Modern Praise Music

[Lalaith]

I think there's a fuzzy line between what's considered praise music and Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Some CCM that you first hear on the radio (or a CD) ends up in church, arranged for orchestras or, more commonly, bands. Some churches could play any song a person can hear on a Christian radio because they have the musicians to do it and a welcoming atmosphere as well. I have to be cautious, however, on what music I select for our church. They are not all so welcoming to more contemporary music, nor do we really have the right type of musicians to carry off some of the "hard rock" stuff.

Praise music (or, rather, music used in a church service) has the primary goal of glorifying God and leading people in worshiping Him. IMO, that can be achieved by practically any kind of music individually but not all songs can achieve that corporately.

Music for the (church) masses has to be less of a performance. (There is music that lends itself to solo singing rather than group singing.) It has to be understandable to the people. It has to be fairly easy to learn musically-speaking, too. Repetition, in this case, is not a bad thing, nor was it something that Bach, Mozart, or Handel refrained from using.

I get a little riled up, I will admit, when people gripe about modern Christian music, saying it's somehow less wonderful than the "old hymns" or classical music. It's not necessarily less anything; it's just different. It's music that is relevant to our culture, just as the old hymns were 100 years ago or Bach was 300 years ago.

Yes, there is CCM that is not good. Either the lyrics are insipid or stupid or the music itself is boring. Or, my favorite, they use lyrics that actually have sexual meanings that they don't get (probably because they're not a gutter mind like I am). And I honestly don't listen to Christian radio all that much, partly because of this and partly because they talk too much. Man, I HATE talking on the radio! HATE IT!

But I digress. There was probably music written in Bach's time that was also crap. We just don't know about it because it never saw the light of day. We are simply in an information society where we get to hear the good and the bad on a regular basis.

Ke$ha anyone? <pukes>

Anyway, U2 and Sufjan are awesome. (yovi, that lyric gets me, as does the lyric in John Wayne Gacy about "And in my best behavior, I am really just like him, Look beneath the floorboards, For the secrets I have hid.")

I hear U2 on the Christian radio station, but I've rarely heard it in church (except when I blast it from the sound booth while working). We did play it as part of the pre-service music loop for our Saturday night service.

Switchfoot is another huge favorite of mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH6tXZxFaWA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et1vriu29Qk&ob=av2e (I've been amusing myself with the image of me singing this at our church's 50th anniversary "concert" this Saturday. I think I'd send the old people into their graves!)

As for what you might consider praise music, I think Chris Tomlin probably tops the list right now. I know I've been downloading mostly arrangements of his songs lately for the band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlA5IDnpGhc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEzEbtA9ba8 (A very catchy 6/8 tune)

He often takes old hymns, updates the musical arrangement, and adds additional lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqJsBRFdrA0 (Amazing Grace, My Chains Are Gone--I actually made a video for this, but I'm not on the right computer to upload it anywhere.)

[Alatar]

This attitude...bothers me a lot. I see this kinda of response to a lot of thoughtful art criticism and what it amounts to is "stop thinking, it's snooty". As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about art, what it's value can be, and how it functions, that's pretty insulting. And it's such a common response - why are people so threatened with the idea that you can think about what you like?? We can do better then "I just like what I like"! Your standards can be different than mine but have standards - thoughtful, intelligent one's preferably! And if you're not interested enough in doing that, don't call me a snob for doing so myself!

It's an attitude that promotes - even defends! - mindless consumption and that should NEVER be something we encourage, in the arena of art or elsewhere.

Ah but you see I didn't see any "thoughtful art criticism". I saw kneejerk, "that's populist, therefore its rubbish", which I don't class as anything except musical snobbery. Of course we can appreciate when music is complex, but how does one recognise the simplicity of a really great song that just works? If its only got 4 chords and the tune is in less than an octave, how good can it be? And yet, we know some of the best music ever written is simple.

Alternatively, we can know the structure and rules of music. The major and minor chords of each key. We know what chords are supposed to work together. And yet some of the songs that work best break all those rules.

We're all familiar with the formulaic "X-Factor Key Change" in the last third of an anthemic song. But why is it there? Why does it provoke the reaction it always does? Because its a strong musical tool, used by some of the greatest composers of all time. The fact that X-Factor uses it every week doesn't diminish that.

So I stand by my argument. You can pull music apart to see why it works and still never really get to the heart of it.

