Dear Pastor: Vocal disenfranchisement (after John L. Bell)

A few weeks ago, this blog put out a few reasons why folks in our congregations won't sing. They were strictly out of my own head, so to speak, derived from what level of experience I have (which does include a master's in church music as well as one in divinity) as both church musician and pastor; the "research" involved was strictly the "research" of experience.

Well, somebody agrees with me on at least one of those reasons, and the somebody is kind of a big deal.

John L. Bell, he of the Iona Community and Wild Goose Worship Group and lots of gatherings on singing in the church, offered up back in 2000 a book titled The Singing Thing: A case for congregational song. The book has been sitting on my shelf waiting to read for a really long time now, and with getting into this project a little more seriously it has finally forced itself into my reading activity. It's worth the read, though it is directed a little more generally, inclusive of musicians and congregational singers more so than pastors. The understanding still has value for you, dear pastor.

This volume, the first of two, is offered in two parts: "Why do we sing?" and "Why do some people not sing?" Number one of those reasons why some people don't sing: vocal disenfranchisement. The short version of that term is "somebody long ago told me I can't sing, so I believed them."

My way of putting it was a little less polished:

1) Some jerk told them at some point in their lives they couldn't sing. To be clear, there will be people who will, frankly, do more harm than good if they try to join the church choir (and I think I'm in the minority about church choirs not necessarily being an all-come affair), but that's not the same thing. Or if folks have somehow decided that if they don't sing like Placido Domingo (or people don't encourage them with such praise) then they won't sing at all, the sin is in their heart. I'll go ahead and say the harsh thing: to refuse to sing with the congregation is to refuse Christian community. Come at me, bro.But some have been actively hurt by small bitter people and will need a particular kind of encouragement.

But yeah, vocal disenfranchisement.

Bell offers the distressing statistic that in a random sampling, one in four people will say - nay, will insist - that they can't sing. There is, on some level, such a thing as being "tone deaf" - not able to discern a melody or to "match pitch" as it might be called in music. There are some people who hear a pitch, in other words, and cannot replicate that pitch with their own voices. There are some people, yes, but not one-fourth of the population.

For the most part these disenfranchsiements happen at an early age; some unthinking teacher or other authority figure instructs the child not to sing, or to be quieter, or something that imprints on the child the unshakable belief I cannot sing. Such imprints become cataclysmic memories, resonating through that person's life and frankly inhibiting any effort or opportunity to sing that might come along, as Bell describes it.

Bell also, from his perspective, describes this as a particularly British phenomenon. He's from Britain, of course, but hopefully his trips to the States since 2000 have revealed to him that this is an American phenomenon as well.

It isn't my place here to replicate Bell's chapter; go get the book and read it yourself. I do want to make the point that Bell summarizes the remedy for this as "renaming and decision-making"; the non-singer, the supposedly tone-deaf member in the congregation needs to be renamed as a person with a voice desperately waiting to be used in songs of praise to God, and that singer (with the combination of encouragement and expectation from the church) has to make the decision not to be limited by that nasty voice from the past. Who's right, that nasty teacher or the God who instructs to sing?

Obviously it's not as easy as Bell makes it sound (and the chapter does make clear that there's a lot of work involved), but it is doable. I am going to differ with Bell, though, in one particular.

For Bell, this is the work of the church musician. On the most basic level this is true. The church musicians are the ones who have the technical capacity to bring some level of musical example and encouragement and instruction to make it possible for the self-claimed non-singer to cast off that old curse.

However, I'm going to say that the one who sets the tone for this to work, dear pastor, is you.

First of all, you're singing yourself, right? This is the most basic way to set the tone in your congregation: no matter how creaky, no matter how unsteady, when the congregation sings, you're singing.

Secondly, you're the one who impresses upon your church musicians the imperative that part of their work is to encourage the song of all the congregation, and directs that even the non-singers are to be included in that. It's important that you don't get caught in the "I'm not a musician so I can't really instruct the musicians" trap that is too easy for pastors to fall into, as inviting and comforting a trap as that might be. No. It's a call for all the people to sing, and being a pastor to all the people includes opening up the opportunity for all the people to follow God's imperative to sing. (Imperative? What else do you call the statement "Sing to God"? It's right there in the grammar and syntax.)

