I think the issues of style of music, of which volume is a part, and of do we sing too much are very important ones to the church just now. Actually I think they have been for the whole half-century I have spent on this planet, but we’re now getting desperate enough to actually do something.

At 09:29 AM 6/26/02 +1000, Ellis, Peter R. wrote:

Allow me to clear my throat and assemble my portable personal soap-box.

1. Have you noticed how few people sing music ‘in public’ these days? Thinking of when you were last in these situations, how many people in cars, or on public transport, at rave parties, etc, were singing with the music? Most people now LISTEN to music. However, they rarely sing along.

I can’t say I have. I’ve been to many worship music seminars and evangelism seminars in which other people have made this point, and claimed that the church should follow suit. But I think they’re wrong.

There are lots of reasons for the church declining, and some of them are musical. But it’s quite complicated.

When was the last time you were on a dance floor and someone put on the Angels’ track “Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?” ?

My observation is that most Australians 12 years or over and not actively involved in a church know a vocal part to this song. But I won’t print it here, it’s unprintable. It was on the band’s video of the song, years before many of those who now know it so well were born.

2. Thinking of the music we have in churches, have you noticed that the singing has ‘dropped off’ in recent years? Does this mirror society’s reluctance to sing?

Again, no. I’ve noticed that almost all churches, my own included, have dropped off, and that those with bad music (there is no other word for it)

have dropped off the most.

3. We can exclude choral concerts, where people are not meant to sing with a choir or soloist. Yet, I think that band concerts are rarely venues for singing along, either. (Note: The recent Queen’s Jubilee concert was a rare exception, however, how many at home would have sung along? My teenage sons looked at me as though I was start raving mad for singing along with several songs!)

4. Karaoke is a mild exception, but has had a small take-up in Australia. 5. Singalongs around the piano have died.

True. I’m only 50 years old. I don’t remember them ever being popular. I never much liked them, although I love to sing. But I know there are people alive who do remember them, or who at least remember those who remembered them. And these people seem to have major roles in picking the songs that are sung in many churches, and included in hymn books.

But the hymn books probably don’t do any damage. I don’t use or recommend them anyway. Projection video, or failing that OHP, are my preferred ways to provide the words. They get people’s heads up so they can sing. They don’t require visitors and new people to know what a hymn book looks like and what it’s for, or to find one if they sit in a pew which doesn’t have one.

Second best is to print the words out. Sometimes this is the right thing to do.

Think for a moment how booby-trapped many churches still are for visitors.

They come in. They sit down. The service starts. There are numbers on the wall, but nobody tells them what these are for. There are books in the pews, several different ones. Everyone stands when some music starts. Perhaps someone even announces the hymn or song number, and the name of the book. Perhaps the order of service is in the sheet of paper that they were handed when they came in, but they haven’t had time to find it yet. The singing starts long before they have time to find the right book, let alone the right hymn.

They may not even have the right book at all. Everyone else knows what they need, and what colour the various books are, and that some of the bibles are red and some are brown so that they don’t need both. If the books aren’t in the pews at all, they know where to get one on the way in. The visitor may well assume that the book they’re being offered is for people in the choir. And they don’t know that the blue books with the words worn off and unreadable under the plastic slip covers are hymn books, and that the book labelled “Sing Allelujah” or “Together in Song” is what the guy down the front means when he says “the new hymn book”.

Anyway, they finally get the right book, and the right page. The song is half over, and the guy down the front said which verses to sing but that was a long time ago so it’s not surprising that the next verse they try to sing is the wrong one. They don’t read music, and that’s just as well, because the tune they’re singing isn’t the one in the book anyway. It’s the one this church always uses instead. Everyone else knows that. But the visitor guesses that many people here do read music, why else would it be provided?

Next song, they are ready. Alas, the melody is in a key that no untrained male voice could possibly sing. Some of the men sing parts, which makes the guy feel even more out of it. He wrongly guesses that the music in the book would tell him what to sing if he could only read it. Actually it would not help because he only has the melody line anyway. These other men either know the part, or have brought their own books, or both.

Need I go on?

Very few churches have all these vices certainly, but any one is enough to make a visitor uncomfortable. And I have been in several churches (in the last five years) where exactly that scenario is lived out regularly.

Well, perhaps not all that regularly. That family will not be back until the next cousin’s christening. We blew it.

6. Do your youth groups have young people bringing their guitars, saxophones, etc, for impromptu singalongs?

Yep. Sunday night after church, most weeks.

(They MAY have a band/group providing music.)

We have both.

7. Few churches put on musicals any more. (I speak as one who has greatly enjoyed participating in this in my youth.)

I guess ours is the exception here too. We do one every year, occasionally more. It’s one of the best ways we’ve found of attracting new people and reconnecting with lapsed members. Mind you, we do use mostly brand new music, often locally written.

Our local schools regularly put on musicals.

The churches may be the last bastions of public singing. But, are we doing ourselves a dis-service by being like that?

Maybe. But I think that the problem is more that much of our music is still old, and much of our new music is just plain bad.

I’m not saying we should throw away the old music. I am saying we need to think about how we use it.

The bottom line for me is that, for our church’s music to be culturally relevant >>to non- or new-Christians<<, the music in churches should tend to be 'performances' rather than REQUIRE participation. Otherwise, we risk driving them away by requiring them to do something that they feel immeasurably uncomfortable doing!

A very good question. One we should be actively discussing with great urgency.

I think it’s a bit more comlicated than that. I think people still love to sing. They sing “Happy Birthday”, they even try to sing “Auld Lang Syne” without knowing the words. Our Christmas musicals always include traditional carols for the congregation to join in. The visitors love them, and their singing puts our regulars to shame. Really.

Speaking as a musician (violin, guitar, singing, flute, mandolin, etc),

I’m guitar, bass, drums, mandolin, used to be flute and 5-string banjo as well. And an enthusiatic bass vocallist who occasionally writes songs with the melody in the bass part.

I don’t think that the only reason that the Aussie male in under-represented in church is that he is physically unable to sing the songs. But it can’t help, can it?

There’s no quick fix to this. It took decades to get into this mess, after all. But your message is one of many signs that we are *starting* to get the will to fix it. The sooner the better.

I’m not saying my church is not dropping off too, please note. It is. But I don’t think that is because we sing.

YiCaa