There is a movement, that has been around for a long time, to remove traditional 4-part hymn singing from the churches and to replace it with unison chorus singing. When one tries to have a discussion of it the chorus singers always come down to " Well, it's okay because God loves all music.", seemingly missing the point completely. After all, God loves our naked bodies too but that doesn't mean we all show up to church naked; at least that movement has not reached my congregation yet.
People like myself do not only support the idea of keeping 4-part singing for the obvious comfort it gives to the old and vulnerable in our congregation but also because it is the job of higher institutions to give the masses something to aspire to. If we dumb down the sermons or music we are insulting our listeners. I really appreciate how the writer Daniel Gregory Mason explains this concept.
I wonder if you have ever heard the story of the great nature-lover, Thoreau, and the Indian arrowhead. It was told by a friend of his who went with him on one of those long walks which he so loved to take all about the country near Concord, and in the course of which he saw and heard such wonderful things. The two men fell to talking of those rude arrowheads, chopped from stone, which are almost the only relics now to be found of the Indian tribes that used to hunt in that region; and Thoreau's companion expressed his surprise that any one could ever see, in those wide fields around them, such mere chips of quartz. "Here is one now," replied Thoreau, stooping and picking one up at his friend's very feet.
Thoreau was justly proud of his keen powers of observation and used to explain it by saying that he knew what to look for. "nature," he writes in one of his books, "does not cast pearls before swine. There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate- not a grain more....There is no power to see in the eye itself," he insists, "any more than in any other jelly. We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads."
What is here so well said of the eye is equally true of the ear. As there is indeed no power to see in the eye itself, so there is no power to hear in the ear itself. We cannot see until we know what to look for; we cannot hear until we learn how to listen. Yet how few people realize what care and study, what love and enthusiasm, are needed to make a good listener, especially to that rarest, subtlest form of sound - music!
We often hear people say, for example, that they are fond of popular music but that what they call "classical music" is too dry and heavy for them. They say this complacently, as if it were entirely the fault of the music, and their state of mind couldn't possibly have anything to do with it. Yet the reason for their preference for the commonplace is that they are not yet trained to seize the more delicate beauty of a melody by Schumann or Chopin. Let them cultivate their power of hearing by listening with their minds as well as their ears, and these rare, finer beauties will charm them more each day, while the old popular favourites will in the same proportion grow to seem more and more noisy, meaningless and stale. (taken from The Canada Book of Prose and Verse)
I myself, am one who has only the most elementary form of musical training. I have that aggravating amount that lets me know there is something there but what that something is, is usually beyond me. I am still in the stage where I appreciate music with words more than pure music and that is because I need that guidance to understand the music. I am not yet a sophisticated listener.
Many of the advocates for unison simple singing in my circles are classically trained musicians. They can afford to play these simple songs in church because they are exposed to classical music in other settings, but for many the church is their place of live music. It is their only chance to expose their listening minds to more complex forms. Popular music is available everywhere, you can't get away from it. It can be used in Sunday School and Youth nights and all informal gatherings, so you don't need to come to a formal worship service to hear more of it.
As stated. I have no formal music education and sing at the top of my lungs when watching the
Mama Mia movie but because of exposure to good music in my church and home I can discern that Bach's Mass in B minor is slightly more complex than ABBA's
Chiquita. I know I am only catching a little of what Bach intended and the fact that there is so much more to discover is exciting to me.
I really want our institutions like churches and schools to give people something higher to aspire to in all aspects of life. Athletics, Art, Music, Academics, and Spiritual fulfillment. If they don't, who will?
