tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74616984648060551802024-03-04T21:17:33.018-08:00Fine TuningConversation and information about liturgy and hymnody from a confessional Lutheran perspectivePhillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-42260876899167321512019-07-30T13:46:00.003-07:002019-08-01T14:21:53.264-07:00Fine TunedThis blog is called "Fine Tuning" because it seeks to help musicians, pastors, and other worship planners/leaders sharpen their skills and grow in wisdom. It came about as a resource associated with <i>Liturgy Solutions</i>, an on-line publisher operated from 2005-2018 by me and my co-blogger, Stephen R. Johnson. The website has closed its shop, but is still up taking its tiny space on the web with its homepage announcement of the publishing company's closing. The last straw for us was a Supreme Court decision in favor of internet sales taxes - taxes we are not equipped to assess and to collect should they be levied. But the energy behind the site had been winding down over the years due to many life events and vocational changes for both me and Stephen. Add the need to update the site from its 2004/5 design to a website compatible with smartphones and it was just time to let it go.<br />
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We keep the website up in hopes that we might do something else with it someday. We may even put all our music back up and just give it away. Wouldn't that be something?! But that probably won't include the ESV texts because we no longer have copyrights on those. Logistical concerns come to mind, too, as we just don't have time or ability to rebuild the site. So if there's something you'd like from our old catalog - or if you are just looking for some music or need some advice - just contact me directly. I won't link to my email here due to all the spammers who periodically drop in on Blogger, but if you don't know it I think you can figure out how to contact me - at Concordia Lutheran in Kirkwood, MO, if nothing else.<br />
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"Concordia, you say?!" Yes, the former cantoral face of BJS is now happily Director of Sanctuary Worship at Concordia-Kirkwood. My, how things change, one might say! On the other hand, I've really not changed that much: in LCMS circles I've always been sort of a "liberal among conservatives and a conservative among liberals." Cue <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEQxEJ5_5zA&list=RDPEQxEJ5_5zA&start_radio=1&t=0">Mama Cass</a>. I'm about to start my second year here and am doing well. The position is half-time. I am also a half-time called missionary to francophone Africa, where starting next year I'll deploy 3 months a year to teach music, hymnody, and liturgy. I'll work primarily at our seminary in Dapaong, Togo and at our novitiates in Guinea and in Congo-Brazzaville, but will also be branching out to lead workshops among our other church partners in West and Central Africa.<br />
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I'm also doing some contract work for the synod's Office of National Mission, primarily in terms of developing educational materials for the <i>Making Disciples for Life</i> initiative, but also overseeing chapel at the International Center during the interim between chaplains (Rev. Will Weedon is leaving to take a position with <i>Issues, etc.</i> and so there will be a vacancy at the IC for the next few months). I also continue to do serve as "chief musician" for <a href="https://www.doxology.us/">DOXOLOGY,</a> do workshops - including one coming up in South Dakota early in October - and lead hymn festivals - including one coming up in February at Zion-Harvester. I also just served again as convention musician for the LCMS convention this past week. Life abundant! :)<br />
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So where does this blog go? We'll see. Certainly if I get more comments I'll start writing more. I took a Facebook holiday for a few weeks this summer and have concluded that it is good to spend less time there. I need to stay on there for Messenger and think the sharing of family pictures & life events is great - but real professional discussion was better back here in the "old days" of "the blogosphere" and so I'm hoping we might get back to cantors blogging again. At the same time, though, with Liturgy Solutions in hiatus, I think Fine Tuning can be more personal. Stephen may show up here again and we may well add more guest authors, but I think shorter, more personal observations and reflections can be expected from me. We'll see if folks find it helpful.<br />
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So what's my "point" today? It's simply this: looking at how this blog, Liturgy Solutions, and my life are not at all what I imagined they all would be after 15 years and yet also seeing how, by God's grace, I am a better man in a better place, I just want to acknowledge the hand of the Lord in all that has come to pass and thank Him for all the "fine tuning" I have had over the course of the past 15 years. It wasn't all pleasant, and it certainly wasn't all I wanted, but it has all been worked out for my good and for the blessing of those around me. I'm still a work in progress, but I'm happy to say that I'm feeling "fine tuned" these days. Soli Deo GloriaPhillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-74630211864793944012017-11-13T17:07:00.000-08:002019-07-30T13:51:37.412-07:00An Easy Way to Boost Congregational SingingThis little trick is so simple that anyone can do it - unless they are in a congregation so small that they don't use microphones. Because, yes, this has to do with microphones. When it is the congregation's turn to confess their sins, confess the Creed, or say the Lord's Prayer, <i>turn off the mic</i>. It is arguably the easiest way to help a congregation find its voice, and yet so many places don't do this.<br />
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For pastors who don't have someone at the sound board who can do this for them - though I'd think someone can and should be found to do this - the alternative is for the pastor not to say those parts. Just like the pastor does not say the responses "Thanks be to God" or "Praise to You, O Christ" after the readings.<br />
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What? Pastor you say you DO say those parts? Well, stop it. As Bob Newhart famously said, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQGzeiYS_Q">"Just stop it!"</a> Seriously, there may be an awkward pause at first and you should explain to the folks why you are doing this, but <i>let them take ownership of their parts in the liturgy</i>.<br />
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This is Step One to "Helping Your Congregation Find Its Voice." More to come. Stay tuned . . .Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-2480667759635146612017-11-01T07:47:00.002-07:002021-05-14T13:33:38.775-07:00Making Sure Our Boast Is in the Lord <div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"When people take pride in the business, they focus more on customer needs and innovation." - </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.12px;">Mike Salvino, former CEO of Accenture, the world's largest management consulting firm. </span></div>
<div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mf m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mj" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;">There are obvious applications for program staff in a church, but I want to focus on how this connects to a huge problem in many churches, and illustrate how it manifests itself in the Church's song. </span></div></div><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></div><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mf m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mj" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scripture teaches repeatedly that our boast should only be in the Lord (1 Cor. <span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aBn"><span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aQJ"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1983906055" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">1:31</span></span></span></span>; Gal. <span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aBn"><span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aQJ"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1983906056" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">6:14</span></span></span></span>; Ps. 34:2; Jer. <span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aBn"><span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aQJ"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1983906057" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">9:24</span></span></span></span>). Our pride is found in Christ alone. I believe that when people take pride/boast in Jesus, they will focus more on telling the Good News about Him and meeting their neighbors' need. </span></div>
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<div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mf m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mj" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;">Where, then, is this "huge problem" I see? </span></div></div><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </div><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mf m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mj" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;">It lies in two directions--Sasse's ditches on the sides of the road, if you will. On one hand, we have two generations of new hymnals chock full of excellent hymns and canticles that in many cases have nonetheless been forced onto congregations rather than being convincingly introduced. As wonderful as much of this new music is, few will tell their neighbor "come to my church and hear the organ blast songs that few of us know but are really doctrinally pure and liturgically orthodox!" </span></div>
<div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mf m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mj" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;">On the other hand, despite the promises of church growth gurus and numerous evangelism workshops, the Church's experiment with worship "styles" and adoption of rock bands and radio music over the past 20 years does not lead to boasting in the Lord either. As sincere as their missional intentions may be, few congregants are motivated to invite their friends to "come and hear our garage band blast songs that some of us know and sort-of sing along with on the easier parts. The songs don't say much, either, but we do them anyway because we're trying to get folks to come." </span></div>
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<div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mf m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mj" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;">Ironically, whether one runs off the road to the left or to the right, one is driven by the same motivation: to do things right. The devil's use of our good intentions come to mind. I don't have all the answers, but I do know they lie in keeping things centered on Christ. In my own ministry area, I can say this: if you are picking music for "missional" reasons, step back and pick hymns that your people know and love and *can sing* that are about God and His love for us in Christ Jesus. If you are picking music for "confessional/orthodox" reasons, do the same. </span></div></div><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mf m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-_1mj" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;">A good test is to take away the "wall of sound," whether it is your praise band (missional) or your organ (confessional) and listen to the people sing. Their singing will reveal to you whether they are boasting in the Lord or not. There may be need to re-center in other ways (preaching, </span><span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aBn" style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;"><span class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-aQJ">Sunday</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.12px;"> School, church programs, etc.), but in the area of cantoral ministry, congregations need to cultivate the common songs which bind them together and move them to invite others to join in the song. Sure, there is room for each generation to add new songs to the garden, but few take pride in their church because they are singing songs they think they should be doing rather than the songs their faith wants to sing. (Ps. 40:3) </span></div></div><div class="m_5332708891601908819gmail-m_8502266816820157788gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.12px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-74805620283386649822017-05-05T18:30:00.001-07:002017-05-05T18:42:21.854-07:00Let There Be GinOur esteemed colleague Jacquelyn Magnuson recently put this awesome story up on FB, so we asked if we could share it here. It's instructive as well as amusing, and a great reminder to all of us to always do our homework. Enjoy!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Jmbc8gUVM08JKHoJZFCoF-k8i-RyGTDt6KYkGcv3-P1U-iRI7GBB2j5-NK3ivJRs9oKBh1gxGf5IaScdLPzV9YQHOwvq6aPriNqPHHPv29vtazt4RHwxojapsSfjMj-u2Y276DTb2RXr/s1600/gin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Jmbc8gUVM08JKHoJZFCoF-k8i-RyGTDt6KYkGcv3-P1U-iRI7GBB2j5-NK3ivJRs9oKBh1gxGf5IaScdLPzV9YQHOwvq6aPriNqPHHPv29vtazt4RHwxojapsSfjMj-u2Y276DTb2RXr/s320/gin.jpg" width="213" /></a>Let There Be Gin: A lesson on the importance of practicing</div>
