|
|
|
|
|
We do the best we can in our environment, and most of our brethren are to be complimented for this virtuous action. Let us explain. Primitive, impoverished nations offer most citizens very little leisure time. In those nations people must work more than 100 hours per week just to make a living. When you add hours for sleeping, most people have almost no leisure time at all. Music is a luxury that is desirable in affluent cultures where people have the leisure to learn music and to compose it and sing it for the glory of God.
Modern electronic tools makes it possible for music organizations to record new songs on CD’s and sell them to us. If we do not know how to read music we can just listen to the CD’s and quickly learn to sing new songs. I notice every year at the Tulsa Soul-Winning Workshop that our people have new songs to sing. Our ancestors did the best they could with what they had. Six times, in the book of Psalms, David praised the wonder of new songs (Psa. 40:3, 98:1, etc.). Solomon composed more than 1,000 psalms (1 Kings 4:32), but only two of those songs became a permanent part of Israel’s songs (Psa. 72 & 127). Modern music was not created until 1000 AD. The oldest Christian song that is still found in our hymnals was written in 1150 AD (Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts). There are only five songs in our hymnal writer between 1150 and 1300 AD. 8% of our songs were written in the 18th century, 35% were written in the 19th century, and 55% were written in the 20th century. Considering the fact that the church has existed for nearly 2,000 years, almost all our church songs are contemporary songs.
The Next Trend In Church Music In the past thirty years we have trained song writers for churches of Christ. Our students have found their ministry to be very frustrating. Let us explain. Most churches do not really place a high financial priority on a cappella church music. They want to spend as little as possible on gospel singing. So, they purchase a hymnal and keep it for 15 (or more) years before they attempt to update it. In the past the only real medium song writers had to introduce their songs to the church was through hymnals. If a new hymnal was published in 1975 that meant that the songs it contained would be the only songs available to most church until the year of 1990 or 1995. Between the years of 1975 and 1990 all new songs that were written had no market medium available. These songs remained invisible to most churches. If the hymnal editor decided to place a few new songs in his 1975 hymnal, most of those songs would find no support from the publisher. Publishers can support new songs by recording them and selling those recordings as hymnal companions. New songs written by the hymnal editor and songs written by composers who are already well-known are usually the only new songs that receive support by companion records, cassette tapes, or CD’s. So, the unsupported new songs are most often ignored by the church. This means that when the 1995 edition of the hymnal is printed that all the new songs in the 1975 hymnal that were ignored will be dropped. How frustrating!
Paperless hymnals are very different from paper-based hymnals. An electronic hymnal never has to be re-published. The creators of paperless hymnals can keep on adding new songs to the existing repertory indefinitely. Most electronic hymnals add a hundred or more songs every year. As song writers are able to have their songs placed in the electronic catalog, then those songs are present on an indefinite basis. Song writers will have an incentive to support their own songs since they will exist in a church’s library on an indefinite basis. Song writers can create CD’s of a choral group singing their songs. As customers purchase those CD’s and listen to them, then people will begin to use those songs. Paperless hymn editors have little interest in publishing every new song that composers may create. 90+% of all new songs lack quality and appeal. Most song writers may write 10 songs before they compose one that people might demand. Song writers will have to prove themselves as composers of quality hymns before those editors will be interested in publishing them. This problem is nothing new – the world of music has always been like that. If a song writer feels that his work is high in quality but is being ignored by established hymnal producers, then that song writer could produce his own paperless hymnal. Paper based hymnals are extremely expensive to produce. Hymnals have to be printed and bound in units of ten thousand or more. Initial costs are high and inventory costs are expensive. This is why only a few hymnals have been published at any one time. But electronic hymnals are not that expensive. Only three requirements exist to become a hymnal producer of one’s own songs. First, one must understand the dynamic nature of a paperless hymnal. Second, one must know how to typeset songs in Finale. Third, one must know how to export those songs to Microsoft PowerPoint. Producers of electronic hymnals can produce them one at a time. There is no need for mass production and a large scale inventory. The major problem that song writers would face in producing their own hymnal would be marketing. Most song writers are not skilled in marketing. The absence of marketing expertise would most likely cause song writers to produce their own songs in a paperless hymnal format and fail to find many buyers. The new flexibility in the electronic world of paperless hymnals will ultimately give churches more choices about the songs they sing on the first day of the week.
A classic song is one that is popular today and will still be popular 75 years from now. Many songs that are popular today will fade quickly in the next few years. Classic songs have a long life-cycle while faddish songs have a very short life-cycle. What makes a song a classic? The following are a few characteristics of this kind of song. Classic songs have a superior message. And that message is verbalized most eloquently. Some songs are deficient in their message. There was a time when “seven - eleven” songs were popular. “Seven - eleven” songs are those that contain seven words repeated eleven times. Seven - eleven may be popular for a short time, but those songs will vanish in years ahead.
