A college has been defined as a community of scholars. We think of our colleges also as cities of refuge for our young people, places where they can come apart and receive an education according to the spiritual concepts given us in the Bible and in the writings of Ellen G. White.
The study of music is an important part of the education given in our colleges, just as it was in the ancient schools of the prophets. But there are still strange misconceptions concerning the place of music in education. Music is not an entertainment, not a luxury or something to be enjoyed in days of prosperity only, not just an amusement. It may have entertainment values, but it has greater values than these.
Music is a serious expression in organized tone on the part of man. It is one of the great arts—the organization of tone toward the expression of beauty and a revelation of great and significant experiences of man. It may be gay and light in character, but primarily music is justified in the college because of the far greater esthetic and artistic values it contributes to the enrichment of our lives.
Today the art of music is recognized in colleges as an essential study. In the courses in general education in many colleges the study of music is given a significant place among the subjects basic for the cultural, esthetic, and spiritual development of man.
The study of musicology, or the serious study of music in all its various aspects, is an increasingly important study in American colleges. More and more the emphasis is being placed on cultural and esthetic values. No longer is music simply the minstrel department or the showcase for trivial display and entertainment.
We acknowledge that history books are written best by men who are scholars in the field of history. A medical doctor is a better authority in medical matters than an architect. But we are still in the age when amateurs in music, those who love music but know little about it, are controlling the music of the church. The selection of songs for our songbooks is often in the hands of a group who know what they like, but who are not qualified as competent judges of music. They follow the will of the majority, which is never a safe guide in artistic values. The result is that the music in our churches is not as far advanced in quality and excellence as it should be and as it might be.
Our brethren labor under a number of erroneous conceptions concerning music. Many think that what the masses like, or what the public wants, is good music. We are often swayed by mass appeal. And in the field of music the mass appeal has seldom if ever been on a high level. What the public likes is usually mediocre in character. Then the theater with its devices has greatly influenced our music, so that crooning, theater organ playing, and definitely secular devices are not only unrecognized for what they are, but they are demanded by our people and even by our ministry. In some places it is really unpopular to have high standards. So the voice of the people prevails and we give the people what they want.
We have our Aarons today, giving the people their golden calves of theatrical religious music. We have our Sauls, listening to the demands of the people and wanting to be popular by not destroying Agag.
We think of music and its emotional appeal, and through lack of education in art and its relation to emotion, we go to the extreme in emotional music and become sentimental. Sentimentality is too evident, both in choice and performance of much of our music.
This may seem like an overdrawn picture and too severe an indictment. An objective and impartial view of our music would prove that this is our condition even though it is not pleasant to think about. It is evident that we do not realize the need for improvement. We are altogether too complacent about these matters.
There is an increasing number of musicians among us of excellent technical training who sense this condition. They are unhappy about the low standards that often prevail in our church music. They would like to contribute to the betterment of our music. We have composers, organists, church musicians, pianists, music educators, some in our schools and some in other places, who are not at all disloyal to our church just because they cannot accept some of the low musical standards in the church. But it is time we raised these standards.
Now if we were willing to accept the advice of many of these musicians of training and sound scholarship, we might make rapid progress in improving our music. Too often their counsel cuts across our traditional patterns, and so their counsel goes unheeded. There are musicians who attend some of our churches and endure the music rather than enjoy it. And who knows how many musicians refuse to attend our services because of our standard of music?
I am referring now to artistic music. There is also the religious effect of music, or the religious appeal that music makes. There is a type of music which has religious appeal to some but that is of little or no value as music. There are always people who will enjoy this kind of music, and the church should not deny them this privilege.
There are also amateur musicians who greatly enjoy types of music that to them have a spiritual message, but which have little if any artistic, or esthetic appeal to musicians of training. The church is large enough to include all of these, and there is no desire to deny these people their favorite kind of music. Everyone should have the privilege of enjoying his favorite religious music within the limits of reason. There is no thought here to set up a censorship over our music. We do need, however, a much greater emphasis given to the finest in music. Much more enjoyment could be gained from a high level music program than we enjoy at present.
We must keep in mind that religious music, or the music used by the church, has to reach standards in two areas: the artistic and the religious, or spiritual. Excellence in one of these areas is no guarantee of excellence in the other. A piece of music is not necessarily good artistic music because it may have a strong spiritual appeal. Nor is all good artistic music suitable for religious use. Confusion along this line has been the cause of no little misunderstanding.
It is not always essential that we use music masterpieces in our services. There is nothing essentially wrong in enjoying inferior music. Every sermon we hear is not a literary masterpiece, nor is every article or book a work of literature. Music may serve a spiritual function and not be artistic.
This is not the problem I wish to discuss.
Our colleges and our church should seek the highest standards in all things, and we need to search out the best in music, for it is to the greater glory of God. It is unfortunate if good music is not desired. It is fortunate when our workers realize their inability to pass judgment on music quality and turn to our skilled musicians for their assistance in improving the music of the church.
