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Sacred Music Exists Because Somebody Cares

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The American Choral Directors Association cares about the choral instrument in worship. Because we care, ACDA is sponsoring a conference for musicians working with the choral instrument in worship settings. The event is called One Song, and I invite interested choral conductors, and particularly conductors new to this area, to join us in Atlanta on October 21-23. There will be podium time for new conductors in an effort to mentor their work, along with very practical workshops of interested for all of us.
In his book The Musical World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, Daniel Levitin suggests that all of music can be grouped into six types of song: songs of friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love. On this particular Tuesday, I would like to focus on songs of religion.
 
One of the things I appreciate about religion is that it demonstrates the incredibly important human potential of empathy. Religion sings about the empathy possible between individuals, neighbors, potential enemies, environmentally conscious scouts on the planet and the planet, and moderate people of faith.
 
In the words of Gordon Sumner (Sting), "Music seems to have an almost willful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know, leaving its power and mystery intact, however much we may dig and delve." I like this statement as much as I like If I Ever Lose My Faith in You.
 
I like this statement because it reminds me of how much music is like religion, and why it is so important to religion. Music is honest, and music is a perfect metaphor for my faith. I believe Levitin is getting at this point when he identifies religion as one of the reasons music exists. It represents something very important in our human evolution. It is a truth serum. And, it is one of the things I look for in a community of faith. If they sing, and I mean really sing, then I believe they are telling the truth, and I believe they know something about empathy.
 


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  1. Tim – I would agree wholeheartedly, having spent 40 years of my life as a (mostly volunteer) church musician.  I have told this choir that I’m currently directing that I find it hard to pray, but that I find I pray intensely when I am singing, not just as an individual but as a part of a larger whole, that choir, that community, that congregation, at Mass on Sundays or holydays of obligation or weddings or funerals.  But I would pursue Sting’s comment one step further:  He speaks of the evasiveness, elusiveness of music, the fact that dig and delve as we will, we will never come to the “bottom of the hole.”  And this, philosophically, is perfectly appropriate for dealing with the Divine.  Whether we conceive of the Divine as the Trinity, Elohim, Allah, or the multitudinous ways humankind has addressed the Divine, we will never fully encompass and comprehend the Divine.  And it is, contradictorally, that precise understanding of what we’re trying to do (comprehend the Divine) by means of a most incomprehensible phenomenon (music) that sums it up perfectly.  Theologians and churches may teach and preach as they will; to my mind, they don’t come as close to the true Nature of Divinity as music can and does.  The late Pope John Paul II argued that the history of mankind was not fundamentally affected so much by military or economic or political expression – but by culture.  I think he had his finger right on the pulse, on the truth, of the issue – and as religion is the most profound cultural expression (all one needs to do is to look at the differences between Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy to enter into the fullest discussion of how cultural differences – Latin vs. Greek – affected not only the churches and their believers but the whole of history in Europe and beyond) so is it true that music, as an expression of culture, is most thoroughly suited for use in religion – and reveals truths we find hard to grasp rationally.
     
    Ron Duquette
    Director of Music
    St. Martin’s Catholic Community
    Fort Belvoir, VA

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