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During my senior year of college, a friend and I sang the hymn "Scatter the Darkness, Break the Gloom" (LSB 481) at church. This was our first encounter with this hymn, and it came as a somewhat last-minute request from the kantor that we sing a duet to introduce the hymn to the congregation, who would sing it for the first time the following week.</div>
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So we arrived at the church early. We were left to run through the hy<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">mn on our own as the kantor was getting ready for the prelude. We agreed that it would be a good idea to sing through all the stanzas so that we wouldn't stumble over words during the service.</span></div>
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It's a good thing we did. Stanzas one and two went off without a hitch. Then came stanza three (do you see where this is going yet?):</div>
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"Crying and sighs, give way to singing:<br />
Life from death, our Lord is bringing!<br />
Let there be... gin"</div>
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Yes, gin. Let there be gin. Not one, but both of us somehow overlooked the hyphen in the word "be-gin", which unfortunately occurs at a line break in the LSB. Cue the uncontrollable laughter. Cue the writing in our hymnals to make sure we'd get it right later. Well, it went smoothly during the service, but thankfully that line is at the end of the hymn, because it was hard to keep a straight face with the mishap so recent in memory. I cringe when I think what might have happened had we not rehearsed before the service.</div>
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Lesson learned? Never, ever play or sing for a church service without practicing. (There are a few exceptions when this is actually unavoidable, but they are rare.) Even for those hymns that we have played hundreds of times. Even for that instrumental part that is incredibly easy. Even singing a hymn we've known since we were young children. Always practice everything. Why? Because as church musicians, we ought not be a distraction. Sure, mistakes happen, and quite often. But to make mistakes and cause distraction because we're unprepared is unacceptable. I'll save the more serious side of this topic for another time, but suffice it to say, the importance of practicing cannot be understated. And it'll inevitably save us some embarrassment along the way too.</div>
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Oh, and the actual hymn text? "Let there begin the jubilee-- Christ has gained the victory!" Christ is risen and is bringing us out of death to life. Indeed, a much better thing to sing about than gin!<br />
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Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-7018652927111716492017-03-05T17:53:00.000-08:002017-03-05T17:53:32.179-08:00They got it!<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<em>Guest post by Emily Woock.</em></div>
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Not too long ago my small (ten voice) children’s choir was scheduled to sing for the Fourth<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_536009141" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Sunday</span></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>after Epiphany and I searched high and low trying to find a setting of the Beatitudes that would be appropriate for them. I really wanted something other than "Blest Are They" from <em>All God's People Sing</em>, but I wasn’t finding anything that would work well for children, let alone something that would work with only three rehearsals after just coming back from Christmas break.</div>
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I reached out to my friend and colleague Phillip Magness to see if he had a recommendation, and he suggested his setting of the Beatitudes from Liturgy Solutions and sent me a copy to preview. I knew right away that this piece was perfect for my group and purchased it immediately.<span> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>It was simple enough to learn in three rehearsals, but still beautiful and interesting for the singers. As an added bonus, there were many teachable moments built right into the piece.</div>
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My choristers responded very favorably to this piece, excitedly pointing out to me (as if I hadn’t noticed!) that there were repeated phrases that “have the same notes but different words.” This was done without any prompting from me. Several of them left that first rehearsal humming the melody, so I felt confident they could pull this off in time since it was clearly sticking with them.</div>
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I have a practice of marking my young choristers' bulletins ahead of time so they can be confident in their leadership role during worship, and I also try to help them make connections to various things in the service or about the season, often putting little notes in the bulletin of things for them to think about. On this particular<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_536009142" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Sunday</span></span>, I wrote simply “Do you notice something?” right next to the Gospel text.<span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>I watched with delight as heads snapped to attention one by one as the Gospel was read and they made the connection that the Gospel text was the same text as our anthem. Several winked or made a face at me as if they were in on some big secret just because they were in the choir, and one of my very youngest singers ran over to me during the passing of the peace, unable to wait until the end of the service to exclaim, “Miss Woock! Pastor said the same words that we are singing!” They got it!</div>
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This wonderful arrangement was a joy for my choristers to experience, fit beautifully within the Divine Service that morning, and left me one happy cantor that there was so much teaching mileage packed into a single anthem. Thank you, Liturgy Solutions, for providing resources like this.</div>
Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-60348007938390834872017-02-05T14:16:00.002-08:002017-02-05T14:16:37.901-08:00A Magical MomentWe all have special moments we experience in worship, both as worshipers and as worship leaders. Some are downright "magical." Before I continue, let me insert all the Lutheran caveats here: by "magical," I don't mean anything gnostic or occult nor will this be about using the art of music to manipulate emotions. I say "magical," merely in the sense of a phenomenon that is "beautiful or delightful in an extraordinary way." This can and should happen when the art of music is joined to the Word of God. It certainly happened for us this morning at Immanuel. Key to this happening was my preparation for this as a worship leader - and so I'd like to share with you what I did so that it might help you as you strive to bring the Gospel similarly to your people. <br />
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Here's what went down. There is a cool communion song I found a few years ago in the Wisconsin Synod hymnal supplement by Michael Joncas called "Take and Eat." You can also find it in the latest editions of <i>Gather</i>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1KCTwsPIYA">Here's one</a> of several recording out there on YouTube, of various quality, instrumentations and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6EJJRaK69U">tempi</a>. I've always wanted a congregation to embrace it, but until today my attempts to minister with the song had fallen. In Illinois I had even used the "have the children's choir sing the verses" trick to try to help "sell" it, but never had an assembly really own it - even the steady faithful who come to our Wednesday night services of "Catechesis and Communion" here in Oklahoma. I had started to wonder if this was just a song I liked but really shouldn't impose on the folk. I knew the words were good, but started thinking that perhaps I just liked the chord progression too much or something, and really wasn't singing a melody they could embrace. <br />
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Thankfully, with the readings for today providing an excellent opportunity to sing this hymn, I decided to try it one more time. So I re-approached the hymn anew and did <span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>exactly what I teach others to do but realized I had failed to do myself</b></span>. I got up from the piano and sang the song unaccompanied. I memorized the lyrics and mused on them. I sang the song in the sanctuary, imagining people in the pews and considering how I might bring these words of our Lord alive in their ears. I spent an hour doing this on Friday and another half-hour on Saturday, and then jammed on the tune for another half-hour on the piano at home. In other words, I took the craft of cantoring seriously and did everything I should have done previously with the song in order to prepare to <i>minister </i>through this music. <br />
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I didn't need to hear the compliments after the song to know that I did the right thing. I could tell by the third refrain that something was different in the room. By the final refrain the sanctuary was filled with singing - the kind of heart-felt singing I had always hope to elicit but had previously failed to evoke with this song. It was a very special moment. The people were connecting with the promises of Jesus and being comforted by them. It was indeed, in the best sense of the word, "magical." <br />
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Please note that this came about not because I was "into it" or because of some "inner feeling" I had. I've always grooved on this song. That kind of playing and singing might provide an inspirational testimony, but the hearers remain passive. It can even devolve into entertainment. No, this was because I had consciously moved <span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">outside of myself</span> and had worked on singing the song in an <i>intentional</i> way, with the intention being to bless all who heard me today and to invite them to join me in singing the L<span style="font-size: x-small;">ORD</span>'s song. <br />
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How often do we take our musicianship for granted? How often are we just singing words and notes on a page? As important as notation is, the page just contains symbols. The music is in the air. Sure, we need to learn the music first, but never forget that notes and words and rhythms are but the beginning of true practicing. If you stop there, you'll miss the music. The results will be similar to that of a pastor dryly reading his sermon rather than really preaching it to you. The psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs we offer are just as important as the preaching - and often have more impact on people. So approach each song as if it were a little sermon, focusing not just on what you are singing, but who you are singing it to and/or with. And let God's "magic" happen as His Word has His way with His people. SDGPhillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-41381945913426526292017-01-30T12:31:00.000-08:002017-01-30T12:31:11.300-08:00WHEN IT'S REALSeveral friends posted a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/marcus.zill/posts/10158068158460368?comment_id=10158074242620368&notif_t=like&notif_id=1485791651006828">video</a> of me jamming with some street musicians before the March for Life. It was an uplifting experience, one of many that day, and I'm not surprised this little video has made the rounds. <br />
