In my previous post, I put forward the tentative thesis, disguised as someone else's, that 'folk' music was the best way to describe the form of music that ought to be found in churches. It is a particular expression of a theology of church of course. It is missional, in that adapts to local conditions; it is non-elite, in that it is accessible by the community without asking extraordinary skill or learning (thus reflecting the priesthood of all believers); it is open to being sanctified for its use by the Christian community.
Necessarily, some forms of music are going to be excluded from this because they are not aesthetically shaped to the purpose of singing together to God. While no particular form of music is commanded or sanctified in scripture, as we try to adapt different forms of music to use in Christian fellowship as expressions of common life we will soon realise that some styles are just so ill-suited they will never work.
In each age, certain musical styles offer themselves in different ways for adaption for use in church meetings. The traditional tunes that we find used in 'Be Thou My Vision' or 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God' are already deeply embedded in the history and culture of the community from which they emerged as an expression of commonality - the pride and security of togetherness is the note they immediately sound. These features really work for church music because of the overlap - Christians want to express precisely those feelings and truths about their God. The return of Celtic-sounding melodies in the music of Townend and Getty works because we associate that style of music with rousing fellow-feeling. If anything, the danger is that it is a little militaristic - they all sound like national anthems in the end!
In our day, the popular song is the form that we find ourselves most aping in our church music. The popular song is nicely fit for purpose when it comes to church music, too - but in a different way. I would want to argue that popular songs of the 20th century are all about love and desire. When we hear a popular song, we immediately associate it with this erotic theme. The singer is an individual singing about his or her longing or loss. That's the genre: when the Beatles play around with this genre and singing about Walruses and whathaveyou, we recognise that this stretching of the genre is taking place, and ride with it. The music of U2 is an interesting case of course: they express desire and love, but most often it isn't for another human being. It is often suggestive of a desire for God....
And this is quite apt. The Psalms give us this theme of longing and desire for God. We Christians recognise that the popular song is a ready-made vehicle for the expression of longing and desire for God, because we instantly think of this when we hear it.
However, this is where the pitfalls lie, too. Since the 1930s the popular song has revealed itself to be capable of quite complex and even profound expressions of grown-up and mature emotions. But it has also been the musical vehicle for short-cuts to emotional fruition. It has lent itself to cheesiness - to the trite, the cheap, the quick, and the disposable. It has a tendency to be an adolescent form of music for expressing adolescent experiences - challenging no-one about anything. It can be extremely limited as a mode.
And while the popular song expresses much of what we might want to say to God, it doesn't capture all of the gestures and attitudes that are available to us...
11 comments:
Great couple of posts, Michael. They've been really stimulating.
One thing that strikes me is that popular music at times (such as Pearl Jam) has a much stronger and more mature understanding of suffering (and to some extent, evil) than the theology implicit in the songs sung in contemporaries church (Blessed Be Your Name, anyone?).
More relevantly to your post though, what do you think are the precise features of a popular song that leads to the advantages and disadvantages you've pointed out? Is it the shorter length relative to classical music, the focus on timbre, or other things? Basically, assuming that if popular music is to be helpfully used to serve the church (and in this way become folk music in the way you've used that term), what features of it need to be considered and manipulated to make it readily serve rather than hinder?
Another query that I admit may be somewhat tangential: what do you make of the Christian genre of music / CPM? It's always struck me as, unfortunately, rather shallow, and not really making use of the advantages of pop music you've mentioned but still falling into its pitfalls.
Sean
Really enjoyed these posts. Popular music is all about desire... hmm. I'm not convinced you can give one overarching theme. The more you qualify it (the Beatles etc) the more you sound like you're describing all human cultural output!
I wonder if there are other clusters of values that would be good to highlight with pop? Sensibilities, rather than necessarily themes?
Got any suggestions Mikey? Happy to be more nuanced.
I think the Beatles were what they were precisely because of their grounding in the pop and rock'n'roll songs of the generation before them. Rock of course says pretty much 'I wanna ---- you, and soon'. It isn't so much erotic as wild! But Paul McCartney in particular had a love for the popular song as well. You hear it in the kinda doo-wop backing vocals of songs like 'She Loves You', and the girly 'woo' in 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand'. They had been listening to black vocal groups, and then translated it into Liverpudlian.... which of course meant a heavy dose of irony, and because they were clever and tripping on drugs, they played with these conventions.
