Music for worship

FirstLight
Gathering Song(s)
He knows my name
I sing praises to your name
My life is in you, Lord

Opening Song
Great is the Lord

Confession
Halle, halle, hallelujah

Offertory
With all of my heart

Doxology
Owens, praise God from whom all blessings flow

New Members
Bind us together

Closing Song
The Summons


11AM
Hymns
466, O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
2130, The Summons (KELVINGROVE)

Introit
Cameroon, Praise the Lord

Confession
Hopson, We are forgiven

Doxology
591, OLD HUNDREDTH

New Members
438, Blest be the tie that binds (DENNIS)

Benediction
2279, You shall go out with joy (TREES OF THE FIELD)

Instrumental/Organ Music
Prelude: Arr. Kathy Moklebust, Be Still My Soul
Adult Handbells
Offertory: Wesley, Lead Me, Lord
Psalm 5.8 and Psalm 4.8
Postlude: William Selby, Voluntary in A

Postludes and hospitality

The issue of the postlude has arisen again in our congregation. My "both-and" opinion on the matter is well-documented. The suggestion being talked about right now is that during the upcoming holy season of Advent we (church leaders) urge the congregation by word and example to remain for the conclusion of worship.

As if on cue, I found this article on the matter. Writing from a Catholic perspective provides a unique viewpoint. I have been in enough Catholic churches over the years to know the image of folks returning to their seats after communing, and kneeling in prayer, and remaining knelt in prayer for the concluding words of worship and remaining knelt in prayer through the organ postlude. I wonder if kneeling were part of our tradition if we might find more people remaining for the conclusion of worship. For a few, no doubt, once they got down in a kneeling position, getting back up would take most of the time that is the length of the average postlude!

Catholic theology has a keen awareness of the sacred nature of the assembled body, the congregation. The theology is honed to such a degree that when part of the body leaves before it is time, the implication is that the rest of the body is injured. We Presbyterians would do well to re-examine our understanding of ourselves as a gathered community and the change in our nature which takes place as we become the body of Christ gathered for worship. (Gordon Lathrop's book, Holy People goes a giant step in helping Protestants discover this theological truth.) It's heady stuff but it could lead to a development of an understanding of what happens even at the end of worship as we leave.

I'm all for fellowship and hospitality. But can it not wait just a few moments while Christ's body, the church, puts a little bit of closure on the worship experience? I will gladly commit to playing very, very short postludes in order to help us move in a direction that sees the postlude as part of the service (no applause needed, please), and that sees these last few moments as the perfect time for a last few moments of prayer reflecting on the Word read and proclaimed or in preparation for the week ahead.

The idyllic life of the church musician

A couple of weeks ago news of a salary and stress survey made its way through the Methodist Musicians news list. The reason: church musicians placed 5th in a list of stressful jobs that pay poorly. Top of the list (the most stressful job that pays poorly) was "social worker." Next came "special events coordinator," "parole officer" and "news reporter." Next was church musician. The survey was done by PayScale.com and reported by CNNMoney.

Named in the article as one aspect of the job that provokes stress was providing music for worship services at critical times in peoples' lives: weddings and funerals. The article didn't name what I think is the obvious and most pervasive stress-inducer: the weekly challenge of selecting music for worship that appeals to the performers, suits the tastes of the congregation, is not too loud, is not too dissonant, is in a major key (see my earlier post).

The survey was conducted by PayScale.com. Here's their explanation of the scope of the survey:

(Payscale.com) defined high stress and low pay jobs: Starting from a database of over 2000 jobs, Payscale used data from over 36,000 respondents who ranked their jobs for quality of life factors, and chose those requiring a bachelor's degree or higher where the national median pay is less than $65,000. The survey was conducted between Aug 10, 2009 and Oct. 1, 2009.

I took a look at the PayScale.com site and took their rating survey. My salary ranked in the 45 percentile for my field. I think that means 55% of my colleagues earn more than me; and that my salary is 5 percentage points below the average salary reported for my field. I also discovered that persons holding my academic degree (Master of Divinity) have an average salary nearly $12,000 more than my current salary. I'm sure my career change plays into that in some way, but all the implications aren't clear to me.

Overall the survey was met with cries of "a-ha" from my list-reading colleagues. Those of us in the trenches, or on the bench as it were, know exactly what the survey is conveying.

Into the digital age

For years BMPCNC has been recording its 11AM worship service to cassette tape for distribution to our members not able to attend church. We kept a few copies on hand also for anyone who happened to be absent on a given Sunday and wanted to hear what went on. With the advent of new technology we began wondering some time ago about moving to digital recording. Finally when our recently dissolved Pastor Nominating Committee was doing its work they saved considerable time and expense by being able to hear potential candidates' sermons online in digital format. They got very excited about the possibilities of doing something similar with our worship. So these two streams merged into renewed interest in getting our services digitally recorded and online. Herewith: how we are doing it.

Some years ago the church placed two high-quality microphones on the rear wall of (west end) of the sanctuary for the express purpose of recording special music events. Concurrently they purchased a Tascam digital recording interface. This is the machine that takes the signal from the mics and converts it into digital signals that in turn are fed into a computer-based recording software. The church also had a pretty powerful laptop computer used for a variety of purposes including being the work station for the digital recording process. With the Tascam we got a piece of software known as Cubase, which is a fairly high-end and powerful recording and sound editing program. I don't know how the final product was used for those special music events. I haven't found any archived CDs nor files of music events recorded with this equipment. Once I arrived I was intrigued with the possibilities but didn't really take too much time to explore any of the components that much. Cubase has a pretty steep learning curve and I therefore let it slip off my radar most of the time.