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As someone known for being conservative on percussion in worship ("The song of the Church is Word-driven, not beat-driven!"), who disapproves of applause during the Divine Service, and who strongly prefers the chorales over "happy-clappy" music, one may fairly ask, "Magness, why do you groove on this?" <br />
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The answer is not so simple as saying, "Well, this wasn't in the Divine Service," even though that is an important point. Because I'm actually OK with some hand-clapping and even some dancing during worship--<i>when it is real.</i> And by "real" I don't mean whether people are "feeling it" or not, because any half-decent musician can whip up emotions and get the poorly catechized to think they are "in the Spirit." I'm talking about the reality of manifesting the faith God gives to us as brothers and sisters in Christ. That's something we can judge objectively. <br />
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When it is real, when it is faithful, it is reverent and authentic. It is reverent in that it honors God, acknowledges God, and is focused on God. This is much more easily done in cultures with histories of rhythmic music and ceremonial dance. Which leads to the second point of authenticity. If I am in a community which sings jubilantly with percussion instruments to organically proclaim the steadfast love of the Lord, then there is no distraction or manipulation. But where such music is not part of the culture, it is at best merely entertainment, often distracts from the Gospel, and manipulates emotions rather than giving voice to our shared experience of the faith. <br />
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How can one tell the difference? It's pretty easy. <b>By dropping out</b>. If the community owns the song, the musician who summoned the song can step away and it will go on. There are cultures where this readily happens. Typical North American parishes, outside certain minority communities, are not among them when it comes to the music promulgated in the name of entertainment evangelism. Many, however, in their zeal to either be attractive or to generate excitement among the membership, try to make this happen artificially by having a band play jubilant "praise music" in the assembly's stead--cranking up the volume so that the impression of great worship is created. But if the assembly cannot sustain such energy unplugged, it is actually the opposite of authentic. By contrast, the sound of a Lutheran assembly chanting the Lord's Prayer or singing the Te Deum a cappella with conviction in four-part harmony is actually truly authentic. And it is just as energetic and powerful as any other culture's music, with or without percussion or an "upbeat" tempo.<br />
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That said, I certainly do see a role of musical testimony which edifies a congregation and broadens their repertoire. Some will inevitably be entertained by that--whether one powerfully presents a Renaissance motet or an African hymn. But that is a matter of catechesis. Once a congregation gets used to higher quality music, they'll clap no more for the music than they do for the sermon--or for receiving the Sacrament. (Seriously, if applause is really directed to God, why don't people clap after receiving the Lord's Supper?)<br />
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So, whatever you are singing, make sure you are singing the folk music of your people. Keep it real. Don't substitute someone else's joy for your own. There's no reason for it. Even if you think you are doing it "for the young," or "for the seekers." Because, truth is, you'll never be as convincing singing someone else's song as you will your own. <br />
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"He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.<br />
Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord." (Ps. 40:3)Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-71660097774343134132017-01-20T13:48:00.001-08:002017-01-21T10:07:41.499-08:00We're Back!Good afternoon, dear friends, <br />
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After 3 1/2 years, and on Inauguration Day of all days, Phillip has re-discovered how to access this blog! He & Stephen had made efforts the past couple of years to get in and start posting again, but simply could not access the site. Here's a brief explanation, which will also help you understand the slower pace of Liturgy Solutions these past few years, as well as our new effort to revitalize the site: <br />
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* In 2012, Phillip was dismissed from the cantorate at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Illinois. He and the pastors publicly affirmed that his firing was not due to immoral life, false doctrine, or any incompetence with his duties. Phillip had had a breakdown under work stress, after which the head pastor cited personality conflicts and a desire for a new person in the position. The congregational leaders then opted to follow this pastor's lead rather than to attempt to negotiate conflict resolution or otherwise improve the situation. <br />
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* By the grace of God, Phillip was blessed to serve the following year at Trinity Lutheran Church and School in Tinley Park, where he made many friends and planned on staying to build on the excellent legacy of church & school music left by his predecessor there, Carl Lisius. However, the direction of the pastoral leadership was toward forms of "modern" or "contemporary" worship, with even the traditional services minimizing sung liturgy, and so when another call came Phillip decided it best for the church to accept an opportunity to serve where his vision for worship was in line with both the pastor and the elders. <br />
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* While he first had access to the <i>Fine Tuning</i> blog while in Oklahoma, that access was lost when his wife and family joined him in Oklahoma after the Magnesses sold their house in Illinois. Between expired emails, new computers, and forgotten passwords, we just couldn't get in! Stephen had not posted in a while himself, having moved from full-time church work to teaching at a Roman Catholic high school in the Bronx, and also could not locate our credentials to get onto the site. <br />
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Fast forward now to today, of all days, when, after considering the doctrine of vocation and President Trump's point in his inaugural address about a nation's greatness depending on the success of its citizens to freely pursue their dreams, Phillip decided to try to get into Fine Tuning again. Behold, it was a success! <br />
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We are happy to report that today, almost four years later, by the grace of God, both Phillip and Stephen are doing well. Stephen is having a great year with his choirs and classes at Monsignor Scanlan High School in New York, and has new compositions in the GIA catalog. His daughters are doing amazing things in music, and he continues to address the church on matters of music at various conferences. Phillip and his family are enjoying life in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where he now serves at Immanuel Lutheran Church. He continues to serve as "cantor-at-large" for the spiritual renewal retreats of DOXOLOGY: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Council, and also his teaching of the French edition of the LSB, <i>Liturgies et Cantiques Luthériens. </i>He will be in Togo in March to lead a couple of workshops and also to play for worship services for the annual convention of 14 confessional francophone Lutheran churches to be held in Dapaong. He also served as chief musician for the 2013 and 2016 LCMS conventions. <br />
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So much for why we disappeared here and what we've been doing. So why revitalize the site? The brief history outlined above gives a hint of the reason: vocation. Throughout all the trials and in both blessings & woes, our hearts and hands and voices have been fixed on the Lord's song. God has been good to us; how can we keep from singing? And so with a new day for our country, it is fitting that we begin a new day at Liturgy Solutions. Let us know what you might like us to write about, and how you are doing. We'll see you on FaceBook, but we'd love to see you hear to. We look forward to doing more of what we love most: encouraging, nurturing, and enlivening the art of music in service to the Word of God. <br />
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May His peace be with you this new year and always! <br />
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In Christ, <br />
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Your Friends at Liturgy Solutions Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-4822278554392240092013-09-30T19:55:00.004-07:002013-09-30T19:55:34.297-07:00The End of All LearningThere is a quote running around ascribed to either Plato or Socrates claiming one of them said, "Books will be the end of all learning," or "Reading will be the end of all learning." It usually gets a chuckle, as it makes the point that we tend to remember less of what we have written down. The context today is usually a reference to the internet and our various "memory saving" devices. Supposedly they are making us dumber. I'm not sure if our memories really are worse today, or if it is just aging folks like me blaming the internet rather than accepting the decay of the flesh. What I do know is that I couldn't find a source for the quote. <br />
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But the comparitive merits of rote learning and literacy is an interesting topic, and FINE TUNING here brings it up because it relates to topics extremely relevant to church music: learning by ear, learning through a score, interpreting a score, folk music, and playing by heart. <br />
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Many of us learn very little music by ear, and yet this is how most parishioners do learn music. Sure, the hymnal is a great aid to them - if it is used. But take time to discover how many of your choir members just look at the words on the music you pass out and ignore the score and you'll get a better estimation of how the congregation uses the hymnal, especially in this age where the current and previous generations received much less choral training in school. And yet even as they don't learn as well as they could or they should, they do learn. And perhaps sometimes in the process they listen more to the music than some organists listen to themselves! <br />
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Which leads to learning through a score. I think it is great, but it readily because a substitute for LISTENING, and herein lies the problem alluded to above. So many church musicians are glued to the score. I've even seen proud posts on YouTube of intellectual church musicians posting what they think is great music - but the great music is left on the score and what goes out into the pews or across the net is just not something the listener will want to embrace. And so people get the idea that they don't like sacred music....or classical music....or traditional church music......or organ music, because they haven't heard performances worth listening to. In other words, the musician is just broadcasting the symbols on the page, but not interpreting the score so that the music is inspiring, convincing, beautiful. <br />
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This is why the folk/pop musicians in the church often attract more followers in the parish than the trained musicians. The music may be simple, but it is well-played. There is lyric expression, harmonic logic, textural clarity, and rhythmic vitality: the hallmarks of good music in any genre. It is unfortunate that many "learn by ear" musicians today - even some very talented ones - are wedded to a very narrow range of music and are so focused on making what they do sound just like the recordings they hear. For in this way they too lose the muse, becoming as focused on sound imitation as some traditional musicians are focused on playing notes that they are not longer true folk musicians but just "play by ear" musicians. A true folk musician does play be ear, but also INTERPRETS and makes the songs he hears his own. Yes, the "play it like the record" crowd often plays well, nailing the tune and the chords and the rhythms such as I outlined above, but it isn't authentically theirs. They may successfully recreate approximations of performances that have inspired them which have also inspired people who listen to this music on the radio and so go to contemporary worship services, but it fails to connect with the assembly just as much as the automaton organist who hits all the right notes. <br />