[Alatar]

I get a little riled up, I will admit, when people gripe about modern Christian music, saying it's somehow less wonderful than the "old hymns" or classical music. It's not necessarily less anything; it's just different. It's music that is relevant to our culture, just as the old hymns were 100 years ago or Bach was 300 years ago.
<snip>

But I digress. There was probably music written in Bach's time that was also crap. We just don't know about it because it never saw the light of day. We are simply in an information society where we get to hear the good and the bad on a regular basis.

Agreed. This is probably the most obvious thing that annoys me, and its equally true about any genre of music. I lived through the 80's and believe me, most of it was crap. Friends who lived their teen years in the 60's and 70's will say the same thing. Of course, looking back now we can pick out the best of a decade, stuff that never made the singles charts but are now part of the popular consciousness. Once you separate the wheat from the chaff, even the 80's sound good in retrospect!

Switchfoot is another huge favorite of mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH6tXZxFaWA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et1vriu29Qk&ob=av2e (I've been amusing myself with the image of me singing this at our church's 50th anniversary "concert" this Saturday. I think I'd send the old people into their graves!)

As for what you might consider praise music, I think Chris Tomlin probably tops the list right now. I know I've been downloading mostly arrangements of his songs lately for the band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlA5IDnpGhc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEzEbtA9ba8 (A very catchy 6/8 tune)

He often takes old hymns, updates the musical arrangement, and adds additional lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqJsBRFdrA0 (Amazing Grace, My Chains Are Gone--I actually made a video for this, but I'm not on the right computer to upload it anywhere.)

Had a listen to these. The first Switchfoot one is a little generic for my taste, and unfortunately the second is blocked from Ireland. In fact, if anyone's posting links, can you please put the Song title and artist in the link so I can search for it elsewhere if its blocked. Like this:

Switchfoot - Your Love is a Song

I'm bothered a little by the first Chris Tomlin one, cause it sounds a lot like "Our Religion is Better than YOURS", so I don't think I'll be using that one. (Besides, we have a standing rule in our Folk Group that any song with the word "Awesome" in it, fails the acid test )

I like the next one though, and we're already looking at his arrangement of "Amazing Grace".

Thanks for the links though!

[Pearly Di]

Jewel ... that Alison Krauss song is She has such a lovely voice, and both the melody and the lyrics are beautiful.

Lali ... I'd not heard of Switchfoot before. They sound a bit like Coldplay. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

U2 rock. Thank you. The end.

There's no doubt that some contemporary Christian bands, like delirious? were definitely influenced big-time by U2. Nothing wrong with that either.

My contribution to this thread is that contemporary worship music is, for me, an intensely personal thing (just as all musical appreciation is subjective). Some of it makes me go 'meh'. Some of it really speaks to me on a deep level and I enjoy singing it in church.

Yeah, quite a lot of modern praise music is sappy. A lot of it is not. It's like any era in music, including church music. There are many traditional hymns that have survived for a reason, and that's because both the tunes and the theology are good. Many more did not survive, and that's because they weren't good in the first place. Same goes for modern worship songs -- many won't stand the test of time, but others will.

At least some contemporary worship leaders, like Matt Redman, are actively interested in writing 'songs of lament'.

And of course the Townend/Getty contingent write modern, very singable hymn-ballads that are easy for congregations to sing.

[JewelSong]

Ah but you see I didn't see any "thoughtful art criticism". I saw kneejerk, "that's populist, therefore its rubbish", which I don't class as anything except musical snobbery.

Now, now...I did say I was being faceitious in that first post! I thought I had several thoughtful points in my other, more serious one!

Of course we can appreciate when music is complex, but how does one recognise the simplicity of a really great song that just works? If its only got 4 chords and the tune is in less than an octave, how good can it be? And yet, we know some of the best music ever written is simple.

Indeed. "Amazing Grace" uses only 5 different notes...it's actually a pentatonic song!

Alternatively, we can know the structure and rules of music. The major and minor chords of each key. We know what chords are supposed to work together. And yet some of the songs that work best break all those rules.

The Beatles did this all the time - mostly because they were basically untrained.

We're all familiar with the formulaic "X-Factor Key Change" in the last third of an anthemic song. But why is it there? Why does it provoke the reaction it always does? Because its a strong musical tool, used by some of the greatest composers of all time. The fact that X-Factor uses it every week doesn't diminish that.

