor line moves from an A flat to a G, we realize that this is a C minor chord, and the colour has therefore changed, even on one word. The same kind of movement is found at various points in the tune, and is emphasized at the midpoint, at the end of every fourth line. Thus there is penitence built in to this tune, and the ambiguity and irony of Crossman’s poem is reflected subtly and effectively. (117, emphasis added) Yes, it is entirely possible to sing these words to other tunes; at least one other tune, the Welsh Rhosymedre is one. This tune, Giles says, embodies the spirit and letter of the poem.

Full disclosure: I actually prefer a newer tune, Gunnar, written by Edwin T. Childs (MorningStar Music, 1999). There are many who only know “My Song Is Love Unknown” to this tune and believe it to be the only perfect fit for the text. I cannot argue against that sentiment. I only wish I could post a recording sung by the congregation and choir of College Church in Wheaton, for whom it was written.

·         “All for Jesus” (tune All for Jesus) – This is the closing hymn in John Stainer’s Passion cantata, The Crucifixion: At the cross, then, this hymn speaks of a majestic triumph: it really is quite rousing, and is not the kind of hymn we might expect to sing when thinking of the crucifixion of Jesus. The tune is expansive rather than lyrical, and it is in the bright key of F sharp, which is beyond the height of many a voice. (For this reason it can be good to transpose it down to D major, but if it is taken to the halfway house of E flat major, the flatness of the key can make the tune more lugubrious than it is intended to be.) (122, emphasis added; and yes, the use of the word “lugubrious” again, duly noted) Here is a subtlety of key selection that we do not often enough consider. Yes, by all means change the key in which a song if needed, to accommodate the voice of the congregation. But consider what impact the alternate key will have on the words. Not all major keys are equal, and the choice of key will affect the character of what is sung. “All for Jesus” – lugubrious, or majestic? Take your pick; but know what you’re choosing and think about what you’ll get.

The point of this post is to argue (again!) that the musical choices we make in congregational song—note: the music we choose to sing the words we put in peoples’ hands—will shape how we understand those words. Let’s be thoughtful and careful (theological) with the notes as well as the words.