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The answer for all musicians, whether a score is used or not, is to play <em>by heart.</em> I think this means more than memorization, though knowing something "by heart" certainly suggests a good amount of memory is involved in the process. This means that the classically-trained musician listens to what he is playing so that he is able to interpret the score so that it is a means toward enacting music in a given space, for a given assembly, at a given time in a way that <em>connects</em> with the hearers. In the same way, the musician who learns by ear has to move from replicating an inspiring performance he wishes to copy to interpreting that music in a way that sounds best on the instrument being used, in the room in which it will be played, and with the other musicians who will join in playing the music - again for the purposes of <em>connecting</em> with the hearers. This process of interpretation is only possible when the musician listens to himself, for it is the process by which a performer truly <strong>owns</strong> the music.<br />
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This is the key to inspiring the congregation, no matter what music you are playing. As <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Feltsman">Vladimir Feltsman</a> so aptly stated, "You cannot give something away you don't have." <br />
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The "end" of all learning can have a better meaning: the <em>purpose</em> of what we do. The end of our learning as church musicians is to inspire people with music that magnifies God's Word, that evokes the Gospel, and summons the song the Lord has placed in their hearts (Ps. 40:3a). Listening is the key. May we move beyond the score and beyond the recording, and use our musicianship to make authentic music for and with our congregations, for the sake of the world God so loved. <br />
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Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-91156455485636003832013-03-21T08:54:00.000-07:002013-03-21T08:54:23.615-07:00WHO'S TO BLAME?It's been a while since we've had a post here - vocational responsibilities have taken both Stephen and Phillip away from Liturgy Solutions, requiring us to focus just on the essentials of the site. However, there has been much buzz on the net in Lutheran circles these past two weeks regarding whether our woes are a "pastor problem" or a "parishioner problem." Given that our last post was about the singularity of objective truth - that the truth does not vary based on our perspectives of it and so is not to be found between two views but simply IS what it is, we'd like to share some excellent thoughts posted today by Cheryl Magness on Todd Wilken's blog. <br />
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We'll get back to more "practical" posts after Easter, like we did last year. Summer provides more time for blogging and we do want to use this space to continue to provide practical tips and informative reports. But these more philosophical issues are important for those who lead the church's song for two reasons. In regards to the post from September about objective truth, because we need to sing of God's truth, given to us infallibly in the Scriptures. Whether picking hymns or choir music, we are at our best when we sing of Christ, the sure foundation, the Way, the TRUTH, and the Life. And this means not singing so much of our subjective experiences of Him, but singing Christ Himself, magnifying His word in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. <br />
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But as much as there is singular, objective truth in Christ, we must also humbly remember that each one of us is a sinner. "There is not one righteous, not even one." (Romans 3:10) Sure one person can be right about this or that, but we err when we think our group, our party, our friends, or even our church is not part of the problem. We all stand under the judgment. And so we should sing the truth of one righteousness in Christ, and the truth that one common sin affects us all. <br />
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Applied to the current debates within the LCMS, here is Cheryl's most excellent observation: <br />
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"It's not a clergy problem. It's not a laity problem. And it's not a DP or IC problem.<br />
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It's a sin problem. Satan strikes whenever he can get his nasty foot in the door, and he doesn't care what door that is. The pastor's study, the bureaucrat's office, the congregational hall, the layperson's house - they're all the same to him. They're all pretty, red but inwardly rotten apples, ripe for the picking, sharing and eating. he will work with whatever he can find. If he has a pastor who sees pure doctrine and faithful practice as an impediment to mission, great. If he has a self-centered baby boomer who wants what he wants in worship and he wants it now, great. If he has a council who looks at the pastor as an employee they can replace with someone they like better rather than as the shepherd of their souls, great. But the Enemy can just as easily work with the pastor who thinks that because he is upholding pure doctrine he can carry out whatever political machinations he wants to get his way. Or with the Board of Elders who thinks that because their pastor is confessional he is also infallible. Or with the layman who walks out of a perfectly good and faithful, liturgical service because there was one song he didn't like. Or with a musician who will not change or try to learn because, darn it, this is the way he has always done it and if they don't like it they can find another musician.<br />
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Kyrie eleison. We are a mess and Satan knows it. Come quickly, Lord Jesus." Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-78678040325911340592012-09-14T06:46:00.000-07:002012-09-14T06:46:07.867-07:00THE VOICE OF TRUTH"There are two sides to every story" is a truism that allows people to ignore the truth. For while it is indeed true that people in conflict share the details most sympathetic to their cause, and so we should listen to "both sides", the implication is not true that "the truth lies somewhere in the middle." In this post-modern age, with people being taught that truth is relative, and so is supposedly constantly shaped by "perspectives" from different speakers and observers, the old-time wisdom that "there are two sides" has now become particularly useful to liars. We see this in politics, in our families, in the workplace, and even in our churches. It is useful to the them because people hearing the conflict between the true story and the false story just throw up their hands (often in frustration, to be sure) and avoid "getting involved", saying things like, "both parties are the same", "they just need to get along", and "well, we're all sinners." And so people choose to believe what they want to believe, since the truth is just somewhere "out there", somewhere "in the middle." I've done this myself. It's hard not to. Even trusted source authorities such as teachers and even pastors will lie and deceive. May God grant us wisdom to discern whom to trust in our lives. And may we always be thankful that, even amidst the noise of lying humanity, we have the gift of pure, unvarnished truth readily available to us in God's Word. May its melodious sound resonate in our hearts. Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-51030127117754010262012-06-08T19:27:00.000-07:002012-06-08T19:27:12.919-07:00Beat-Driven vs. Word-Driven, Another ViewRev. Larry Peters, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, and author of <a href="http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/">one of our favorite blogs</a>, had some thoughts about one of our favorite topics and graciously agreed to let us repost his article here:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">I recently read an article on sacred music and how the music of the Church may be legitimately "modernized" and how it cannot be so "modernized." We generally spend much of a discussion like this talking about either text or sound, but this article brought up the issue of rhythm. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Now let me first admit that I am rhythm impaired and so can clap my hands, do hand motions, dance, or conduct only with great difficulty. I don't know whom to blame for this (well, yes I do, my parents and probably sin) and believe this to be a genetic handicap or disability. So it is with some fear that I venture into a subject which I can address only theoretically.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><i>The <b>rhythm</b> of the music is united with the natural rhythm of the given sacred text, either through assuming the textual rhythm as its own, or by engaging in a gentle interplay with it. Strong metrical or rhythmic effects that might overshadow the meaning of the text are to be avoided. </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Perhaps one of the significant things lost in the discussion of contemporary vs traditional music in the Church is the issue of rhythm. That which drives modern music is, in large measure, its rhythmic signature. Who has not sat at an intersection while the speakers of another vehicle punch out the beat to a song to which you did not plan on listening? From rap to pop, the beat, the rhythm, is what moves the music. Sure words count and so does the overall "sound" but rhythm is the primary factor in its success. Not so for the music of the Church. For the Church, text is always primary. When the music overwhelms or distracts from the text, the musical form is itself the problem.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><i></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">This is often a problem with hymnody. The successful hymn is one in which the text and tune work together in a seamless pattern -- both, as it were, speaking the same language and message. The least successful hymns are those which require a choice -- text or tune -- because they do not go together. One of the problems in hymnwriting (both lyrics and music) is the difficulty in keeping the text and tune married, stanza upon stanza. This is, then, the successful character of chant, specifically Gregorian Chant. It it the text that drives the music and not the other way around.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">There are wonderful tunes that I dearly love but they do not serve the text well and the hymn is disappointing to sing. There are also texts that conflict with the melody in such way that singing them is like swimming against the current. Congregations that do not sing these hymns are probably not able to say why they do not like to sing them but they know the difference between one of the profound unions of text and tune and one that is a shotgun wedding.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Modern music uses rhythm more effectively than almost any other musical element and it is for this reason that modern music is less effect as a common language or song in worship than the classic form of hymnody. It works as spectator music to listen to or as entertainment but it does not work nearly so well as the common song of the gathered assembly. The form itself actually detracts from congregational song. Sure, you get people humming along or singing under their breath. This is not the same as congregational song in which many voices become united sound, united so that every voice speaks as one. I think that this is a far greater issue than those who frame the debate as high culture vs low (or popular) culture and it also rescues us from the prison of likes and dislikes. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">One more interesting tidbit from the article:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><i>The <b>human voice </b>is always the primary instrument, and often the only instrument. Being an integral part of man, rather than his exterior creation, the voice has a unique capacity for intimate expression of the depth and breadth of human feeling and experience. It is equally accessible to all people and all cultures. When the organ or other instruments are used, it is for the purpose of supporting or enhancing, rather than dominating or supplanting, the voice</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">This is another issue but not one unrelated to this issue. When the music makes it seem like the voice is secondary or peripheral to the song, we have problems with this music in service to the liturgy. Of course, this is an issue for voices and not a vocal track -- congregational song (chant and hymn) being primary to the criteria of effective and successful church music.</span>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-22970226376823169372012-05-30T20:12:00.001-07:002012-05-31T06:02:02.854-07:00Flexibility and the LiturgyFolks who generally stick to the rubrics when planning worship are oftentimes thought of as "inflexible" in their approach. The spirit of the age highly values spontaneity and innovation - believing such things to be markers of sincerity, authenticity, and even creativity - and so following a traditional liturgy is seen by many as an impediment to genuine worship. To be sure, an approach that does everything "by the book" can definitely be uncreative and even careless. Yet worship that is "free" from liturgical constraints is not necessarily more creative nor does it really bring with it more variety. More often than not, "contemporary" or "low church" or "evangelical" services follow an unwritten order and a musical ethos than is much more rigid than one finds in most "liturgical" parishes. <br />
