Telling Stories through Sound

So I realize it has been quite some time since my last post. I expected this when I started the blog a few months ago. Between being fairly busy and not having a lot to say, I just haven't gotten around to another post. But I've got some thoughts on my brain today and I was encouraged by a friend to try to write them out in my blog. So here we go. No promises that I'll revive the blog, but we'll see what happens.

We had a special guest lecturer in my Worship class again this morning, Dr. Stephen Newby. He has quite the resume, but in short, he's the head of the Center for Worship at Seattle Pacific University, and has done quite a bit of songwriting, conducting and composing. In class today, he was given the task of talking about the emerging church, highlighting the things that they are good at, and the things that they are not so good at. While I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture, we didn't stay on that topic very long. His opening point was that the emerging church does a great job at telling stories and narratives of salvation, redemption, creation, etc... He then went on to expound on this idea of communicating ideas through narratives.

Since this is a worship class, Dr. Newby began to talk about how we, as worship leaders, need to use music, specifically the sounds, to tell stories. To explain his point, he played the two opening arrangements of his first symphony that he wrote. It's called Let Thy Mercy Be Upon Us, A Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., and I really enjoyed the 6 or 7 minutes that we go to listen to it. The first part of the symphony invovled creation, this idea of God breathing things into existence. And then it transitioned into the second part of his symphony, that was about God calling this prophet, who in this case was Martin Luther King Jr. I wish you could have heard it. It was truly spectactular. And even though it was nearly totally void of words, his message was communicated perfectly through sound.

Let's think about this one more way. What's the first thing you think of when you hear the movie title Mission Impossible. Regardless of your personal feelings about the movies, the theme song is fairly catchy. While the song has no words, barely even a title, the song conveys a message. What would those scenes in the movie be like without that song? The song shouts tension. It yells adventure. It informs the viewer of peril, danger, energy, and action. Every horror movie is full of scary music. Why? Because the music tells a story.

Ok. I've done too much writing already, but if you're still with me, let's keep going. The question for us then is two fold. First, is this idea of communicating a message through sound something that should be/needs to be worked into our worship services. And secondly, if the first answer is yes, then how do we incorporate this idea, this practice into our worship services? Think about it. What if we used music to create tension in our services during this Season of Lent? And then on Easter, the music conveys a message of ressurection, of hope and deliverance. What stories can be better told through sounds and tones than through words?

I'll close with this thought. And this is really what I've been thinking about most of the day today. Dr. Newby's symphony was beautiful. I really enjoyed listening to it. But here's the deal about that symphony. I wouldn't know how in the world to even begin writing, playing, or even reading any of that stuff. He said he based the entire symphony off of one hexachord. I had to look up how to spell hexachord, much less know how to form one of the piano. Here's my point. Do I really need to know what a hexachord is? Maybe, or maybe not. But in today's popular worship music, if you teach someone how to play a G, C, D, and Em, and show them how to use a capo, they can play 85%-90% of our music today. (Trust me, I feel like I do this half the time.) I've taken one music theory class in my life. To tie all of this back in, how are we to use music to tell stories and communicate messages and themes, if we don't really understand it ourselves? the only way I know how to create tension in a song is by playing a few minor chords and playing louder. (I'm exaggerating a bit, but I think you get my point.)

So I'm really interested in your thoughts on all of this? In a few years, I'll walk out of this seminary with a Masters of Divinity in Worship Studies and unless I do some extracurricular studying, I still won't know what a hexachord is, or how to arrange music. Is that a bad thing? Should we find opportunities to tell stories in our worship gatherings through sound, or is it a waste of time, with a message that will either be lost in translation or could just as easily be communicated through words? Is our worship music today too simple? Too plain? Does our God deserve something better? A lot of questions I know, but let me know what you think....