Here I disagree with you. When a device is used all the time and used in the same way and at the same place in the music, I believe it loses it's potency.

So I stand by my argument. You can pull music apart to see why it works and still never really get to the heart of it.

Maybe so...but I enjoy the analytical aspect of music as much as I enjoy just listening. Analyzing a piece of music does nothing to diminish my enjoyment of it...it is possible to just enjoy for the sake of enjoying AND pull a piece apart to see what's in there, how it got there and try to figure out why. It's fun.

[yovargas]

Fair enough, Al.

[axordil]

Thinking about something several of you have touched on about old hymns...you know, there's a lot of old music (and literature, and art) religious and not, that wasn't all that great, and didn't last. I think back to my youth, looking through the hymnal while the preacher was going on, and wondering why we only ever sang maybe a quarter of the songs in it. Then we got a music director determined to use the whole book, and I figured out why: most of the hymns there were pretty mediocre.

As humans, we're great at remembering the exceptional and generally not so good at remembering the mundane. Really good or really bad examples stick with us and color our interpretation of what something was like.

I do think there is a marketing factor involved now that wasn't as pervasive 100 years ago, however. Again, that applies to all music.

[JewelSong]

Thinking about something several of you have touched on about old hymns...you know, there's a lot of old music (and literature, and art) religious and not, that wasn't all that great, and didn't last.

I was a Minister of Music at a Presbyterian Church for about 10 years. The church had gone through several incarnations with stuff in storage and in boxes and so on. At one point, they unearthed a 4-drawer file cabinet FILLED with octavo (choir) music! I was ecstatic! Music is quite expensive to buy and here was a treasure trove!

WRONG!

Most of the music was 4-part sacred music from the 1920s and 1930s. It was all in very good shape and there were multiple copies of every piece. And...

IT WAS ALL TERRIBLE.

ALL of it. Just...really, really badly written, badly arranged, uninspired, insipid...BAD MUSIC. There wasn't one salvageable piece...and I played through the entire stack.

Just because music is old, doesn't make it good. Ax is right, there was plenty of bad and mediocre music written before the age of recording studios. But it died a natural death and we are (by and large) left with the cream of the crop.

Nowadays, anyone can record themselves and their bad music for posterity using Garage Band or a similar program. But just because it's been recorded (and even marketed) doesn't make it GOOD. It just takes longer to die, that's all.

[Lalaith]

Sorry about not putting the names of the songs, Alatar. Did you catch them all, then, or do you want me to edit my post?

LOL, about "awesome," Alatar! I call the first Tomlin song I linked to (Our God) a spiritual warfare type of song. It's appropriate for some things but not others.

Can you access Praisecharts.com from Ireland? This is where we get a lot of the music we use.

More Chris Tomlin taking old hymns and rearranging them:

Take My Life

The Wonderful Cross (That's a collaboration with Matt Redman, who is awesome as Pearly Di mentioned.)

As for what you said, Ax, yes, absolutely yes! I have a rather funny example, actually, that has become the band's private joke. God of Earth and Outer Space. This song was in the old hymnal in the 70s; we never sang it, but I always stopped to look at it because of its strange title. A few years ago, the band got an arrangement of this (with a Latin feel), and I put together a video for it. Unfortunately, the band (i.e., the electric guitar player and the trumpet player) could never quite get it, so we never played it. So it's the song we threaten to whip out at special functions--to torture ourselves or the congregation.

Here is a small sample of the lyrics:

God of earth and outer space
God of love and God of grace
Bless the astronauts who fly
As they soar beyond the sky

God who flung the stars in space,
God who sets the sun ablaze
Fling the spacecraft thro' the air
Let man know your presence there

God of atmosphere and air,
God of life and planets bare
Use man's courage and his skill
As he seeks your holy will.

God of depth and God of height
God of darkness, God of light,
As man walks in outer space
Teach him how to walk in grace

My favorite part is God flinging the spacecraft through the air.

Not sure this link will work, but here's an audio sample. It's not too bad, really. I still wish we could've played it.

Anyway, here is another song that is good, imo:

Alive Forever Amen, Travis Cottrell Strong gospel feel, which I normally don't like, but I can't help but get into this song. (Fun to play! I play a gospel organ sound on the keyboards.) This version has a funky tag ending, but hey. Whatever your church can manage! Ours is definitely not funky enough to handle this!