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Why is this so? Why is there no real correlation between "flexibility" and whether a service is "traditional" or "contemporary". I think it is because when you get right down to it, everyone has to have a liturgy - whether they admit it or not. If you are going to baptize, praise, preach, pray, commune, and bless, you have to have some way of doing these things. And, at the end of the day, there are only so many different ways you can go about it, because there are only so many cards in the deck, and some of the potential ways of laying out those cards just don't make sense. You can't start the service with the benediction and it makes little sense to have the readings after the sermon. So whether one likes it or not, there are certain things that everyone does in a given tradition, and then only so many different ways of ordering them. And whether you order them according to your denominational hymnal or do things in a more parochial way, everyone falls into a basic pattern which their congregation settles into as the regular "dance" of Sunday morning worship.<br />
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This point was really brought home to me a few years ago when I was teaching a class on worship in Peoria. As I was talking about the options provided for in the Divine Service and how certain choices are desirable at different parts of the church year, a man raised his hand to comment that he was a convert to Lutheranism and really appreciated the variety in our liturgical services. He went on to say, "I was raised Free Methodist and we heard all the time about how free we were and how the liturgical churches were stuck in their rituals - but our pastor pretty much started and ended church the same way every Sunday and we had no church year except observing Christmas and Easter Sunday. It was very predictable - and really rather boring. I much prefer the variety Lutherans have. It makes church much more interesting." <br />
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Of course, there are many liturgical Lutheran churches who don't have much variety. Perhaps they sing the same setting of the liturgy every Sunday. Perhaps they limit themselves to 50 hymns all generally of the same style and all played the same way. And certainly there are "non-liturgical" churches that have much more variety than where this gentleman was raised. However, this all just helps set up the point that I'd like to make: <i>flexibility and creativity in the liturgy depend not so much on your order of service or how much you use a hymnal, but rather your ability to take your congregation's basic "Sunday morning dance" and build on it. </i>The basic steps always going in the same direction is going to be boring, but, whatever your routine, adding dips and breaks and turns and moving around the floor makes for an exciting and uplifting dance - whether your worship is like a waltz, a tango, or the Cottoneyed Joe. <br />
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I'd like to close with an example. Last Sunday we had the Feast of Pentecost. In keeping with the pattern of our congregation's worship, which is basically to follow the orders found in our synodical hymnal, the <i>Lutheran Service Book</i>, we had the following "dips and turns" along the way: <br />
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*We divided the hymn, "O Holy Spirit, Enter In", singing stanza 1 as an Entrance Hymn and stanzas 2, 3 as a Closing Hymn. This was because the text of stanza 1 is invocatory whereas the other two stanzas petition the Lord to sustain us with His Spirit as we go out into the world to glorify Him in our vocations.<br />
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*We sang a Russian Orthodox Kyrie, a cappella, in lieu of the Kyrie used in the order of service we followed (Divine Service II). This was sung a cappella. <br />
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*We sang the Puerto Rican hymn, "Alabaré" as the Hymn of Praise, rather than one of the Gloria or standard Dignes Es ("Worthy is Christ"/"This is the Feast") that is the hymnal's default. And again, we used alternative accompaniment rather than organ: piano, brass, maracas, calves, congas. <br />
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*In place of the Psalm, we sang the ancient Pentecost chant, "Veni Creator Spiritus" (in English), with the choir alternating verses with the congregation. The accompaniment was aleatoric "bell effects" played on the grand piano. <br />
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*Rather than the congregation singing the ordinary Verse before the Gospel, the choir sang a <a href="http://www.liturgysolutions.com/products/viewProduct.asp?functionID=10175">beautiful setting</a> composed by Dawn Sonntag. (Yes, I couldn't help but add a little plug! <grin>)</grin><br />
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*For the communion liturgy itself, the pastors used the options for Pentecost provided for in the Altar Book, further accenting the theme of the day in creative ways. <br />
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*The post-communion Prayer of Thanksgiving was from CPH'S <i>Creative Worship</i>. Sure, that resources is often misused by simply doing the sample service <i>in toto</i> each week without regard to a congregation's pattern and practice, but that doesn't mean that the resource can't be a great help. It's sort of like liturgical alcohol. Just drink responsibly! <br />
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*Finally, the attendant music chosen for the services throughout the weekend was quite varied: from John Ylvisaker's "Spirit" on Saturday night with guitar & keyboard bass to a neo-traditional hymn anthem with flute sung by the choir to the choir leading the congregation in singing the Argentine classic, "Holy Spirit, the Dove Sent from Heaven" with brass & full percussion (guiro, congas, maracas, calves, tambourine.)<br />
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We did deploy a few more musicians last Sunday than on average - but not much more. It was Memorial Day weekend after all! But most of what was done could have been done anyway. We actually use this much variety most every Sunday, whether we have a choir or not. And yet the congregation stays within a comfort zone, because the basic dance of our pattern of worship remains unchanged. <br />
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The Lutheran liturgy is rich in substance and solid in its construction. It provides a great foundation for worship that provides for significant variety in texts and can be accommodated by all sorts of music. There is no reason to abandon Lutheran liturgical practice in search of creativity, authenticity, or relevancy. It all really depends not so much on what you do, but how you do it. Indeed, the depth and scope of the liturgy actually allows for more flexibility than the typical pattern of most "contemporary worship services." <br />
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May the leaders of the Lord's song take advantage of the full flexibility provided for in the liturgy, that our worship may never be boring, and that all who are gathered may gain interest in it. Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-5745876338768329212012-05-12T09:54:00.001-07:002012-05-12T10:04:29.306-07:00Intonations vs. Preludes: Introducing HymnsThis post is not just for the organist - but for the pastors and worship committees who work together with them in planning the Divine Service. As you may have noticed, we're moving toward more bite-sized "helpful hints" posts here at Fine Tuning. We hope the ideas we are sharing will be "solutions" for you in your parish. <br />
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The title gets right to the issue: Do we want to introduce a hymn with a hymn prelude or intone the hymn with a simple introduction? This question often comes up with worship planners, especially when length of service is discussed. Too often the service suffers because the decision is made to go either one way or the other. In other words, some organists are told to play simple, short intonations for all hymns so that worship length can be cut down or organists are given free reign and then many of us musicians decide that every hymn needs 3-4 minutes of our music to set it up - potentially adding about 10 minutes to a service. <br />
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While each liturgy needs to be considered in its own context, there are some simple guidelines we'd like to offer that will help you incorporate meaningful organ repertoire into the hymnody of the service while avoiding adding tedious delays to the liturgy:<br />
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1 - If the people are standing, it is usually best to play an intonation. If the congregation is getting ready for a procession after announcements or Confession/Absolution, a short prelude or longer intonation can work very well, as the people will need more time to get their hymnal & bulletin prepared and are in a preparatory mood themselves, but the general rule prevails. Folks don't want to stand for 3 minutes before they get a chance to sing. <br />
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2 - If the people are participating in a communal or ritual action, such as receiving the Lord's Supper, then an organ prelude doesn't add time to the service. However, care must be taken not to play repertoire too far afield from the tempo and tone of the tune being introduced, lest the assembly not understand that the next hymn is being introduced. More varied repertoire can be used in place of a hymn stanza if so noted in the bulletin. This maintains clarity and also can add special meaning, as a "hymn prelude" is employed to "paint the text" of a particular stanza by matching the composition with the most appropriate words. This practice also aids worshippers in finding their place in the hymn upon returning from the Lord's Supper. (i.e. if the organ is playing "stanza 4", then one knows stanza 5 is next. This can be particularly helpful to people coming back to their pews in parishes where the singing during communion is not strong enough for one to readily ascertain which stanza is being sung.) <br />
