Worship
A Variety of Religious Composition
The music we sing, in and out of church, is more varied and interesting than we've been led to believe.
Lawrence R. Mumford | posted 6/22/2011 10:09AM
In the March issue of Christianity Today, we devoted a number of articles to worship music. The passionate and diverse response of readers was not unexpected! We promised more reflection on this theme, and on worship in general. In this issue, we offer two more pieces. The second piece (which will be posted on Friday), written by a professor well grounded in ancient church history, asks fundamental questions about the nature of some forms of contemporary worship. The first piece, written by a contemporary composer, discusses the strengths and limitations of what we today call contemporary worship music.— The Editors
Before earning a doctorate in music composition and becoming a university music professor, I spent many years playing keyboards and singing in CCM and praise and worship bands, and before that, in nightclub and party bands. I worked as a paid minister of music in two churches in greater Los Angeles, and I also composed a number of published songs, one of which was included on a Billboard No. 1 album and Record of the Year. I mention all this to show that I have some working knowledge of contemporary music. I'm an insider who appreciates the genre, while not unaware of its limitations.
To understand what contemporary Christian music is, we need to look at just the music—not the lyrics—through a microscope. Although most people call it CCM or "worship music" or just "worship," it is first and foremost a subgenre of the American popular music that emerged in the mid-1960s and has been pervasive in society ever since. (For the sake of clarity, most musicians don't refer to blues, ragtime, jazz, pure country, swing, gospel, and other earlier popular styles as "pop," although they admire the music and at times draw heavily upon it.) This relatively recent pop music, with its almost infinite branches, includes soft rock, hard rock, country crossover, folk rock, punk rock, alternative, adult contemporary, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, and so forth. It has always been a model for CCM, and a few creative CCM artists have been musical innovators in their own right.
Nearly every pop and CCM song displays three musical traits that do not occur in hymns, traditional choral and organ pieces, or classical symphonic music. These are:
1. Consistent syncopation. This refers to an off-beat "kick" or accent to at least one beat in virtually every bar of the music, and often a complex of these rhythms. Such syncopation originated in African music and was brought to the U.S. from the 17th to the 19th century. Syncopation does not occur consistently in the classical music of Europe, primarily because that continent did not enslave large numbers of Africans.
2. A drum set percussionist playing a constant "rock" beat. This includes placing accents on the second and fourth beats of a measure in 4/4 time, which is itself another subtle syncopation.
3. A pleasing middle-ground vocal style that is neither rankly amateurish nor operatic. Additional musical traits that are common, although not found in every song, include a chord palette with occasional "modal" chords (unusual chromatic chords that originated in British and Appalachian folk music), a guitar playing supporting chords, an electric bass playing in a complementary fashion to the drummer, and improvised instrumental solos and fill-in patterns.
Again, it is astonishing that none of these musical traits are found consistently in traditional church or symphonic music. The only exception would be certain types of modality that occur in 20th-century British classical pieces. In other words, even if I were to play "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" followed by "Here I Am to Worship" on the same keyboard and with the same vocalist, I would be performing in two musical languages.
June 2011, Vol. 55, No. 6, Page 42
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