Worship Notes: The Power of Music - February 2021
Spoiler Alert, this is long, I’m sorry!
I did my best to shorten it,
but there’s so much to say. – RAS
Last fall I enrolled in a class (virtual of course) at Calvin Theological Seminary in their Worship Leadership program called “Music and the Arts in Worship.” I have always loved school (I’m a geek that way), but admittedly, it had been a long time since I had written a paper or done assignments, maybe more than 30 years! For the record, my grade was stella. 😊
The class was fantastic and the learning so affirming, giving me new frameworks for looking at how the arts form us in worship. God is a creative God, and he has gifted humanity with creativity. Poetry, visual arts, kinetic arts (dance, movement), theatre arts, narrative arts (story) and of course the musical arts: all of these enrich our awareness of God, show us new ways of knowing God, and connecting with God and each other in worship. We don’t “have to” incorporate the arts in worship, we get to let the arts be a part of our worship! The arts remind us that we are not simply “brains on a stick” but we have emotions, senses, and imaginations that can be engaged in so many ways. The arts enrich our experience of God.
Clearly the musical arts are the most familiar to all of us in the worship context. We sing and we play instruments, we enjoy harmonies, and tunes, and the turn of a musical phrase. Every art-form has a singular (or particular) power that is different from another art-form (poetry, dance, visual art) but for now I’ll focus on the particular power of music.
Music’s power lies in these things (apart from any lyrics or text): melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo (speed), volume, repetition, reverberation, and silence. The ways that all of these things connect in one particular song or piece of music, give it a power that affects our emotions and senses in sometimes inexplicable ways. How does the way the melody line rises and rises, until finally gently falling again support the lyrics? Why does that “space” (that silence) help us anticipate the new phrase? How does the increasing volume draw us into the song and its intensity? How does that repetition underscore an idea, or encourage, or allow us to be immersed in God’s presence? Some would argue that we ought not to be emotional in worship, or have emotional responses to music, or be “manipulated by music”, but here’s the truth: all music has emotive power by its very nature. Music forms us in ways that are sometimes beyond our brain’s rational power to understand
And then there’s the power of context. Two examples from my own life:
“Hallelujah Chorus” by Handel.
For some of us this is the epitome of classic choral music. Personally, I’ve sung it so many times it may have lost some of its luster for me (the alto line is not the most exciting, in my humble opinion). But because I have memories of the different directors, different cities, different choirs, different contexts that I’ve sung it in, this piece will still hold power for me. For some families in my previous congregation, going to a Handel’s Messiah concert every December was tradition. But I suspect that the young Syrian refugee couple wondered what all the fuss was about. I have no doubt that if we analyzed this music (and if you enjoyed that sort of theory) we would find much to love about the music itself and the ways that Handel had fun with rhythms, and the inter-play between the choral parts. Some might wonder at all the repetitions of the word “Hallelujah” and “forever and ever”. And that huge “slowing down” at the end of the piece, that is intentionally emotion-grabbing! That’s what music does. Even while I intellectually and musically comprehend the beauty of the piece, my “love” for it comes because of my experience in singing it, in hearing it; that is, the context. But I don’t expect everyone to love it in the same way.
“The Blessing” by Kari Jobe.
Why has this song gained so much traction in the last year, world-wide? Is it musically amazing, compositionally unique? A chant-like verse rises and falls simply. The “Amens” increase in volume, using a step-like sequence that sings easily. Where are the other “powers” of this song (beyond even the great Biblical text from Numbers 6: 24-26)? I tried not to like this song actually and I wanted very much not to include it in worship (in my previous church) simply because everyone else was. I thought musically there were some difficult lines in the bridge for congregational singing (the octave jump), and a lot of repetition that I thought made the song longer than it needed to be. But it just kept coming up, everywhere, and eventually I thought, “Okay, I will try just the simple verse and chorus with my Facebook Live mid-week worship and sing it for the participants as an encouragement of God’s presence in our lives during the pandemic.” And we all simply cried at the beauty and simplicity of this song of intense comfort and hope in a time of stress and uncertainty. We were hooked. And it became our parting song every mid-week service. The parts that were difficult became easier with repetition and arranging the song in a singable key made it very doable. Context is powerful. I will always remember this song and how it “worked on our hearts” in the year 2020.
All music has the power to form us, or not. The music itself shapes its role in the service (are we looking for energetic praise, or reflective meditation?) and our own experience and context shape how we accept or reject a song, and thus how it forms us. How will you let the music we play and sing in worship shape and form you through God’s Spirit?