Monday, August 2, 2010

Peace & Harmony

Now that music is finally going somewhere in our church... there is one particular goal that I have at the front of my mind.

Singing in harmony. All the 4 parts: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass

I mean.... we  are a Mennonite church after all (look it up kids) and no matter how modern we may become, there are still a few fundamental ideas in worship that we should hold on to: And harmonising is one of them.

How many years  have gone by with me sitting and painfully enduring the crappy choice of key by the leaders with no music to follow. Or the twisting and breaking of a deep-voiced male trying to sing the melody, and when the note was too high.... eh.... we could sing one a few notes lower... nobody will know the difference right? WRONG!

Now some of them may say that worship is not about how the music sounds but about how you feel and the connection with God.
But when a church is filled with crummy singing like that.... how can you even enjoy it enough to feel anything with God. Personally I usually recite the first 50 numbers in pi over and over to maintain my sanity.

Next is the famous excuse: I just can't sing.... or.... I just don't have an ear for music. What utter RUBBISH. The human brain is a musical machine. It enjoys interpreting the patterns and anticipating the oncoming combinations. So if all music you listen to sounds simply like random noise.... then I may accept the ear for music excuse... And on singing.... then just sing another part... or simply sing quietly then. If you know you can't sing well, why does everyone else in the church have to know it too -.-

So I leave you with that... in the hopes that next time I post about singing it will be about how beautiful we sound in church. We currently are working on the harmonies but we haven't sung them yet in church....

Eventually we may sound like this.... preferably not looking like this though :P