Super Bowl Sunday

People watch the Super Bowl for a multitude of reasons - the ads, the halftime show, the parties, oh, and the game too, I suppose. Personally, I never miss "America, the Beautiful" and the National Anthem. They always bring in some big name star, and I'm always curious to hear them.

I think Queen Latifah is great - and it did look like she might have had some technical difficulties with an ear piece - but why on earth did she need to breathe after every single note? She started "Oh, beau-" (BREATH) "-ti-ful." (BREATH) "For spa-" (BREATH) "-cious skies." That's three breaths in what should be one musical phrase! And so it continued, for the whole piece.

Of course, Carrie Underwood followed it up with my favorite breath-interrupted phrase in all music (almost everyone does it): "O say, does that Star Spangled" (BREATH) "ban----ner yet wave." It just proves that people are paying almost no attention the text. Can you imagine saying that sentence with a big breath in the middle of it?

Sometimes it seems like we've just quit holding musicians (and ourselves) to high standards of performance and participation. I'm going to blame American Idol in part for the declining musical standards. It's now accetpable just to shut your eyes and have an intensely personal experience singing a song. No true performer would make such a mistake. Music is about sharing a message with an audience. You need to open your eyes, prounounce your words, and be fully involved to make it a performance worth listening to.

I was just glad that both ladies sang decently in tune and with good tone and with most of their consonants in place. I know I must sound a bit like a cantankerous old organist today. But music is communication, and it's always a pity to see it cheapened. I hope you heard a message in this morning's music. What did you think of the opening hymn and the hymn of the day? I know at least one choir member who thinks it was a great change of pace. I'm always curious to hear more feedback about new hymns (ELW 525 for my non-Bethany readers).

A quick quiz

Here's a quick, one problem quiz for you:

Name two different pieces of music that I have played during communion at a worship service any Sunday in the past 18 months.

Can you name anything other than "Blowin' in the Wind"? And that, my friends, is a primary reason that I think it was a great addition to this past Sunday's worship: it was memorable. It made people talk. (In fact, some people who came to second service had already heard about it.) Now, I'm not saying that church musicians should be controversial simply for the sake of controversy and conversation, but it can be exciting to see people actually discussing the music, rather than blithely ignoring it.

Many mega-churches have gone to the extreme of contemporary music, having no pipe organs at all in place of a praise band, for instance. Rick Warren famously said that people don't listen to classical organ music in their home (or on their iPods), so why should they have to do so when they come to church? I have three responses to such a critique. First, the unique nature of the language and music of church is what sets it apart as a santuary for our community. Second, some of the music people don't listen to is among the greatest ever composed (just as some of the books we don't read are the truly great classics), and we have a responsibility to aid their propagation. Finally, we can maintain our traditions while also being flexible and welcoming new music, technology, language, and ideas - the most promising trend in church music is toward "blended" worship.

Plus, I do believe that philosophers, artists, composers, and musicians continue to grapple with the same driving questions about the human condition that the Bible raises. In this particular instance, Bob Dylan's answer "in the wind" is not that different from the ongoing search of the book of Ecclesiastes.

I hope you enjoyed the musical change of pace, and whether you did or you didn't, I'd love to hear from you any week!

Contemporary worship

The latest newsletter of the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists started a dialogue on "traditional worship in the 21st century." The article shared some interesting facts, and raised questions and shared ideas on how to use the organ in contemporary worship. I saw the driving force behind the dialogue as the author's question: "If the organ died tomorrow, would the council appoint a replacement committe or a committee to discuss direction and IF the organ should be replaced?"

Among the ideas shared there to help guarantee the relevance of organ music were two that I thought especially relevant for our church. One, maintain variety. The ELW has helped us by providing new hymns, psalms, and liturgies, but we've also been willing to use a variety of instruments and styles in all of our music. Two, provide information. This blog really grew out of my desire to do just that. I hope that my readers learn more about music, but I also want to encourage you to engage with me (and Cassie and Pastor and the WAM committee) in a dialogue about worship and music. We do our best to provide an interesting and dynamic worship experience, and I hope that organ music always remains a vital part of it, even as it continues to grow and evolve.

Laughing with God

Regina Spektor has recently recorded the song "Laughing with God" that I think is beautiful music as well as existential poetry. If you'd like to hear her sing it, this link has a music video.

Her lyrics make me think of Voltaire's comment that God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh. And it reminds me of a line from one of Robert Fulghum's books that there is a vast difference between a lump in your oatmeal and a lump in your breast. The secret of life is knowing the difference, knowing when and how to laugh with God.

Here are the complete lyrics to Regina Spektor's song. Consider it my prayer or meditation of the day, offered for your consideration as well:

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one's laughing at God when they're starving or freezing or so very poor.

No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one's laughing at God when it's gotten real late
And their kid's not back from the party yet
No one laughs at God when their airplane starts to uncontrollably shake
No one's laughing at God when they see the one they love
Hand in hand with someone else and they hope they're mistaken

No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door
And they say we got some bad news sir
No one's laughing at God when there's a famine fire or flood

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they're 'bout to choke

God can be funny
When told he'll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious Ha ha Ha ha

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one's laughing at God when they've lost all they've got
And they don't know what for
No one laughs at God on the day they realize that the last sight they'll ever see
Is a pair of hateful eyes
No one's laughing at God when they're saying their goodbyes

No one's laughing at God
We're all laughing with God

Unorthodox wisdom, Part 7 - Michael Jackson music in church

You may have heard of Trinity Wall Street primarily for its proximity to Ground Zero and the church's transformation into a place of respite and support in the days following the 9/11 attack. I visited again last December, and the place still contains powerful tributes to that time.