Classic songs have melodies where the rise and fall on the sequence of melodic tones are predictable. Once you hear the initial patterns of the song a singer can quickly adapt to the flow of the song’s melody because it is not totally strange. These songs can be sung without sheet music because of their ease of learning. But many songs have a melodic flow that is unpredictable. A novice to a new song will attempt to anticipate the direction the melody will take next. When the singer pursues a melodic rise he suddenly discovers that the melody followed a downward flow. After singers seem to miss every turn in the melody, many of these singers just give up and stop singing.
The alto voice tends to follow the soprano voice. Tenor voices often sustain mutual tones as the harmony flows from one chord to the next. Bass voices tend to sing the fundamental tone of each chord – at least most of the time. Song writers who understand these principles can produce a classic song. But some song writers ignore the normal flow of other voice parts. In their songs alto seems to follow its own melodic line without regard to the flow of the soprano. Tenor seems to spend most of its time in its highest register, and bass jumps around all over the page. These songs will not be classics.
Popular song styles change with the passing of generations. There was a time when song writers were forced to compose their songs in the style of a classic hymn in order to find a market. Then a time followed when only songs written in the gospel song mode could find a publishing market. In recent years praise songs have become the popular style of song. This writer has visited with a number of frustrated song writers. Some writers still want to compose hymns while others still want to compose gospel songs. But those song styles are not in demand. So, those who are married to those older styles simply find no market for their music. Adaptation is the key to success.
Changing Generations and Song Repertory The summer of 2005 was a watershed moment. The following is a description of that moment. I have taught the history of church music to every freshman student at the singing school for the past 35 years. Every summer I introduce song writers, tell their stories, and sing a line or two of some of their most famous songs. In the past all our students were able to sing the first line or two of the most famous songs from memory without having to look up the songs in a hymnal. That is our heritage. In the summer of 2005 things suddenly change. When it came time to sing a line or two of the most famous hymns and gospel songs I witnessed a change in audience participation. The adult members of the class sang along with me, but the teens did not. It soon became painfully obvious that today’s teens can no longer sing a line or two of class hymns from memory. Why? You can see a clear reason for this new situation by considering the following series of events. We have a long-standing custom at the singing school of hosting a daily singing at 10 AM where the teachers lead the songs. Songs for that singing are carefully selected to encourage our students to sing all styles of songs. We blend classic hymns with gospel songs, southern gospel, spirituals, and songs of praise and worship. We then allow the students to vote for their favorite songs from that list of selections.
Look at our top ten lists for the past ten years. Even though we sing the best of all styles of songs, the top ten lists never reflects all the diverse styles. Classic hymns and gospel songs are rarely found on that list. A few of the Stamps-Baxter southern gospel songs used to be found on that list, but not in recent years. Spirituals and songs of praise and worship are the dominant songs on the list. Classic hymnals published for churches of Christ used to never print southern gospel, spirituals, or songs of praise and worship. Hymnals used to publish only gospel songs and a small number of hymns. Today’s young people are no longer interested in the songs that once dominated hymnals. At the end of the nightly singing lab at the singing school we turn out the lights in the chapel and admire the huge stained glass walls that surround us. In the dark our young people spontaneously break into singing songs they can sing from memory. Almost all those songs are songs of praise and worship. Years ago I used to read about how taste in church music changes from time to time, but somehow I never gave much thought to being an eye-witness to such a phenomenon. I suppose it was my absence of fore-thought that caused me to respond with a sense of surprise when I saw young people unable to sing a line or two of classic hymns and gospel songs.
CCLI (Church Copyright Licensing, Inc) sells churches a license to reproduce copyrighted songs for congregational use. Churches are given a license number to display on all copies of those songs. They report the songs they choose to use once each year. CCLI is then able to use their database to determine which new songs are the most popular. CCLI is now sorting songs by religious affiliation. They can now report which songs are the most popular among clients in the Churches of Christ. Actually, they group the Church of Christ and Christian Church into a single category. I saw the recent list of the top 25 songs among churches of Christ and the Christian church and was surprised to find that I am unfamiliar with nearly half of them. I try to keep up with newer songs, but I have seemingly failed to reach that goal. I contacted one friend who is a professional in contemporary church music. I found the answer to my questions about new songs when I looked more closely at the religious groups that were included in this survey. The CCLI computer cannot accurately sort out Christian churches from churches that use the word “Christian” but do not belong to the American Restoration Movement. They also have a problem sorting out churches that use the word “Christ” but do not belong to the fellowship of churches of Christ. Consequently, they produce a list of popular new songs that do not accurately reflect the tastes of churches of the American Restoration movement. I have discovered the same problem on the Internet. I can go to the search engine known as Google and ask it to help me find fourth grade curriculum for Bible classes among churches of Christ. That search engine will find me lots of curriculum for the fourth grade for Sunday School, but nothing for Churches of Christ. It will find fourth grade material for groups known as “Christ Church Evangelical” and “Churches of God In Christ”. If you want to keep up with popular new songs today we recommend that you consult with three groups – Taylor Publications of Navasota, Texas, Hallal Music of Midland, Texas, or Zoe Group of Nashville.
