I saw a post from Richard Heyduck on his Bandits No More blog entitled "Singing with all your heart." He is discussing how different attitudes taken while singing hymns affect the understanding of the hymn for both the singer and the listener.
This reminds me of something I once heard a woman say. She was a member of the traditional choir at a Methodist Church*. She was complaining about the music sung by her churches contemporary worship group. She then referred to the music as "7-11 songs: you sing the same seven words eleven times."
As Richard Heyduck points out in his post, Methodists tend to have incredible theology in their music. But I know that I miss a lot of that theology when I try to sing along with my church's traditional choir. I was not raised Methodist, and I regularly encounter hymns with which I am not accustomed. As I attempt to get the lyrics and music from the hymnal into my head fast enough to sing, my mind is no more processing the words for meaning than I am processing the hymnal for nutrition. Everything flows through so fast, I completely neglect any "understanding".
I see the attraction of those so called "7-11 songs." If I encounter a new song and I can either sing 77 words one time through or 7 words eleven times through, isn't it better to sing the 7 words repeatedly so that I can learn them, understand them, digest them, and then let my heart sing them before the end of the song?
Please understand that I am not trying to put down the wonderful theological hymns that are strong in the Methodist tradition. Charles Wesley was a genius when it came to song lyrics. But I find his music is best appreciated when studied prior to singing. Unfortunately, I have never been to a church that allows this to happen. The fact that people fail to understand what they are singing is a shame.
Perhaps it is not a surprise that many churches with contemporary worship styles are growing faster than traditional churches (of which many are seeing negative growth).
Now if I only knew how to solve this dilemma...
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* Not the church I currently attend, and I do not know who this woman was.
2 comments:
One of my worship profs in seminary actually pushed past the preference-driven put-down language that goes in both directions of the hymn/contemporary conversation. And it relates to your conversation with the woman.
He talked about song lyrics (of either kind) in categories of narrative or meditative. Narrative lyrics tell a story and the verses tend to build on one another as they progress. This would be the "77 words 1 time" you mention in the extreme. Most hymns are basically structured this way.
Meditative lyrics are repetitative, rehearsing the same words, images, concepts again and again as a way of dwelling upon them and letting their truth soak in at deeper and deeper levels. This sort of lyrical experience actually stands in line with various prayer traditions throughout the history of the Church, such as breath prayers, which are short enough to be easily memorized and then repeated over and over as one meditates upon the simple but profound truths in them. These would be the "7-11" lyrics.
The advantage of this sort of analysis is obvious: it is not driven by taste preferences that are attempting to be universalized, it is rational (contrary to the aforementioned approach), it is more insightful and more attuned to the content of the lyrics.
Ultimately, turning the prism away from our shallow "competing monologues" and into an insightful analysis that has more potential for meaningful dialogue, I think these categories are far superior. And, they recognize the importance of both types of lyrics. Not from a compromising "mushy middle" angle, but from a studied, well thought-out one.
Bottom line: We're richer when we sing both, but we're ok with either one or the other. Neither approach has the market cornered on "quality lyrics," or (as we've seen with the ancient tradition of meditative prayer) "tradition."
First, I assume we agree that there are really bad songs in both traditional and contemporary strains, yes? So, I'm going to assume we're discussing the 'good' ones.
What model for worship songs do we have from Scripture? Well, we can immediately point to the Psalms. What pattern do they follow? Mostly non-repetitive (but not always), mostly multiple verses (in the modern hymnbook sense), full of theological content and often speaking directly to various conditions of our heart (Psalm 73). Some are long, but some are short (Psalm 117, 121).
There are other songs, such as songs of victory in the OT, the Magnificat (possibly a song), etc. These tend to follow the pattern of the psalms noted above.
So, if Scripture is the ultimate rule for faith and practice, I'm not sure the 7-11 lyrics hold up to that - definitely not if that's all you're signing.
I'll also mention this - I hear you that often we often have trouble taking in the content at the same time we're trying to sing it. That is an issue for the more 77-1 hymns (I like this shorthand!). As the "hymn picker" for our church, I try to slowly introduce new hymns over time. Our intention is to use part of Sunday evening to practice new hymns so we're able to sing them with less effort/thought and then take in the content as well during worship.
We must remember that worship isn't a one time event - it take place week after week over the many years of a believer's life. After all that time building up experience singing, you can sing "And can it be..." and glory in the words as you sing through the familiar tune. Whether good or bad, one reason (in my opinion) people like "traditional" hymns is that they already know the tune, so they can concentrate on the lyrics.
(ok, cutting off, this is too long already)
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