In the past I have sung in certain prestigious church choirs in NYC, and for
pay. As NYC'er's will note, the church music industry has its own agencies, and
soloists can make a nice practice of filling in. As for glorifying God, just as
a bassoon clunking on a note would distract the audience, even temporarily, from
the beauty of a piece, so would a poorly trained or ineffectual singer distract
from a worship service, especially and most particularly if that singer is a
soloist. Cindi from KY
Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...> wrote:As much as we all want our vocal music
to be of the highest calibre
possible, I recently read a book that has put some of my
"performer-perfectionist" ideas about church singing into perspective, and
made me remember that the ONLY reason there is singing in church is to
glorify God. While of course we want to do our absolute best when
we're glorifying Him, we need to keep a few things in mind:
1) No matter how good we are, our efforts will never be "God-calibre". It
is humanly impossible to achieve.
2) Having said this, God I am sure cares about the honesty and power of
the faith and love for Him that go into the effort, NOT in the
human-gauged quality of the result.
3) We are not performing in church. We are singing in church. Church music
is not intended to entertain or even inspire the "audience". There is no
"audience" and there is no "performer". Egos need to be checked at the
sanctuary door - they have absolutely no place in church singing.
4) Any member of the congregation who complains that his or her ability to
concentrate on God has been distracted by some imperfection in the musical
performance should stay home and pray in his/her closet. The ability to
focus with meditative intensity is *not* a requisite of congregational
worship. Congregational worship, and prayer within congregational worship,
do NOT serve the same purpose as individual worship and prayer, and the
participants are not entitled to come to congregational worship with the
same expectations that they bring to individual worship. The only correct
Christian attitude towards "substandard" church singing (or singers) is
one of loving charity. Not pity. Not annoyance. But joy that the singers
involved have found the one place where they too can happily raise their
voices to glorify God in the way He inspires him to, without having to
worry about snide critics, intolerant audiences, or dismissive music
directors.
5) There are PLENTY of opportunities to exclude "problem" singers from
performing in this life. Church choirs should NOT be one of them!
Of course, I don't disagree with any efforts to improve the quality of
church singing - but only if these efforts are motivated by the only
reason church singing exists in the first place: to better glorify God.
Attempting to improve a singer's technique just to make her more pleasant
for her colleagues or even the congregation at large to listen to is NOT
an acceptable motivation in this situation. If, BTW, the priest or
minister disagrees, I would be happy to engage him/ her in a meaningful
dialogue on the subject.
The book, by the way, which I highly recommend to any liturgical singer of
any denomination is WHY CATHOLICS CAN'T SING: THE CULTURE OF CATHOLICISM
AND THE TRIUMPH OF BAD TASTE, by Thomas Daly. Despite its focus on
liturgical music in the modern Catholic church, Mr Daly has a lot of good
messages for liturgical singers in general.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
________________________________
Modern methods of production have given us
the possibility of ease and security for
all; we have chosen, instead, to have over-
work for some and starvation for the others.
- Bertrand Russell, IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS
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