Desire could be one of these sensibilities, but through RnRoll's history of country/gospel music individual religious desire has always been part of that mix.
I guess pop has always had a folk sensibility. It didn't take the Beatles to broaden it, cause folk, country etc all had broad themes in the 40s and 50s didn't they?
... conscious that I'm not really saying anything you haven't already written... just thinking out loud (while typing and not actually speaking out loud, go figure)
I've always had a musical sweet tooth, raised on beach boys, abba and choral music, painfully white-boy.
For me, the performance instinct is always pop, whether playing organ for hymns or bass, guitar or piano for your modern toons, for me the question is always pretty much "which abba effect will milk the emotion here?"... an eccentric view, I'll admit, and obviously not one I push as a general principle.
For me, the spirit of pop is fun and bliss, so it flicks pretty easily between human and divine love. For me, handel (think Zadok the Priest or Queen of Sheba) is pure pop. At its best I've found the people respond excellently to that approach and sing their lungs out, but I think that's more about clarity of purpose in performance (when I get it right with my limited technique) than the specific style.
I think bach is the best emotional user of chords ever, too complex and mind blowing to rate as pop in my lexicon, but too emotional to rate as jazz he's a kind of musical uber genius, and his music is profoundly spiritual.
Are we discussing group singing in worship or performance / expressing spirituality though music generally? I feel when I try to generalise everyone panics because they don't have a chart in their ring binder that corresponds to my paradigm.
For group singing there are a number of practical constraints: avoid styles based on melisma (decorative flourishes), small range (not too big a gap between the highest and lowest note in the song) etc. Rythmic simplicity.
Folk naturally fits these constraints, so has a great head start for group singing. Doesn't explain why in one generation the hymn book has been seemingly consigned to the scrap heap (and football matches) though...
I think the problem there is that hymns are perfect for group singing but because of their one-chord-per-note ratio, they are generally not playable on guitar without losing their melodic integrity: a fundamental conflict. Guitar divides the beat with the strumming, and the actual melody slows to a snails pace... ironically the faster and more furious the guitarists play, the slower the melody goes. So then everyone just gives up, which is a pity, because a well sung hymn is still a knock your socks off act of communal worship in my book.
In his book, 'With One Voice', Reggie Kidd identifies what he terms 'Bach, Bubba and the Blues Brothers' in music.
Bach equates to high music suited for expressing lofty and complex themes such as the numinous or the nature of God.
Bubba is folk music, indicative of most hymns of the evangelical tradition. Simple, but not simplistic, inviting group participation, and expressing community in the manner you've identified.
Blues Brothers is contemporary and popular. Informed by the past, but expressed for the present. The language of the people in song. While it represents where people are it is resisted because of it's common nature.
He argues that a place for each is needed in the life of the church and its praise.
He also spends some time exploring what he calls 'The Jubal Factor' which identifies those who (ordinarily) push musical and cultural boundaries outside the line of faith, leaving God's people to follow in their wake, while remaining within God's boundaries.
Gary.
[Jeremy Halcrow said:]
In response to MJ & Mikey Lynch:
The punk revolution of the late 70s divided popular music into two streams. One was dominated by love/desire (pop/R&B) and the other by angst/alienation (metal/indi/grunge/emo etc)
Even when stream 2 sings about love its still within the framework of the alienation of the individual.
...and now there is indigenous 'folk' hip hop (a whole other story)
You'll note that songs about angst/alienation dominated the upper reaches of JJJ's hottest 100 of all time last month.
Likweise its interesting that there seems to be an overlap between R&B and Pentecostalism. (check out Australian Idol!)
Jeremy - still too simplistic, I reckon.
The punk sensiblility existed before the late 70s (see the punk appropriation of mod and rocker cultures, for eg) and desire/alienation criss-cross between both genres you've outlined.
There is also music not as an expression of our experience, but a response to the object of reverence itself. Not folk music, but angel music. It's transcendent and achingly beautiful.
yeah, like I said, Abba
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