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3 - The Hymn of the Day is the chief hymn of each Divine Service and thus deserves the highest level of musical attention. This hymn amplifies the readings for the day and is directly connected to the sermon. The people are seated for this hymn - a position for meditation - and so are prepared for listening. Along with the practice of assigning stanzas to choirs or soloists, using instrumentalists or handbells to accent or adorn various stanzas, the organ has its best opportunity here to help the assembly interpret the text. While certainly a four-minute prelude is not called for each week, this is the best time for the organ to make use of the art of music in service of the Gospel. Preservice music is heard by some, but people are gathering and often talking. Voluntaries are appreciated by more, but the plate is being passed and folks are often distracted by their kids during this "break in the action" between the Service of the Word and the Liturgy of the Lord's Supper. And though we love our toccatas, only a handful stick around to hear the postlude. So the Hymn of the Day remains as the organist's best opportunity to inspire and encourage the congregation. <br />
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Finally, keep in mind the purpose of the introduction. The hymn introduction - whether a prelude or intonation - should clearly announce the tune, establish the key, set the tempo, and be in the character of the text to be sung. There are many compositions of wonderful hymn-based music than can and should be played in the service but are not the best choices for hymn introductions. They can better be used as preservice music, text-painting stanzas for solo organ, voluntaries (music during the receiving of tithes and offerings), or postludes. What is played before the congregation sings, however, should above all else always prepare them to sing. <br />
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And the more your congregation sings the hymns, the more they will appreciate the organ playing based upon these hymns throughout the service! ;)Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-23113386727757116442012-05-01T14:15:00.002-07:002012-05-01T14:17:12.194-07:00Sticker Day!Key to nurturing the liturgy in any parish is teaching the next generation the Lord's song. This brings in not only the art of music, but the art of teaching as well. As part of our consulting work, we share "solutions" that work with choir directors seeking to hone their craft. Here's a report back from Emily Woock, Director of Music Ministries at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Elmhurst, Illinois. She's a friend of ours who would like to share the great success she had with one of our ideas: <br />
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I was recently introduced to "sticker day" when Cantor Phillip Magness graciously agreed to let me observe one of his choir rehearsals so I could get ideas for my own children's choir. I watched as he placed stickers on the foreheads of his choristers as they modeled correct posture, answered questions correctly, or anything else that warranted a sticker. Watching this I soon realized that these stickers were not simply just an extrinsic reward, nor were they used as some desperate attempt to get results. Rather, the stickers served as visible affirmation of behavior and hard work that was expected at every rehearsal. Who doesn't need affirmation now and then? We all do. </div>
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Excited about this idea, I resolved to try it with my own young choir, but decided to save it for later in the year once we had established expectations and the normal rehearsal routine. So last week while we were doing warm ups, I casually explained that today was "sticker day" and the basic principles- that they could earn stickers for various tasks today, and those stickers would be put on their forehead or hand, (not to be played with during rehearsal, of course) and that everyone might not get the same number of stickers and that was OK. Right after warm ups I noticed that only one of my kids was sitting tall, feet on the floor, music held correctly, and ready to go. Ordinarily I would have simply made everyone stand, but today I walked over, said "look at this wonderful posture", and planted a sticker in the center of her forehead. Immediately everyone else had correct posture. I never gave out another sticker for good posture. I didn't need to. That one little sticker was all it took! Their posture was fantastic for the entire hour. As I continued to give stickers throughout the rehearsal for various things, I found that even my very young and usually shy choristers were mustering up the courage to raise their hands to answer questions. The hope of a little sticker was just enough encouragement to coax them further out of their shells. It was wonderful to watch. I was quite pleased when rehearsal ended, both in how successful this had been, and how excited the children were. </div>
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The best and quite unexpected surprise, though, came when the children were picked up. As I sent them out of the room with stickers peppering their foreheads, I overheard even my junior high kids excitedly explaining to their parents why they had stickers on their foreheads. They not only explained the concept of sticker day, but in many instances told their parents exactly what they had done to earn each<i> </i>sticker. So not only did these little stickers result in a fabulous rehearsal, but they helped further educate the parents about all that we do in choir! We won't have "sticker day" for every rehearsal, but I will certainly be using this idea more often in the future. </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Thank you, Emmy, for taking time to share your experience with our readers. We look forward to sharing more "solutions" with you in the future! </span></span></div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-59089984363286991532012-04-26T16:42:00.000-07:002012-04-26T16:42:44.950-07:00THOSE "ONCE A YEAR" HYMNSMost of the hymns in a congregation's repertoire are sung a few times a year. That's the way it should be, I think, especially in an age when most folks don't read music and only hear our hymn tunes when they come to church. But there are some hymns that most every congregation sings well that they only sing once a year - such as "For All the Saints" every All Saints' Day. Oh, sure, it is sung at funerals, too, so some folks get an extra chance to sing it now and then, but it is basically a once-a-year event. Another hymn like this is "On Jordan's Bank", which most Lutherans sing every Second Sunday in Advent. That one goes pretty well, too. <br />
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This past Sunday we sang the "every Third Sunday of Easter" standard, "With High Delight Let Us Unite". This one doesn't soar quite as well with the assembly, but our congregation has learned to sing it. And I think they are enjoying it as much now as the choir, as it is a wonderful hymn. So it's a keeper. And this Sunday we'll sing "The King of Love My Shepherd Is", another once-a-year favorite. I bring this up so we can consider both the wisdom and the limitations of the "Hymn of the Day". Sometimes it really works, and a congregation's worship is strengthened with traditions like singing "My Song Is Love Unknown" each year on the 5th Sunday in Lent. And sometimes the "hymn of the day" that works is not necessarily the appointed one. At Bethany, for example, we have really embraced "No Tramp of Soldiers' Marching Feet" for Palm/Passion Sunday. So it has become a sort of parochially-appointed Hymn of the Day, for lack of a better term. But other times, the appointed hymn just doesn't take root. "Christ is the World's Redeemer" for Seventh Sunday of Easter comes to mind. There are others. <br />
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What are your thoughts? Which hymns are strongly associated with particular days of the church year in your congregation? Which of the appointed ones, on the other hand, are not so successful. Are there any you've replaced and found greater success with? And are there some that work better at other times of the year or other parts of the service? <br />
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Whatever your thoughts, if you haven't considered these questions as part of your craft of worship planning, I humbly suggest your congregation would benefit from this kind of conversation about hymnody. I do hope to get a few responses - but I hope even more you'll talk to your people about how hymnody accompanies are walk with Christ through the Church Year. Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-2727502172573655992012-04-24T10:20:00.002-07:002012-04-24T10:20:45.368-07:00WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">Pardon a short commercial break from the usual discussion & commentary, but we are so encouraged by Nathan Beethe's recent experience with our music that we can't help but share. Please let us know if we might of similar assistance to you:</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">I am an LCMS cantor and I was looking for a setting of the proper Verse for Pentecost to use with my adult choir. So I contacted Liturgy Solutions. Phillip Magness recommended Dawn Sonntag's setting of that Verse as one that his choir loved to sing, so I decided to give it a try at rehearsal that evening. The first time through my choir sang it well and liked it right away. I am really glad I took Phillip's suggestion, as I think this piece will become a staple for my choir. Thanks to Liturgy Solutions for providing quality, accessible music that is easily downloadable for a reasonable price. I will definitely be using them again! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Nathan Beethe</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Director of Parish Music</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Grace Lutheran Church</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Little Rock, Arkansas</span>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-77160433032402675432012-04-17T11:36:00.003-07:002012-04-17T11:51:31.189-07:00What Drives Your Calendar?A choir member at another congregation was recently sharing with me news about her choir, upon learning that I am a Cantor. As such conversations often go, the exchange of experiences turned to numbers: how many are in each choir, how many in each section, etc. It was observed that, as expected, the numbers go down after Easter Sunday, whereupon she said something that stuck in my mind: "Even though we're done on Mothers' Day. We're always done on Mothers' Day." <div><br /></div><div>Now, I am speculating here, but speculating based on experience - my own and also experiences my colleagues have shared with me. I suspect that Mothers' Day was chosen once upon a time as the "last day to sing" because the second Sunday in May seemed like a compromise between stopping choir at Easter and asking choir members to sing at the end of the school year and into the beginning of summer. I certainly have done this with my youngest children's choir, though this group now comes back each year for Ascension. </div><div><br /></div><div>Which brings me to my question for the day - and the point I'd like to make. Yes, we are going to lose choir members after Easter. But this does not mean we should let the world drive the church's calendar. Over time, I have learned that if I schedule my adult choir through Trinity Sunday each year, more and more of them stay for the whole year. Yes, our school choirs have to be scheduled around the school year. So we do need to make adjustments. But even if half the singers depart, necessitating easier music, the visible and audible continuation of the choir through the Great 50 Days of Easter and at the great feasts of Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday will teach and encourage your singers and, more importantly, your parish. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's worth doing. Keep 'em singing. </div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-34136448220410726932012-04-12T18:08:00.003-07:002012-04-12T18:17:25.513-07:00"Music's music!" (aarrrgghh)We'd like to hand the platform over to Cheryl Magness, who has some excellent observations on authenticity in music - something we're very big on here at Liturgy Solutions, as you know. We've all run into this growing attitude that music is commodity to be consumed, and that it is value-neutral. Cheryl does an excellent job of reminding us of the value of real people making real music:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; ">Recently my friend Susan wrote a <a href="http://www.hymn-addict.blogspot.com/2012/04/real-music.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(19, 79, 92); font-style: normal; ">blog post</a> called "Real Music" in which she highlighted one of the things that sets live music apart from recorded music: with live music you can hear the sounds of the music being made--things like the singer's breaths or the depressing of the organ or piano pedals or the guitarist's fingers sliding up and down the strings. She wrote of these things not as distractions but as things she is happy to hear because they are representative of real music being made by real people.