I have no desire to tell our evangelists what kind of music to use, nor to deprive our people of their favorite hymns and songs. What we do need in a greater degree is to have our ministers and workers seek help and advice from our musicians in the many problems involved in introducing better music into all our services—church, evangelistic, and others.
Here are a number of areas in which the music program in our churches could be strengthened:
1. Great hymns. Studies in the hymnal should be presented in our churches. Emphasis should be given to the great hymns, such as "0 God, Our Help,- No. 81; "Now Thank We All Our God," No. 90; "We Gather Together," No. 8. Our members should learn these hymns, which after all are the good "old" hymns.
In our college centers many of these hymns of the church are being used frequently. Our churches would greatly benefit by the use of the best hymns of Watts, Wesley, Heber, Bonar, and other writers who have given us masterpieces of religious verse. The hymns could be promoted by hymn festivals, hymn-of-the-month programs, special programs on hymns of Wesley, Whittier, and other writers. This type of promotion is needed in our churches.
2. New songbooks. There is need for the establishment of a consistent policy regarding the publishing of new hymns and songbooks. Otherwise there is competition among the songbooks. Confusion in regard to different tunes to the same words, different styles of publication, and conflicting data about the songs—these and other problems should be in the hands of a qualified committee of musicians to bring about a better-unified policy of publication.
3. Choral materials. We have excellent choirs in our colleges and in other places. Our choral directors would like to reach out and help our local church choirs. This could be done by conducting workshops in the churches and especially at camp meetings, and by supplying the churches with lists of approved materials of various grades of difficulty. Booklets containing suggestions to choirs, and lists of choral materials would be a step in the direction of giving more help to our local church choirs. This is a project the church should undertake to do.
4. Instrumental music. The same type of assistance is needed by the organists and pianists in our churches. Workshops in various centers and instruction at camp meetings might be welcomed by local church musicians. Lists of suitable preludes, offertories, and postludes should be prepared for distribution to the local church musicians.
5. Church weddings. Education is needed in the matter of suitable music for weddings. Other denominations are issuing pamphlets and helps of various kinds to guide their churches in restoring a proper, dignified, and sacred atmosphere to church weddings. Too often our church weddings are patterned after the worst examples of theatrical, exhibitive, sentimental, and secular weddings. Our people need instruction in good taste, proper music for a church wedding, and in how to keep the wedding on a high plane of spirituality. A booklet on this subject should be prepared for all our churches and ministers.
6. Organs. Our church workers need information and help in the matter of buying organs. There seems to be a widespread belief that the electronic instruments are all we can afford or should have. There are others equally good and sometimes better than an electronic instrument. The question of acoustics and the
proper placing of an organ are also subjects for study.
7. Sacred music styles. It is hard for many people to realize how strong a tide of secularism has engulfed the religious music of our land. Our church members need to understand the characteristics of good church music as distinct from secular music. We are living in a time when it is popular to be religious, and even the field of popular music has produced many "hits" on the subject of religion. The style is secular, but the subject matter is religious. Some have labelled this "juke-box religion." Some time ago the dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine voiced his opposition to this trend by saying, "When a juke box or TV set gets us off to a somewhat less than reverent start, the result is a 'domesticating' or vulgarizing of holy things. Perchance these songs will lift up some to the living God. But for many more it downgrades Him to the commonplace. It is an ersatz religion, without awe, without mystery, without reverence, without judgment —and, in the end, without reality."
Besides secularism there has been a great increase in sentimentalism in religious music. By sentimentalism we mean overemotionalism, an exaggeration of true sentiment beyond good taste and propriety. Some of these songs treat our relations with God on too familiar a basis. Religious experience becomes commonplace and cheap. The sentiments of popular love songs pervade some religious music.
Music must have emotion, sentiment, and feeling. But a recipe that calls for a drop of vanilla is ruined by a cupful. So with emotion. This is a sentimental age in popular music, and it is hard to escape it. It is not surprising to find emotionalism and sentimentalism having a strong influence in our own music. It takes some understanding of the arts to be able to separate sentimentalism from legitimate emotion. Flagrant examples of sentimentalism may be seen in the popular styles of playing the organ, with excessive tremolo, gliding chromatic effects, theatrical tone qualities, in the crooning styles of singing; and in the sugary and sweet harmonies and melodies that are popular today.
Sentimentalism is not a sign of strength but of weakness. It contributes nothing to the development of strong religious character. It is enervating to the church. The Reformation was not carried along with songs of this kind. A return to songs of strength and ruggedness would be an antidote to the weakness of sentimentalism.
Other churches have recognized this unfortunate trend and are doing something about it. Recent hymnals all reflect this return to strong melodies and harmonies that will not enfeeble the church. There are a large number of powerful hymns of recent origin that we need to bring before our people which will mean strength to our music services. Our people would accept this invigorating hymnody if they but had the opportunity to enjoy it.
The time has come for the church to move forward to the strains of strong and inspiring hymns, to the music that will bring honor and glory to God, and give emphasis to the raising rather than the lowering of our standards.
Note:
Reprinted by permission of The Journal of True Education, vol. 21, no. 3, 1959.