Praise to the Lord the Almighty Arranged by Travis Cottrell.

Casting Crowns is another group whose songs are crossing into congregational singing.

Here's a favorite of mine that we play:

Father, Spirit, Jesus (Wicked fun to play!)

As for modern hymnwriters, there are some great ones out there, most already mentioned: Keith and Kristyn Getty, Stuart Townend, Graham Kendrick, etc.

[Primula Baggins]

I've gone to the "contemporary" service at my church since we joined, the one most families with kids attend, and now on the committee we're trying to bring the two closer together.

We like to sing, at the early service, and in parts, so on the committee we're always looking for hymns with four-part arrangements. Unfortunately, that lets out an awful lot of actual contemporary music!

What really gets the early service singing strongly, in harmony, is ollllld hymns. "Shall We Gather at the River?" "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." "Softly and Tenderly." Anything that isn't bad theologically is fair game and we use it. They knew how to arrange hymns back then, so that they're fun to sing.

The only newer hymns that are similarly fun, and in four parts, are from southern Africa. We sing a lot of those, too.

[JewelSong]

What really gets the early service singing strongly, in harmony, is ollllld hymns. "Shall We Gather at the River?" "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." "Softly and Tenderly." Anything that isn't bad theologically is fair game and we use it. They knew how to arrange hymns back then, so that they're fun to sing.

The only newer hymns that are similarly fun, and in four parts, are from southern Africa. We sing a lot of those, too.

Oh, my...yes! And for the same reason the "older" hymns are arranged better...because many churches and congregations couldn't afford an organ or even a piano - and so they relied solely on their voices to make the harmony.

One interesting thing about the traditional hymnbooks - the keys to many of the old standard hymns have gotten progressively lower with each new addition. Used to be that an "F" was a standard high note. Now it's "D". Fewer and fewer people can actually read music, so everyone sings the melody. And so the melody needs to be in a more accessible key.

Trouble with this is, if you DO want to sing the harmony, it's often too low and the basses and altos are growling out the notes. Plus, keys subtly change the "feel" of a song, so something that was originally in the key of D and has been transposed down to Bb won't sound the same - even if you don't have perfect pitch.

For the most part, I have a real aversion to "modernized" versions of old hymn words. In the 70s, there was a trend towards this (I've seen a hymnal with the "spaceman" words!) and by and large, the "new" words were NOT an improvement. Bad poetry and forced scanning. Better to use the old rip-snorting, Bible-thumping, jumpin'-Jesus words and view them as metaphor. IMHO.

[Primula Baggins]

There's a hymn we sing sometimes, "Earth and All Stars," that bugs me terribly because it includes the phrase "loud boiling test tubes" as one of the things praising God. If you let a test tube boil, everything in it slides up to the top and spills. Ya don't boil 'em.

But I usually like those "modern" references. "Not in the dark of buildings confining/ Not in some heaven, lightyears away/ But here in this place, a new light is shining/ Now is the kingdom, now is the day."

[JewelSong]

"Not in the dark of buildings confining/ Not in some heaven, lightyears away/ But here in this place, a new light is shining/ Now is the kingdom, now is the day."

That's from a modern hymn called "Gather Us In" by Marty Haugen. Rather than try to "revamp" an old hymn, he wrote entirely new words...and even with just a words, it's a good poem. Then he did something interesting with the tune - he made it sound old by putting it in a mode, rather than an minor or major key. And he set it in a lilting 6/8 time...almost a dance. It is a very singable, compelling song with great imagery. and could be done acapella or with instruments and even percussion (perhaps a bodrhan!). It's not a hymn per se, but it works really well for group singing.

If you go here: http://www.myspace.com/martyhaugen
you can click on the song (top in the list on the right) and hear a full vocal recording.

We are the young, our lives are a myst'ry, we are the old who yearn for your face;
We have been sung throughout all of hist'ry, called to be light to the whole human race.
Gather us in, the rich and the haughty, gather us in, the proud and the strong;
Give us a heart, so meek and so lowly, give us the courage to enter the song.

[Maria]

Which is sort of what they did in the movie "Sister Act." It works the other way, too...in the movie "Ray" (about Ray Charles) his girlfriend is horrified because he takes gospel music and turns it into upbeat love songs, simply by replacing the words "Jesus" and "God" with "baby" and "honey!"