<br /><br />As someone who is increasingly distressed at the ways recorded music is replacing live music in our world I greatly appreciated her post. Many people don't see a difference between a recording and a living, breathing performance. A few days ago I saw a pastor friend on Facebook touting a product called "The Virtual Organist." His post began, "No organist? No problem." As someone who thinks it is quite possible to have reverent, beautiful worship without any organ or even without a musician, part of me responds positively to that sentence. At the same time, I bristle at the claim that a human musician can be replaced by a digital one with nothing lost. I think in fact that much is lost. And I think it is a huge problem that it is getting harder and harder to find musicians of a certain skill level. It reflects a troubling trend in our society, one that more and more views music as something not that people do but as something that they merely receive.<br /><br />This morning I saw this comic strip in my blog reader:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIxyXUMCOXnHTsEvBKsnZ6nPrGHLFube3cgxsKPpMwzo_U4foX9iasLlrfswGRxr5OQSH6x0YKWHMD7sU-FHUJ0nuQPETZlbHkbzhqdUIrXLw0LD8x4YU2rxbnsYBLFmDuykMaMdLjI2gM/s1600/Music%2527s+Music.gif" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(19, 79, 92); font-style: normal; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIxyXUMCOXnHTsEvBKsnZ6nPrGHLFube3cgxsKPpMwzo_U4foX9iasLlrfswGRxr5OQSH6x0YKWHMD7sU-FHUJ0nuQPETZlbHkbzhqdUIrXLw0LD8x4YU2rxbnsYBLFmDuykMaMdLjI2gM/s400/Music%2527s+Music.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730138287191376866" style="border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; position: relative; padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); -webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976562) 1px 1px 5px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976562) 1px 1px 5px; display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 142px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; " /></a><a href="http://www.tonedeafcomics.com/musics-music/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(19, 79, 92); font-style: normal; ">(Original link here.)</a><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">The issue is different, but I think it demonstrates a similar lack of appreciation of many for what goes into--and comes out of--live music. Music is music, right? So there is no difference between a real, live organist and a recorded one. Hey, that recording will probably be more accurate and rhythmically clean than an imperfect, human musician. Yet I would far and away rather attend a service accompanied by my friend of limited ability who is working hard to fill in the gap created at her church by an organist's failing health than to attend a service accompanied by "The Virtual Organist." The latter might be clean and neat, but the former is authentic. Real. Honest. Alive.</div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div>I am currently playing in a pit orchestra for a local junior high's production of <i>Bye, Bye, Birdie</i>. I have immense respect for this school and its music and administrative staff for appreciating the difference between a live pit orchestra and a recording and for being willing to pay for the former. We will not be as clean as the recording will be. But each performance will be unique, something that is a reflection of a particular combination of musicians, performers, and listeners at a specific point in time. The pit will be able to adjust to the performance in a way that a track cannot. And the young people in the production will get something that more accurately reflects the give and take that happens in a real musical/theatrical event. It is something that can't be bottled, with a worth that can't be measured.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also have great respect for schools in my area that annually hire live accompanists (like me) for music contests. A friend and colleague of mine recently shared the experience of adjudicating a school contest in another district. All of the students were accompanied by "<a href="http://www.smartmusic.com/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(19, 79, 92); ">Smart Music</a>" tracks. My friend was told to go easy on his judging of the students because, after all, they had never had the benefit of playing with a live accompanist. As with virtual organ programs, I can appreciate some of the practical applications of recorded music. But I grieve what is being lost when people begin to look to it as a replacement for live music. "No accompanist? No problem." I'm sorry, but it is a problem. The students are missing out on the enormous benefits of working with an experienced accompanist, getting additional musical coaching, and collaborating to achieve a harmonious and unified ensemble. That cannot be replaced by an accompaniment track.</div><div><br /></div><div>But again, most people don't seem to get this. Except for the American idols who command millions of fans and dollars, musicians seem to be getting less and less respect. I recently heard a pastor argue for compensating organists hourly along the lines of secretaries. So if one plays for a service, and the service is an hour long, one should get paid about the same as a secretary would get paid for an hour of his or her time. I don't mean to disrespect secretaries, but the time and study that goes into developing the musical skills necessary to accompany a worship service, not to mention the time that goes into practicing for that specific service, is beyond that required to learn to be a secretary. One can decide as an adult to be a secretary and can realistically set about acquiring the skills in a reasonable period of time. It is much harder in adulthood to take up music if you have never, ever studied it before. But I can see how someone who thinks "music's music" might not get that.</div></span></div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-48785094608222531522011-12-26T10:50:00.001-08:002011-12-26T16:00:54.223-08:002011 AND LITURGY SOLUTIONS<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div>2011 was a busy year for many of us - which unfortunately meant a light year for Liturgy Solutions, Inc. I realize that some promised projects are still yet to be posted, such as woodwind arrangements by Terry Herald, and my own setting of the Divine Service. We also have several new settings of verses, psalms, hymn stanzas, and graduals in the queue. So don't give up on us: we WILL be putting up new content in 2012. </div><div><br /></div><div>This does not mean that 2011 did not see any activity. We did put several new pieces up, including some pieces that expanded the range of our offerings - such as a classic anthem by Paul F. Liljestrand (composer of the tune CONRAD, LSB #339) on "<a href="http://www.liturgysolutions.com/products/viewProduct.asp?functionID=99918" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">When Peace Like a River</a>", several hymns by Steve Starke with fresh tunes by Stephen R. Johnson, and also a rather popular <a href="http://www.liturgysolutions.com/pieces/other_service.asp?pcat=57" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">Venite</a> that uses CANTAD AL SEÑOR for the refrain, with through-composed verses. 2011 also welcomed award-winner composer <a href="http://www.liturgysolutions.com/about/composers_herald.asp" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">Terry Herald</a> to our team, and the launch of our Facebook page. Be sure to "like" us on Facebook so that you can see updates from us whenever new content is loaded. </div><div><br /></div><div>This coming year, I will have less on my plate and thus more time to devote to editing and posting new content on the site. This past year had many demands on my time - opportunities for service that led me to Montréal, Ontario, Springfield, Minnesota, St. Louis, Nebraska, Florida, Alabama, Colorado, Texas.....and Congo. Some of these places multiple times! While certainly the <a href="http://www.liturgysolutions.com/services/renewal.asp" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">consulting services</a> we offer that contributed to this hectic schedule will continue next year, there are other things I'm letting go for now that will allow me to refocus on Liturgy Solutions and also a recording project of some of my piano work planned for this summer. </div><div><br /></div><div>So if you have a particular need that we might meet for you, don't hesitate to contact me. We have many pots that are cooking here at Liturgy Solutions, and often a little encouragement from our clients is all that it takes to move something to the "front burner". Whether you are looking for a setting for a liturgical text, need to commission a composer for a special occasion, or would like to retain one of our experienced liturgical musicians for consulting or for a workshop, Liturgy Solutions is here to connect you with many of today's top Lutheran composers. </div><div><br /></div><div>So here's to 2012 - may it be a banner year for the Lord's song in your congregation! </div><div><br /></div><div>In Christ, </div><div><br /></div><div>Phillip Magness</div><div><br /></div><div></div></span>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-3302965657880987912011-07-22T12:35:00.001-07:002011-07-22T13:06:20.216-07:00WOW!Leaving now from St. Peter to go back home - energized and renewed in my vocation as a "storyteller" in the church. This is the calling of all who lead the Lord's song, to lead and to teach the family song, the song which tells the family story. (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Ps</span>. 89:1 - "I will story of Your love, O God, and proclaim Your faithfulness forever.") <div><br /></div><div>The sermon at Morning Prayer today was focused on the eternal worship we get a glimpse of in Revelation 7:9-17. We certainly had a foretaste of that feast to come in our worship together this week, and the pastor joked that we might feel like we don't want to leave here today because we just don't want it to end! Of course, we are ready to come off the mountaintop and return to our homes now, but the point is made: in heaven we really will be home, and so then we will never have to "go home" from worship. </div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of going home, I've got an 8-hour drive ahead of me and would like to be home before it is tomorrow, so I will have to continue this later. For now, let me highlight a couple of things that made this a heavenly experience, and also give thanks to a new friend I had the pleasure of making this week. First, some highlights - or why you really want to be at the next <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">WELS</span> National Worship Conference: </div><div><br /></div><div>*Singing Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" with 900 other singers and an orchestra. The ultimate, "sing-it-yourself Messiah" experience! </div><div>*Singing Paul Tate's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Venite</span> at Morning Prayer this morning. I'll have to introduce this one to Bethany! </div><div>*Experiencing the catholicity of the church's song with such a vibrant assembly as we sang chorales, a contemporary song by the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Gettys</span>, contemporary <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">psalmody</span>, new hymn tunes for old texts, and new texts for old tunes. Led by a rich variety of organ, piano, brass, winds, strings, and percussion, this conference was indeed a model for what parishes should strive for in involving the whole talent of the congregation and embracing both the depth of our rich heritage and the breadth of our communion. </div><div>*Concluding, as all <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">WELS</span> National Conferences do, with "Jerusalem the Golden", sung to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">THAXTED</span>. (Many in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">LCMS</span> know this as "And There's Another Country") Led by the orchestra in a subtle, sensitive, and moving arrangement that really let the congregation sing, this cantor was one of many who had to pause for tears as the assembly carried us along with this powerful picture of heaven. </div><div><br /></div><div>A blessed <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">antepast</span>, indeed. And one person among many who contributed to this wonderful conference was Dr. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Kayme</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Henkel</span>, piano professor at the International School of Bethesda, MD (outside of Washington, DC) and a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Madison. She played piano most excellently for this morning's service and did a fantastic job. I want to extend my thanks publicly to her particularly for her performance of the work the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">WELS</span> commissioned from me for this conference, my piano solo on <a href="http://roundunvarnishedtale.blogspot.com/2011/04/lamb-of-god-like-you-havent-heard-it.html">"Lamb of God.</a>" It is a musically challenging composition, and she played it with convincing sincerity and passion. Thanks, <a href="http://www.wpr.org/music/neale-silva/2006/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Kayme</span></a>! </div><div><br /></div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-79055281489204976732011-07-21T06:38:00.001-07:002011-07-21T07:01:33.654-07:00PASSING THE TORCHToday at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">WELS</span> National Worship Conference we are off to New <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Ulm</span>, MN, where we will have classes and worship at Martin Luther College. An institution of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">WELS</span>, they will showcase the fabulous <a href="http://www.mlc-wels.edu/home/media/archivedstreams/concerts/dedication/?searchterm=chapel%20dedication">new chapel</a> they have built there. We will enjoy the day there, and then return to St. Peter this evening. (The conference is hosted at Gustavus Adolphus College because there is not room to accommodate 1000 people in the dorms at Martin Luther College) <div><br /></div><div>Yesterday, the keynote address, "Passing the Torch" highlighted the role of the church musician as the one who hands down a tradition. This reminds me of my work in Africa, where Lutherans there eagerly desire to learn the hymns of our faith, and so treat me as some sort of esteemed elder who teaches them the family story. Whether born into a family or adopted into a family, someone who is truly part of a family wants to know the family traditions. Musicians serve the Lord's ministry by teaching and celebrating the family song, that they may also tell "the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done." (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Ps</span>. 78)</div><div><br /></div><div>Rev. Aaron Christie, who is a musician as well as a pastor, encouraged us with five principles to help us "pass it on": </div><div><br /></div><div>* Strive for a life-long pursuit of excellence.</div><div>* Proclaim the Gospel always in our music and our art. </div><div>* Be students of art and culture, and carefully apply your learning to the art of church music. </div><div>* Develop along with your art. Make the best of the various styles your own. </div><div>* Teach your craft to young musicians, and inspire them to be the next generation of leaders.</div><div><br /></div><div>Seeing all the young people here at the conference, I think the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">WELS</span> is definitely passing the torch. May all Christian churches learn from their example. </div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-36996979854258935582011-07-20T07:40:00.000-07:002011-07-20T08:15:35.261-07:00The Best-Kept Secret in Church MusicOnce again I am totally impressed by the quality, organization, and spirit of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">WELS</span> national worship conference. I have been to many such gatherings of other organizations, many of them fine in their own right. But every time I spend a week with the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">WELS</span>, I am reminded of Proverbs 31:29 ("Many have done excellently, but you have surpassed them all!"). That such excellence proceeds from a church body of but 400,000 souls is truly noteworthy. Clearly, these saints love the Lord's song, and, as we prayed in chapel this AM, desire "to worship in excellent, noble, and lovely ways."<div><br /></div><div>There is so much that merits these accolades that I will not be able to squeeze them all in here between morning chapel and the upcoming keynote address to be delivered by Rev. Aaron Christie. But one highlight that must be mentioned is the outstanding opening concert last night given by the Festival Choir and Orchestra. Volunteer groups gathered from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">WELS</span> congregations around the country, these ensembles performed magnificently under the inspiring direction of Dr. Kermit <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Moldernhauer</span> and Katherine <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Tiefel</span>. Especially memorable moments included a beautiful setting of "When You Pass Through the Waters" (Is. 43:1-3) by Paul D. Weber (published by Morning Star Music), <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Evelyen</span> R. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Larter's</span> arrangement of "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel (Augsburg Fortress), Mendelssohn's "There Shall a Star", the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Crucifixus</span> from Bach's B Minor Mass, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Manz</span>' "Even So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come." Liturgy Solutions composers Kevin Hildebrand and Jeffrey <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Blersch</span> also had works performed: Kevin's setting of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Jaroslav</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Vajda's</span> incredibly moving text, "In Hopelessness and Near Despair," and Jeff's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">concertato</span> on "Crown Him with Many Crowns" (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">CPH</span>). Both of these works were excellently performed, as was John Rutter's Psalm 146. Above all, this reviewer was particularly moved by Brad Holmes "Star in the East". This should not surprise my friends who know my love for Sacred Harp music! :) </div><div><br /></div><div>More to come. It is now time for the keynote address, "Passing the Torch." The hymn festival last night was loosely themed on "passing the joy of our Lutheran heritage to the next generation." It'll be good to discuss this, and we need strategies and motivation for training up all those who are new in the faith in the Lord's song - whether young or old. But it'll be great after discussing this to get back to <i>enacting</i> it, both here at this conference and back home in our congregations. And with 1000+ participants here at this conference, there will be a lot of places after this conference where the Lord's song will be sung with greater nobility, excellence, beauty, and joy!</div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-42274318964713373742011-07-19T10:30:00.000-07:002011-07-19T10:51:50.248-07:00GREETINGS FROM THE WELS NATIONAL WORSHIP CONFERENCEIt is a great day here in St. Peter, Minnesota, as musicians and pastors are gathering for the triennial WELS National Music Conference. Phillip Magness and Stephen Johnson are both here to make presentations, and also have set up a display booth in the vendor's area. We are so happy to be here, as the Commission on Worship for the WELS always does such a fantastic job. <div><br /></div><div>If you are here, come by, say hello, and sign up for a free Liturgy Solutions download of your choice! </div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461698464806055180.post-23023743931301381192011-06-16T05:59:00.001-07:002011-06-16T06:41:35.890-07:00RAGTIME PRAISESome things never change - like Cantors' struggles to nurture the Lord's song in this strange land. Here's a short article from a 1904 <i>Lutheran Observer</i>: <div><br /><div>"Music In the Sunday School" by H. W. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Siegrist</span> (of Lebanon, PA) </div><div><br /></div><div>It should be a well-known fact that our Church is rich in its musical history. From the time of Luther down to the present day, composers have not been wanting, and it should be equally well known that the productions of the best composers of all other denominations are ever at our disposal. It <i>is,</i> however, a well-known but lamentable fact, that a large proportion of our churches have failed to avail themselves of their magnificent opportunities. For instance, in how many of our infant schools are the little ones taught anything but the most senseless and unmusical ditties, which pervert their taste for the fine hymns of the Church - hymns written especially for children, and with the distinct purpose of fostering in their minds and hearts a desire and love for Christ, through the beautiful in poetry and music. This method the children find carried on when they reach the intermediate and more advanced grades, until their idea of Sunday-school music is utterly perverted and abnormal. Many of these same Sunday-schools exercise the most unusual, and sometimes unaccountable, vigilance in selected books for their libraries, yet when it comes to the selection of hymns and hymnals, a decidedly mediocre selection will be agreed upon. The care taken in regard to the former is commendable, but why should it not be taken, also, in regard to the latter? </div></div><div><br /></div><div>From many churches comes up the cry, "We have such poor congregational singing, and we cannot account for it!" It can, unquestionably, be traced back to the infant and intermediate departments of the Sunday-School, where, if proper care had been taken to teach the children to sing the hymns of the Church they would have learned to know and love them, and they would now sing heartily in the services of the Church as a matter of course. This is not a theory, but the result of an experience of more than twenty years in choir and Sunday-school work in the Lutheran Church. </div><div><br /></div><div>This need finds expression, too, in the music of the services published by the different Boards of Church for their special Sunday-school exercises. We are furnished services several times a year, the music of which, generally, is of the most ordinary character, and in schools where proper discretion is used, they are as often rejected. If the General Synod will not furnish a hymnal of standard quality for its Sunday-schools, and the Church Boards, services of the same grade, no mere matter of sentiment should stand in the way of securing hymns and services from other sources. We owe it to our children, to our Church and to our God - who, in all reverence I cannot believe is well pleased with some uncertain words of praise sung to "rag time" tunes...</div><div><br /></div><div>My plea is for the very best possible hymns for the children. Nothing can be too good for them. It is our duty to inculcate a love for the beautiful in church music along with the Christian training in the development of the minds and characters of our youth. </div><div><br /></div><div>Dr. Waldo <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Seldon</span> Pratt, Professor of Music and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hymnology</span> at Hartford Theological Seminary, in his "Musical Ministries in the Church" says: "Educational effort should be brought to bear where it will do the most good. It surely should not be confined simply to the older people. Children and young people have quick appreciation and few prejudices. Other things being equal, the Sunday-school is generally the most promising place to work out progressive <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">hymnodic</span> ideas, especially on the musical side. The full sense of some hymns will be caught only vaguely, no doubt, but many of the richest tunes are more readily learned by young people than adults. In the long run, the general grade of a church's hymn-singing will be found to be fixed by the Sunday-school. Hence here there should be special care taken. Here at least we cannot afford to have less than the best available book or less than the best available musical leadership. Here the Pastor and the Superintendent and the Teachers have a distinct opportunity to build for the future, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">hymnodically</span> as in other ways." </div>Phillip Magnesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17841725361772353858noreply@blogger.com0