Training church musicians for the a cappella fellowship of Churches of Christ is a ministry that appeals to a unique group of Christians. The demand for this service in our modern world is not significant, so people who work in this field do so because of a love for this work, not because of a profit motive.
We have seventeen teachers, administrators, and coaches on the One key ingredient in a successful singing school are staff workers who will continue to work with the school for many years. Six men have worked with the singing school for only a short period of time. Each of those individuals found it impossible to maintain an active status in this kind of work. Ten of our teachers have fairly long tenure with the school. Seven of our staff workers are relatively new, and we hope all of them will be able to continue this kind of work.
One music historian estimated that 500,000 Christian songs have been written over the centuries of time. Most singers today have a repertory of Christian songs that are far less than 1,000 songs. This means that most songs that have been written are unknown in our age. Most song writers begin their creative There was a time in the past when people sang songs in the minor mode. That style of music has vanished in the Western church, so the artists who wrote in that mode are forgotten. For more than 200 years the gospel song was a popular song style. Most of song writers among churches of Christ in the 20th century wrote gospel songs. I can remember attending song writing classes where the universal assumption was that the gospel song was the normative model for any new song. Today most people have little interest in learning new gospel songs, so many of those song writers are fading into the background. Austin Taylor was a song writer in the first half of the 20th century. He wrote songs for evangelistic meetings and for congregational singing schools. He was successful in promoting his songs, so several of them became popular for a time. In recent years his fame has faded because his songs are no longer popular. In the last 35 years the most popular song style has come to be known as the “praise song”. People who are successful in composing songs in that style are today’s popular composers. People who are still writing songs in the gospel song style are finding themselves ignored as people rush by in their quest for the newest praise song. Some day history will repeat itself. A new style of singing will become popular. People will lose interest in singing praise songs. Praise song composers will fade into the background as singers search out the newest songs in the newest style. There are always exceptions to the historical model we have described to you. Every style of Christian song that has been popular has had a few composers who have composed some fantastic masterpieces. Those rare gems are still sung in most modern churches. When you survey a major hymnal you will generally find a few songs in every style that survive on the pages of hymnals. Most hymnals will present a balance of diverse styles. But the more ancient the style the greater the demand for high quality.
For too many years the pictures of the singing school have been stored in boxes and mostly neglected. In the early months of this year Mrs. Thana Furr made a decision that this was the year that every one of those pictures should be sorted, selected, and placed in a quality photo album. This is the story of that adventure.
From 1956 to 1987 most singing school photos were made on 35mm color slides. Kodak dated every slide. This slide collection included nearly 1,000 slides. Thana transformed about 200 of those slides into color pictures for the album. By the time we arrived at the year of 1987 one large photo album was completely full. So, that album became volume 1 of 2 volumes. The original singing school in Sabinal began in 1946 and closed in 1987. The full story of that school is now contained in the first volume of this major album. The school moved to Abilene Christian University in 1988. The school at ACU has been photographed on 35mm color negatives. The most recent 15 years of the singing school have now filled volume 2 of this collection. The singing school of today is very Our next step is to tranform some of those pictures into a powerpoint presentation that will relate the story of the school. We hope to have this project finished by next summer. If any of our readers need copies of any of these pictures, please contact Joe or Thana Furr in Sherman.
|
|
So, poor nations have only a few primitive songs to celebrate their faith. The book of Psalms had only 150 songs. Your hymnal contains more than 800 hymns. Our repertory is much greater than the repertory of our forefathers.
The world is changing, and for song writers this is good news. Little by little churches are choosing to use video projectors in the church auditorium on Sunday. Paper hymnals will fade as this trend continues to expand, and paperless hymnals will become more the established norm in the future.
Lyrics
On the last day of the singing school we host a closing singing. In that hour we sing the top ten popular songs as determined by student voting. 
