One of my friends was a (semi)professional comedian. I love his jokes. I saw him on TV once and he had the whole concert hall in stitches. But he could be terrible company sometimes. If, hanging out with friends, you tried to make a joke which didn’t go so well he would respond in mock condescension: ‘oh please Andy, leave it to the professionals’.
In some contexts professionalism is out of place. And my church is one of them.
The push to professionalism in our music has a long history. The middle ages had competing styles of music. On the one hand there was Gregorian chant, which was simple simple simple. This came from (I think) a suspicion of emotion and a desire to strip everything back so that the rational propositions of the Scriptures would be more clear to us.
On the other hand, other styles of music became way complex. Things got so out of control that people often couldn’t tell what language was being sung, and Pope John XXII got concerned that we had lost sight of the purpose of church music.1
Originally, music had been a communal activity. While Tertullian hints that some songs were performed by good singers,2 Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom and Basil the Great all give the impression that the focus was communal singing.3 Just prior to the reformation, this priority to the communal was in danger of being obscured. In the style of music called ‘Lector chant’ the crowd would merely sing the occasional ‘alelluia’. In the style called ‘Schola chant’ trained clergy would do it all. The average punters could not pull off the quality of music that was desired, and so they left it to the professionals.
I don’t dispute that the quality of music is important in church. I am not even against paying professional musicians to be involved in services, where the size and strategy of the church demands it. But whatever we do, I think the purpose of singing should remain firmly in our view. Employing professional musicians may help people to sing better in a large auditorium, because the pressures of performing in such a large space require a level of skill or commitment which is beyond most volunteers. It is no different, in my mind, to employing a full time minister to prepare sermons. But if the pursuit of professionalism actually disenfranchises the average people the pews so they don’t sing any more, then I think we have a problem. We don’t want to leave it to the professionals.
1 Evans, Music in the Modern Church, 27.
2 Flynn, ‘Liturgical Music’, 770.
3 John Chrysostom, ‘On Psalm 145’ at para 1469; Ambrose of Milan ‘Commentaries on the Twelve Psalms of David’ at para 1158; Basil the Great, ‘Homily on Psalm 1’ at para 1346, in Johnson, Worship in the Early Church: Anthology of Historical Sources.
Hi Andy, I have time off this morning and so feel like responding because I'm so interested in this area.
ReplyDeleteI would like to ask the question, 'what is professionalism?' Because I think you would probably miss it if it wasn't there. One of the most awesome things about Barney's for example, is that everything - not just the music - is done with such care and attention to detail. In other words, people who are committed to their calling to serve are drawn to carry out their jobs as best as they personally can. That means not striving for a perfection which is unattainable, but for excellence (a very valuable lesson Steve Crain taught me). So yes, I would think that a sense of professionalism amongst even non-professional musos is surely a sign of a healthy ministry and is to be encouraged. When I was a newcomer to Barney's back in about 2005, the sense of professionalism that I found there had quite an influence on me.
Careful talking about historical music! Everything is very murky in that world. Chant goes back more than a thousand years, and how it has been sung has changed enormously. It was probably much more fluid and emotional a thousand years ago - it can probably be compared with how people groups in the mediterranean basin or the near middle east sing traditional music today i.e. FUN! The simplicity and slowness we associate with it is a product of the last 3 centuries or so, and the fact that it was written down (all the nuance is lost when you write something down).
I have a theory which I'd like to one day write about (I have some evidence already) that every time there was a revival in the church or a new movement, it was accompanied a new and fresh take on congregational singing. Then, a generation or so later, the fresh simple and usually fast style starts to crystalise into something stodgy and slow when the movement 'runs out of steam'/gets old/gets religious. Over multiple centuries this becomes ludicrous! A symptom of a healthy church seems to be that it sings new music. This phenomenon of new becoming old occurs at least every 100-200 years or so, but seems to have accelerated in the 20th century.
Anyway, sorry if this was too long. I guess it's just because it is a favourite subject of mine.
Chris Berensen
www.berensens.com
Thanks for your thoughtful comments Chris! I know I'm on sacred ground talking about church music history so I hope I didn't offend anyone. My (limited) research concerned the use of chant just prior to the reformation, and is (of course) open to the charge of over-generalisation. But whatever was happening in your average churches, it was consistently un-congregational enough to inspire a generation of reformers to OVERREACT the other way (as we often do)! We can add that overreaction of the next generation into your cycle, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I'm deliberately ignoring the question of excellence - which I am entirely in favour of, as you say, whether we're talking paid musicians or volunteers. No point in playing badly!!!
Nice to hear from you Chris!
As I was brought up outside the church, my first contact with the christian religious paradigm was through choral singing.
ReplyDeleteThe sense of community, connection and transportation that arises in the context of singing with others is a very powerful thing. More, large group singing gives a participant a visceral experience of being both very small and completely integral to a grand design that I can only express as being specifically and importantly spiritual.
As a (fully)professional (semi)comedian, I would add: your friend misses the point of humour as an everyday joy. It's like saying that because olympic walking is an elite pursuit, nobody else ought to engage in the pleasures of a morning stroll. Arguably, there is more pleasure in the unprofessional exercise.
Hi Alice, thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree the beauty of singing with others is profound - like living strings bound together as one chord, a church father described it.
ReplyDeleteI should say, though, that I think my comic friend was probably mostly kidding :)
Hope to hear from you again, Alice
Andy
Thanks for provoking thought Andy, i enjoyed thinking through what you wrote.
ReplyDeleteIt echoes thoughts I have had about the professionalism of most things we do in the church. We spend so much time and energy pouring into strategies, programs and advertising (albeit some have more financial resources than others), and we can be so well run, that we organise out God.
The example of a church which was situated amidst a city largely hostile to christianity, and located in a hard to reach place with limited parking and frustrating facilities - yet grew like I have never seen any church I've been involved in grow - still excites me (it was one of the Mars Hill sites) - because our best laid plans are but foolishness compared to Gods wisdom.
Totally agree that we should work hard, with quality, at anything we do, like you said, but not seek to be so smart or professional that we can explain everything. Professional strategies have their wisdom, but God's supremacy and will overtakes that, and the more we see of God's work and not ours, the greater our trust in Him is (rather than ourselves!).
Hope this didn't seem too off-topic :)
Naomi
Hi Naomi - not off topic at all! Thanks for your input
ReplyDelete