So, yeah, you have a role to play in liberating the non-singers from their shackles. Don't shy away from it.

Credit: http://www.instagram.com/noelitoflow

Even this attitude would be an improvement. 

Is this you? Come on down to Grace Presbyterian Church and sing with our congregation!

Dear Pastor: Sing with understanding? Do people really want to?

So a few weeks ago now, before a variety of vacations and professional development things and whatnot, this blog put forth an entry that was both tribute to a long-ago professor and a challenge to you, dear pastor, to put forth the effort to give serious theological consideration to the hymns your congregation sings - at least as serious, say, as you give to your sermon or the service prayers or other parts of the service you choose.

Here is where I admit that all of this thought and advising I am presuming myself qualified to give isn't necessarily a slam dunk. What are the chances that, if you go through this effort and invest the time and energy into some basic grasp of hymns for use in worship, choosing with care and seeking to have those hymns working in concert (ha) with prayers and scripture and such, ... what are the chances that anybody will care, or even notice?

Let's be honest, friend pastor: there are going to be people in your congregation whose sole interest in the music in a service - not just the hymns, but anything the choir or soloist does or organist or pianist or band plays - is whether or not it is "pretty." Now I'm not using that word for its literal meaning, although in many cases that will apply - "that was so pretty (or beautiful)..." becomes the end-all and be-all of that member's reaction to or reflection of the music. The choir's anthem might be "beautiful" or "inspiring" or (depending on the style) "fun" or "catchy" or whatever; the soloist's effort becomes "inspiring" or "thrilling" or "powerful"; the organ prelude is "majestic" or "awe-inspiring" or what have you; the band "totally rocked, dude" - you get the idea. Whatever medium or style is being used, there is some aesthetic pinnacle that might be acknowledged for the musical effort that ends up blotting out any kind of more theologically informed reflection or result of that musical contribution.

Blame it on music, or more precisely blame it on the way humans are taught to respond to music. Note I'm not making a distinction between musician and non-musician here. Popular music fans are encouraged to respond emotionally to the music they hear, for sure; classical music patrons are fed all sorts of mumbo-jumbo about The Great Masters and the Power of Music; jazz followers have their heroes and titans. Those who are trained in performance or theory or education add their professional expertise to the mix - technical proficiency or harmonic complexity or what have you - but whatever the case may be, deliberate theological consideration can't be assumed, and the professionals may in fact be more difficult to encourage than the untrained folks in the pews. If you're hiring a band, they may have decided the songs to play Sunday and, well, it's your job to work around them; the hired choir soloists from the local university are likely trying to slip their lesson repertoire in without actually having to think about whether it "fits." (I may be exaggerating a little, but I have seen - from a distance, thankfully - examples of both.)

I cannot offer you a "magic bullet" to make your congregation or choir or singers or band care about the songs they sing in more than aesthetic way. It is admittedly not a concern everybody shares. Writing from the Presbyterian Church (USA) perspective in which I am situated, having embraced the challenge of trying to develop a distinctly "mainline" approach to the question that takes the mind and its engagement in worship seriously, I have to acknowledge that not everybody will care. And some will never care.

But some will.

Someone will notice. It might take a while, but somebody will express surprise at the realization that "everything really went together this morning," or maybe something like "I don't think I ever really got what that hymn was saying, but hearing it after that sermon/prayer/communion it suddenly made sense," or some other reaction.

You've probably seen the meme below, about how we don't really know which sermons are going to "work" and which ones are not; the same really does apply to pretty much everything we put into the service, including the hymns we choose to support the sermon and scripture. We don't know, but we do it anyway, and sometimes it lands with one person, or maybe two or four or ten, and once they've had that experience once maybe (just maybe) they become more open or sensitive to the other things going on in the service in the future.

You teach people how to sing with understanding by presenting the service in such a way that understanding happens. You sweat it out and pray over it and listen for that ever-elusive guidance of the Spirit and, when Sunday comes, you put it out there and it's in the Spirit's hands, so to speak. But it does matter, and it does change how people experience worship. It helps the congregation and it helps you. And maybe you both grow a little.

Sing with understanding, and give your people the chance to do so. If nothing else, it's basic good stewardship of the hour of worship.

Credit as noted. It applies to choosing hymns too.