PART III
How shall we know the proper kind of religious music to use for various occasions? What are the criteria by which we may judge? I once heard two of our evangelists discussing these questions. One was certain that it would be impossible to hold an audience unless the latest type of gospel song were used. He felt that there was no other way to get the people into the right spirit. The other pointed out that millions of martyrs went to then* death long before the days of the gospel song, inspired to the utmost devotion under an entirely different type of music.
So, in a congregation of any size, there are bound to be wide differences in musical taste and appreciation. The sensibilities of the musically educated may be deeply pained by the cheap and trivial in religious music. Likewise, the musically untrained may be uninterested in highly intellectual music. To them it does not convey any meaning, for they may not know what to listen for. The laws that determine what is good and what is poor in music are as specific and applicable as the principles that determine good and poor in poetry and prose. Too often such questions are decided merely on the emotional basis alone, rather than on the intellectual and emotional combined. There is a world of difference right at this point.
I have been quite amazed to note how a per son's taste in music may change over the course of a number of years through education in music. It is my impression that, as a people, our musical taste has grown appreciably during the past few years. There is truth in music as in any art, and we should constantly seek to advance in the direction of that which we hope to enjoy in the future life. Sometimes, how ever, we hear our hymns sung or played in such exaggerated rhythm that our feet start to move.
In an age of passing fads we are now in the midst of a wave of choruses, some of merit and some of none. I am reminded of an article in an issue of THE MINISTRY that refers to people who squirm in their seats when some of these choruses are used. The author goes on to say that "it will do the same for a certain percent age of non-Adventists coming to our meetings, and it is a tragedy when music worries people instead of attracting them." But no one ever seems to ask whether we are pained or not. Apparently we are expected to bear poor music in the same way we do the smoker who, with his offensive smoke, sends us home with a head ache. Isn't it a bit selfish to inflict something on other people against their will for the sake of our own pleasure? Nevertheless, there are a few choruses that have a dignified appeal. Can we conceive of the angels at creation or at the birth of Christ singing in the waltz rhythm of some of the choruses? Or can we imagine the saints on the sea of glass singing the song of Moses and the Lamb in swing rhythm or blues? To those whose taste goes beyond this sensuous rhythmical type of appeal, such music is as frivolous and distasteful as is literature on the level of Mother Goose rhymes to a literary person, or "Now I lay me down to sleep" as an example of eloquence in prayer.
Even children can appreciate the very best in music. They accept whatever they are taught, but, given the choice between music of little musical merit and really good composition, they will instinctively choose the better, provided they have not already been educated into poor musical taste. I think children are often done a grave injustice because of a wrong edu cation in music by listening to dissolute and demoralizing radio music. It may take a life time to re-educate them. A number of years ago I carried out an experiment among completely uneducated African people. I played various types of music, from the simplest rhythm up to the most profound. When asked which they enjoyed most, they chose the higher type without hesitation. It is just as easy to educate upward to better types of music as to educate downward to the commonplace and demoralizing.
As mentioned previously, America has become the leading nation of the world in music, but the churches do not always take the lead. If our standards in music are below the level that prevails in educated society, then we work for such people at a disadvantage, for one who en joys the best in secular music, such as the music of the great masters, can hardly be expected to lower his good taste when he enters the church door. If the church cannot offer him a correspondingly good type of music, the great likelihood is that he will never enter the church at all, for in music, at least, he already has some thing better than he finds in the church. Never the less, we cannot dogmatize, for no one particular type of religious music has a universal appeal. We can, however, use the best in each type rather than the poorest.
There are millions of musically educated people who will never be attracted by a certain type of music that passes today for gospel music. These songs are not always inspired music, and often do not have any of the elements of sound musical value. Some of them are definitely a juke-box type of music, whose purpose is to work up a momentary spirit of happiness akin to levity a sort of spirit of good, all-round fellowship. The idea seems to be that if religion is a matter of feeling, well, why not sing away our blues and be gloriously happy? Such music is based solely on rhythmical and emotional appeal and may be as cold tomorrow as it is popular today. But our message is not something of the moment. It is eternal truth. Its appeal is not to emotion primarily but to the understanding. Its music should be consonant with its message.
The same may be said concerning the spirituals. As they came from the heart of the colored race, there was deep pathos, genuine musical value; but now that they have been commercialized, mostly by white song writers, they are usually spirituals only in name, and all too often are little more than cheap imitations, often rhythmically akin to dance-hall music.
I am led to wonder why, with the most solemn message ever committed to a people, we have not developed a whole repertoire of a distinctive literature of music that emphasizes the urgency and solemnity of our appeal as well as the glorious expectancy of unfolding events. We had some of these a century ago, but they did not generally reflect sound musicianship and so have fallen into disuse.
The history of our world opened with an oratorio when, at creation, the morning stars sang together. It will close with the song of the redeemed on the sea of glass. What triumph! What adoration! What exaltation! Should not our music here be a foretaste of that in the school of the hereafter? I am truly disappointed whenever I hear students singing or humming the latest song hits of some Broadway show. It seems hardly credible that in such a short time hence, they expect to join in angel songs. We read:
"There will be music there, and song, such music and song as, save in the visions of God, no mortal ear has heard or mind conceived. . . . 'They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of Jehovah.' . . . 'Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.'" Education, p. 307.
John the revelator, inspired in vision by that music, describes the perfect harmony of that grand chorus as "the voice of many waters." "And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song before the throne . . . : and no man could learn that song but [they] . . . , which were re deemed." What greater honor could be given to men and women than to have a part in that most exalted and sublime music festival of all time and eternity? Then let us begin to learn now the harmonies of heaven.