However, with the arrival of our new pastor there was wide-spread interest and passion for getting on the digital wagon. We had almost all the equipment we needed. The only thing lacking was a speedy way to duplicate CDs for distribution as we envisioned it. So at the end of last summer I purchased a 3-CD duplicator along with a supply of CDs, labels and envelops. Now it was just a matter of stringing all the parts together and getting personnel in place to do the various chores.

First the computer crashed. Phil Cogbill built a new machine. It had a couple of kinks; he took care of them. The first install of the Cubase software was flawed, so we had to re-install that. In the midst of all that my dad died, Phil had H1N1 and we had the usual zaniness of church life during stewardship season. So everything took about a week longer than one might expect.

There are, of course, one-piece devices that do everything we wanted and were trying to do with 3-4 pieces of equipment. For $4000 you can get a digital recorder that will produce a master CD, make copies of that master and print a pretty label onto the CD. Sadly we didn't have that kind of money. And we did have these other components and a desire to be good stewards of what we had. We got the last piece of equipment and all the supplies for about $600. The desktop computer Phil assembled cost us nothing. (We did however, this week purchase a new laptop; we'll stick with the current set-up and keep the laptop free to move around the facility.)

So here's the process:

We turn on the recording computer and recording software

Sound is picked up by the mics and fed to the Tascam

The digital interface sends the sound to Cubase

With Cubase we create tracks of the service and edit the sound quality

Then we convert the tracks to WAV files

The WAV files are burned to a master CD

We duplicate the CD

We label the duplicate CDs and label them for distribution

We convert the sermon track to an MP3 file format and upload that to the church's website

A lot of folks remember the good old days of turning on a cassette recorder, hitting record and getting a tape of what you wanted. The digital format means superior sound quality but brings with it greater complexity in the recording process. These days its not a simple matter of recording a CD. That can be done; but we were tasked with doing this with no budget.

So while it sounds easy: "we have a CD recording of our worship service," it's been a long haul getting to this point. And there is a fair bit of work involved in producing the final product. This week I was especially grateful to Mark Banzhoff for helping get more familiar with Cubase. I still have plenty to learn but I think I have the basics.

Ultimately our goal is to spin this ministry off for interested lay folks. But we want first to be certain that everything works fluidly and that we can produce easily-to-follow and clearly-defined steps for the whole process. You can listen to sermons online at our website. Phil and Perry Sprawls added that functionality this week. That's where we are right now.

Major-Minor

A recent discussion on a musicians news-list got me thinking about major and minor tonality in worship.

As grade school students many of us were taught that major-keyed music was happy and joyful while minor tonalities were sad and slow. Aside from the wrongfulness of any sweeping generalization, I hope we all know this really is not true.

But the concept stuck at least for some. A colleague was writing that someone at their church was insistent that there be no minor-keyed music in worship because worship was supposed to be joyful and celebratory. And certainly the organ offertory couldn't be in a minor key, because that would lead to lower amounts in the collection plates.

So couple of things leap to mind. There is some incredibly joyous minor-keyed music for organ out there. And there are times when a little somber-ness is appropriate for worship. Finally I hope no one really thinks that the key signature of a piece of music is going to so powerfully sway someone that they cut back their offering to God based on what they hear coming from the organ. One's offering to God is a God-thing, not a music thing. Really.

I'll be playing a very sprightly and joyful prelude this week, in G minor. And I am not going to add a Picardy third to the end (that's changing the third tone of the chord to make it major instead of minor). I haven't encountered anyone in our congregation who has voiced opinions like those I mentioned above. I hope if these sort of views come up we can address them clearly with examples. And I hope to show by example that the simple major-minor paradigm doesn't go nearly far enough to describe the power of music to illicit feelings of joy or quiet introspection.

Choir Retreat

Members of our Chancel Choir took part in the Choir Music Weekend a few weeks ago at Lake Junaluska. In addition to a great weekend of music with some wonderful clinicians, it was peak weekend for fall colors. Many thanks to those who gave up several hours of a lovely weekend to work on music!

Music for Worship 110809

FirstLight

Piano Prelude
Sonatina
Hymn to Joy
Connor Watson, piano

Gathering Song(s)
Here I am to worship
I give you my heart

Opening Song
Come, now is the time to worship

Confession
Dayenu

Peace
Shalom Chaverim

Dedication of pledges
God whose giving knows no ending (BEACH SPRING)

Offertory
Lazarus dies again (Darrell Scott*)

Doxology
Owens, Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Closing Song
Give thanks

11AM
Hymns
478, Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (LAUDA ANIMA)
422, God, whose giving knows no ending (BEACH SPRING)
420, God of grace and God of glory (CWM RHONDDA)

Introit
Brazilian Folk Melody, O Sing to the Lord

Confession
579, Glory be to God the Father (GREATOREX)

Anthem
Handel, Shout the glad tidings

Doxology
592, OLD HUNDREDTH

Benediction
Kenneth M. Scott, Sr. May the grace of Christ our Savior

Instrumental/Organ Music
Prelude: Camidge, Gavotte in G Minor
Offertory: Herren, Arietta
Postlude: Handel, Allegro, Sonata in F

* Darrell Scott is a singer-songwriter from KY. This song is from his album Family Tree. Thanks to Andy G. for charting it out for us, and to SJK for suggesting it.