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Music Notes
Applause in Church? There are certainly many opinions on whether or not applause in the context of worship is forbidden, expected, or even appropriate. I like to think of it as an extension of any other human response. For example, just as some experiences in life elicit a broad grin, while others evoke tears or a furrowed brow, so it is with music. None of us would be likely to debate the appropriateness of various facial expressions; the same is my view on applause in church. Some music is simply not constructed in such a way that applause seem “natural,” evoking, instead perhaps a sense of introspection, or an enhanced sense of peacefulness. Following other selections, however, we might feel almost ready to explode if we could not burst into applause! It has a lot more to do with the nature of the selection many times, than with the quality of a particular presentation. One of the many beautiful aspects of music in the context of worship is that there need be no “rules” about the expression of appreciation. In my book, any heartfelt, “organic” response is the “right” one at that moment! Soli Deo Gloria! On the Naming of Tunes A name is a very personal thing. It can sometimes serve as a reflection of who we are as individuals. It can even help define who we are! Sometimes, if someone doesn’t like their given name, they go about the process of having it legally changed. Our names are important. You may or may not have noticed the words in parenthesis just following the number of each hymn in our Sunday bulletin. That word or those words are the name of the hymn tune, meaning specifically the musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. For example, the name of the hymn tune we might know as “Holy, Holy, Holy!” is actually Nicea. In some cases a familiar text, such as “O little town of Bethlehem,” is associated with more than one tune at times (Forest Green, #43; and St. Louis, #44); and other hymn tunes, such as Old Hundreth, are associated with more than one text. The name of a hymn tune sometimes has an interesting story behind it, and often reveals something about its origins. In our hymnal, the name of each hymn tune appears just below its “incipit” (first few words) at the top of the page. So, why do tunes have names? From the late sixteenth century in England and Scotland, when most people were not musically literate and learned melodies by rote, it was a common practice to sing a new text to a hymn tune the singers already knew which had a suitable meter and character. The practice of naming hymn tunes developed to make it easier for a musician to easily identify a particular tune. The name was chosen by the compiler of the tune book or hymnal or by the composer. The tradition of naming tunes continues to this day with our wonderful new hymns (for example, Crucifer, sung to the text, “Lift High the Cross, #371—one of my personal favorites!), although its original need is no longer as much of an issue. Soli Deo Gloria! “Soli Deo Gloria!” Johann Sebastian Bach wrote many thousands of pages of music throughout his career both as a musician of the church, and as a musician of the court. At the bottom of the vast majority of these pages he wrote three letters: S D G Even a casual glance at Bach’s own personal copy of the Bible reveals him to have been, in addition to one of the world’s greatest musical geniuses of all time (!), a lifelong student of the Christian faith. Even when he was in secular service of the court, Bach always approached the creation of music as an offering to God. The initials “S D G” represent the phrase (which he sometimes spelled out): Soli Deo Gloria, which, in Latin, means “to the Glory of God alone.” Most of the time, the music we enjoy in church has words with it. The words often carry profound theological meaning and/or elegant poetic structure. Sometimes, however, our musical offering is made in the form of instrumental music, absent of text. So, it is in the spirit of the great musical genius, the committed Christian, Johann Sebastian Bach, that we bring forward all of our best efforts—whether with or without text--as offerings in worship and glorification of Our Lord. And, so it is that we append even to our words . . . Soli Deo Gloria --adapted from insert to Sunday bulletin, 29 July 2007 |