That is an interesting concept. One of my favorite albums is contaminated with a religious song and it always makes me uncomfortable to listen to it, even though I really like the sound of the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk-jn9AMlCE

I just listened to it again and mentally substituted the word "rodeo" for "revivial" and it made me grin instead of squirm about the unpleasantness of tent revivals and evangelist types preaching about damnation and hellfire.

There's probably other songs I could sit through now that I couldn't before, if I did something simliar to them.....

[Primula Baggins]

Yes, Marty Haugen. I don't have the stack of hymnals here that I have at the meetings. But we sing "Gather Us In" a lot, for opening the service. It's an eye-opener.

We are also lucky enough to have a pastor who's a poet and a music director who composes; they've written a number of liturgical pieces together. One of their liturgies is called "Luther Blues," and it really does have a bluesy feel. It's fun because when we sing a new piece, they ask for written feedback and then make adjustments.

[WampusCat]

I wonder how much of the negative assessment of praise music might be because of its essential nature. The purpose of it is simple praise of God, not insight into human pain or complex exploration of emotion or theology. Just praise.

Personally, I am much more drawn to music that tugs me toward mystery, such as the Taizé chants Jewel mentioned. Or to the soaring complexities of Bach or the deeply human cries of U2. Or to the energy of old gospel tunes or the haunting harmonies of traditional shape note hymns.

Bur there is a place for simple praise and it appeals to many people who simply want to acknowledge that there is Someone greater than themselves who loves and cares for them.

[WampusCat]

There's a hymn we sing sometimes, "Earth and All Stars," that bugs me terribly because it includes the phrase "loud boiling test tubes" as one of the things praising God. If you let a test tube boil, everything in it slides up to the top and spills. Ya don't boil 'em.

Our church sings that one, and It always gave Gary and me the giggles. Of course the much more traditional "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" did the same. As the deeds of the saints are listed, one verse goes: "...and one was killed by a fierce wild beast, and there's not any reason, no not the least, why I shouldn't be one too." A beast?

[River]

Here's an artist, Sufjan Stevens, that has gained a broad fanbase and acclaim who explicitly deals with Christians themes without falling into the "for Christians only" niche:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGEMx3TKxNc

(the lyrics of the final verse kill me)

Oof. That was a tear-jerker.

[JewelSong]

I wonder how much of the negative assessment of praise music might be because of its essential nature. The purpose of it is simple praise of God, not insight into human pain or complex exploration of emotion or theology. Just praise.

I agree with you about the need for simple praise of God. I do NOT think that is why I react negatively to modern "praise music."

I react negatively because much of it is simply BAD MUSIC. For reasons I have stated before.

In addition, I find that many of these big "mega-churches" and some other churches, in an effort to be modern, have ditched almost ALL other kinds of music for this. Which is very limiting and makes the service appeal to the lowest common denominator in musical taste.

Here are a few songs that do nothing but PRAISE that I do NOT find to be insipid, trite or vapid. They are not in the category of "modern" praise music...but they are, essentially, simply praise songs. I have tried to find versions which are NOT "updated" but sung/performed in the original way.

Some oldies but goodies:

Praise Ye The Lord, the Almighty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlvb14ti ... re=related

Holy, Holy, Holy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJBxK0IQ6XE

And a folk-type song:

Hava Nashira
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuYROXO3 ... re=related

There are others, but I could not find them on youtube...I will investigate and post.

there is a place for simple praise and it appeals to many people who simply want to acknowledge that there is Someone greater than themselves who loves and cares for them.

Yes, there is DEFINITELY a place for it. But...I don't think it needs to be the overblown, overproduced, pretentious stuff so often heard, and what has become what people expect when they hear the term "praise music."

[JewelSong]

. Of course the much more traditional "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" did the same. As the deeds of the saints are listed, one verse goes: "...and one was killed by a fierce wild beast, and there's not any reason, no not the least, why I shouldn't be one too." A beast?

Well, that's a childrens' hymn and the point of it is not to name or identify individual saints, but that ANYONE can be a Saint. The song isn't trying to name any deeds or saints in particular...quite the contrary:

They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes or at sea,
In church, or in trains or in shops or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too..

My brother and I got a bigger laugh out of the name of the writer, whose name was LESBIA Scott. No, I'm not kidding.