Today, however, I want to share a YouTube video of their organist playing a tribute to Michael Jackson as the postlude. The organist Robert Ridgell is incredibly talented, and I'm sure he made many people smile. Of course, if you read the comments you'll notice that he made many people frown as well. Anything out of the ordinary, and especially such a radical postlude, is sure to bring polarization and comments.

I'll admit to my ignorance of most of Michael Jackson's work. (I was only 4 years old when Thriller was released, and I spent most of my youth as a musical theatre and classical piano geek. For better or worse, rock and pop music barely registered on my radar.) The one song I've always known best is "Man in the Mirror" - one of the top downloads and best selling songs worldwide in the past week. It includes this Gandhi-esque lyric that I think most Christians would agree is a good philosophy of life:

If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change.

Incidentally, Trinity also has a great web site in general (www.trinitywallstreet.org). Their music pages include podcasts and information on services and concerts. They also have a number of blogs, written by both staff and members. I think it's inspiring to see such a traditional looking church be so enmeshed with modernity and technology and the world today.

Change in perspective

The musical Jekyll and Hyde includes this lyric: "One rule of life we cannot rearrange, the only thing constant is change." Of course, all our discussion lately about contemporary music, new liturgical settings, and so on are a question of how much change is appropriate and when. How much of the past should we cling to? How do we keep the best of it, while still evolving and growing over time?

Those questions were in the back of my mind this afternoon when I sat down to read Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter. I'm certainly not a linguist, but I'm perpetually fascinated by both language and history. This book explores the origins of our modern language as well as its quirks and eccentricities.

What I most noted, however, was a two-page summary of the progression of the English language, beginning with Beowulf in Old English and passing through a whirlwind of historical highlights, including Chaucer's Middle English writing, Shakespeare's plays, the King James Bible, Samuel Johnson's dictionary, and Jane Austen. Somehow that progression seems neat, orderly, even teleological - English is constantly changing while also improving until it reaches "the end" sometime in the 19th or early 20th centuries. In McWhorter's words, "...somehow there seems to be an idea that the process had an inherent end point, beyond which we are not to go. It's as if somebody somewhere had been endeavoring to meld...the English we have right now, that they officially declared themselves finished sometime not long ago, and that from now on, we are not to mess up their creation."

That's not much different from the progression of music we could expound: Gregorian chant, Monteverdi, Bach (Luther), Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Brahms, Chopin, Wagner, Debussy...and then we're done. We don't need pop, rock, blues, jazz, 12-tone, atonal music, or any of the other oddities that the modern world has given us...or do we?

We'd never give up the diverse wealth of 20th century literature, but we might pick and choose some of the best from each decade. Similarly, we need to sample music of the modern styles and eras, being judicious in our standards. The jumble and confusion we experience is a problem of perspective. It's too easy to pigeonhole the 18th century because we only know a handful of names, dates, and facts about it. The 1960s are considerably harder to summarize because it's such a recent lived experience; we haven't yet decided what was the best and what was the worst, what will last and what will fade away.

The debate itself is where the value lies when it comes to modern music, so don't be afraid to make suggestions or comments anytime. You'd hate to leave the process to the "experts" only, wouldn't you?

What is contemporary?

As I mentioned about the music this week, Joanne and I contributed some music with a distinctly more modern sound - Joanne singing with a more modern, pop style and me playing a jazz piano arrangement. Both drew some positive comments, which we're always glad to hear. Feedback from the congregation does factor into music programming, because we always hope to provide a variety of musical sources so that the Gospel message can be carried to listeners of all kinds of backgrounds.

There were other examples of contemporary texts and tunes during the service, however, that may have gone overlooked. In fact, with the exception of the postlude (from a Handel organ concerto), the entire service was drawn from American sources post-1850:

"Faith of Our Fathers" was written in 1874 and played the funeral of Franklin Roosevelt.
"This is My Father's World" is an early 20th century hymn about the beauty of upstate New York.
"Stand up, Stand up for Jesus" was based on a YMCA sermon of the late 1850s.
"Eternal Father Strong to Save" is often referred to as "The Navy Hymn." It originated in the Civil War era, and it was played as part of the funeral ceremonies for both JFK and FDR.

To a casual listener, there isn't a great deal of difference between some of the hymns of Luther's era and the hymns of the American hymn writing tradition of the late 19th century. Why is that exactly? For starters, the four-part chorale is both familiar and highly singable for most Lutherans. In other words, stylistic similarities make it easier to sing 900 different hymns (notice that different hymns every Sunday don't trouble us the way that a new liturgy every week would).

I encourage you to read the entire page of the hymnal, including the dates of composition, composers, and writers. Try to learn more about them - by reading here or elsewhere and by asking questions. A broader awareness can only deepen the meaning of the hymns, and it also can remind us that superficial similarities can be deceiving.