Saturday 30 June 2012

Arts used for Theology

Jeremy Begbie is a very interesting theologian - a serious piano player before the decided to be a theologian, he has thought quite a bit about music and theology from two angles. The first is what Theology can do for the arts (helping us to understand the place of the arts, in his case music, in creation). He calls this 'theology for the arts'. But the other aspect is what the arts can do for theology, helping us to understand theological things through our experience of creativity. He calls this 'arts for theology'.
Here is a wonderful little video where he demonstrates some of the main contributions that music can make in helping us to think about God and life.

Some of his great observations (demonstrated by some quite nice playing):
  • The most wonderful music can come out of the most unlikely things. Variations by Rachmaninoff on Paginini's theme. Inverting the theme, making it major not minor. Something beautiful can be made out of something angular and cranky.
  • Even the worst can be woven into God's purposes. Once you've made the mistake - there are 88 keys on the piano but no delete key. You can turn it into a passing note, a note that doesn't fit with the underlying harmony but can be made to fit the context. He says: 'God can take your worst mistakes and turn them into his passing notes. I think every leader needs to recognise that.'
  • There is a type of non-order which is not destructive. Many of us think that the only two options in our lives are order and disorder', but there is also non-order. The jazz factor.
  • The connection between tradition and innovation: Every player has to be apprenticed into a tradition before you can innovate. 'Improvisation is the exploration of occasion' - having in mind these people, on this occasion, and not some other. 
  • The role of the Holy Spirit: For Begbie all this links up quite nicely with the doctrine of the holy Spirit. The Spirit's role seems to be bringing the great truths of Christ to bear on these people in this place and this time.

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Why spend so much money on producers and studios

In a few weeks Garage Hymnal will be spending a fair chunk of your money (that is, money which was yours if you support our ministry by buying CDs or making tax deductible donations!) recording a couple of tracks towards a new album. We are rehearsing and writing for the next few weeks and God willing will then head up to the central coast to record at the Grove Studios with our longstanding friend and producer David Nicholas.
Are we wasting our money?
A lot of people aren’t using studios or producers any more. I spoke to a friend yesterday about the declining studio and production market – globally, but particularly in Sydney. He reckons it goes in cycles. Ten years ago the record labels were letting all the bands record themselves and self-produce. Then they realised the bands were bringing out sub-standard albums and started employing producers again. The cycle has flipped back to self-produced again.
I think it’s worth us resisting the fashion and spending money on a studio and producer.
While computer setups in our bedrooms have advanced, and reduced the cost of recording hugely for everyone, studios are still worth hiring. They do make for better music. No matter how good your software is, if you’re recording music with real human involvement (vocals, drums, real pianos, etc) at some point that music has to be made in a room, into a microphone, gained up by a mixing console, and converted to digital form. All those processes can be done cheaply, but they will sound less like the real instrument or voice. You can record your band in your bedroom, but few people have the space to record a whole band at the same time, meaning music is more pre-planned and less interactive because you can’t be all in the same room at the same time making the music (like writing out a conversation with someone before you talk to them, you can’t interact you can only guess what they’ll say).
Of course, some forms of music thrive in the bedroom – things with programmed drums and highly processed vocals, for instance. And I like that type of music – sometimes. But it’s not the only type of music.
The other thing we think is worth our while is bringing in a producer. Anyone can call themselves a producer. There is absolutely no reason why a band can’t produce themselves. Our band has several members who have produced records for other bands! But what our band doesn’t have is an experienced, impartial coach to bring the best out of us. Self produced records are all the rage – but it takes maturity to recognise you have things to learn, and to seek out people who can develop your talent. We are hugely grateful for what David has done for us as a band in honing our sound and helping to get the best out of our songs. Most of what he does is actually to do with song structures – helping the listener’s experience to flow through the song so they are always left wanting more. You’ll never know the difference – you can’t hear his work, as such. But we have made better albums because of him!
Can’t wait to get into a nice big studio with our favourite producer!

Sunday 17 June 2012

Now THAT'S a good PA

On Friday night we played a gig for the Bush Church Aid Society at St Barnabas' Anglican Church, which is on Broadway, just down from Sydney's Central Station. A historic church building, it was destroyed by fire six years ago. Our gig was the first official public event to be held in the new building.

Needless to say we were very keen to check out many aspects of the new building. It's an elegant design which draws you in off the busy Broadway. It's an accessible building - lifts, accessible doors, and clear entrances and exits. You're never in any doubt where to go - the building draws you in. And, of course, it's got much better fire safety than the old building!

But the thing we were most nervous to check out was the acoustics, and the installed sound system.

The verdict? Hats off to the good people of St Barnabas for one of the best sounding church sound systems I've ever heard. What you hear in the auditorium is exactly what it is meant to be: evenly distributed to every seat (no bright spots, or black spots), smooth across the frequency ranges, speech was very clear, and music was accurately reinforced coming off stage.

This is all the more impressive given the challenge of the room itself. A big space, with many oddly shaped reflective surfaces, we did fear a difficult environment. Contemporary music quickly becomes unbearably loud and unbalanced in a reverberant space (which is why most churches are better suited to classical, unamplified music). And certainly the space could be described as live - there is a decent reverb time which is noticeable on the snare hits - but it doesn't get out of control. The only challenge is the stage, which without carpets is definitely on the loud end. We brought extra carpets to soak up some of the sound, and wore earplugs on stage. Apparently during services the church musicians play using headphones to try to minimise on stage noise.

The three lessons I think should be learned from the hard working and wise wardens, staff and consultants on the Barney's project are these:

1. The church incorporated thinking about acoustics into the design stage. As a result, I suspect that some comrpomises were made to the architect's design (as a friend of mine puts it, architecture is a deaf science: you can't assume that they will have thought about, much less care about, acoustics. Bringing an acoustics consultant in early is imperative). Acoustics is the kind of thing that you have to get right before the concrete is poured, because it is notoriously hard to fix later.

2. The church was clear on its brief to the acoustics consultants. Many consultants come with strange ideas about what actually happens inside a contemporary church. One guy I spoke to was convinced that our youth group rock band would need nothing more than two choir mics. For a modern service the two priorities must be: (1) speech intelligibility,  and (2) ability to facilitate the type of music you actually have (a rock band is a very different proposition to a choir and needs very specific acoustics and equipment).

3. The church budgeted the sound system installation into the building project. Sound systems are often left off in the final stages of the project to cut costs in the short term - which ends up meaning a cheap and nasty system is installed which never works properly, hampers the ability for speech to be intelligible and music enjoyable, and requires constant bandaid repairs to keep it running. The error is made because it's usually the last thing to go in, and the easiest thing to say "we'll do that at a later stage". Of course, it never happens - once you've raised money for a building it's hard to turn around in 6 months time and ask for more. And this is a silly error, because hearing things is not an optional extra for a church building. I would have thought it's pretty core to our business (more so than carpeting, air conditioning, food preparation areas or aesthetics ... yes, even staff offices).

Good on Barney's for doing these things right! (Oh, and thanks for hosting the concert for Bush Church Aid!) You should be very proud of your new space. May God use it for the proclamation of his word (both spoken and sung) for many many years to come.