Home Worship Planning Music Resources Composer, Arranger, Publisher, Performer—Who Owns the Performance?

Composer, Arranger, Publisher, Performer—Who Owns the Performance?

Arrangers, publishers, and performers all have roles to play in music for worship. All three perform those roles at a point after the composer has composed the hymn and before the worshiper sings or hears the hymn. The result is usually an alteration of the hymn from what the composer composed and perhaps from what the composer intended the worshiper to sing or hear.

The arranger receives the original hymn and makes harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic changes so that a basic hymn may now serve as a piano or organ arrangement, a choral setting, a vocal solo, or an instrumental piece for handbells, brass, orchestra, bagpipes, or any solo instrument. It may include all or some of the words, or they may be entirely eliminated.

The publisher delivers the arrangement and places it in a context for use -- in a hymnal or songbook, in a choral or vocal collection, as an individual web download, in a book with other worship resources, as a solo release, on a disk or some digital format. The publisher may take further liberties in the composer's original or the arranger's version, and frequently makes changes to the text for philosophical, theological, historical, political, or literary reasons. The publisher may also release the hymn in text-only version, as in some format for projection in worship, downloadable chord charts and lead sheets, or in a book for reading or study.

But the greatest opportunity for change to the composer's original hymn lies with the performer. Melodies are often disguised with ornaments and passing tones, or it might be replaced with entirely new notes. Harmonies are altered, enlarged, and supplemented. The rhythm of the melody and harmony may be changed to accommodate numerous musical styles (jazz, hip-hop, gospel, many others). Performers incorporate syncopation, ornamentation, dissonance, and other techniques of altering the composer's original. And if the performer is a congregation, there are considerations of vocal competence and even willingness to participate and be led in the performance.

All of this leads to these questions: Who owns the composition? Whose version is the authentic one? Is there any reason to pay attention to the original intent of the composer? Can we even know the composer's intent? How do we decide how a hymn should be performed?

In a recent worship service, we sang John Bell's setting of Desmond Tutu's text, "Goodness Is Stronger than Evil" (The Faith We Sing, 2219). The song leader and accompanist set a slow tempo, quiet volume, sparse accompaniment, and lyrical, expressive phrasing, techniques that might be appropriate to a hymn or song such as "He Touched Me" or "As the Deer." I would argue that this was a grave misuse and poor interpretation of "Goodness Is Stronger than Evil," however. Most songs, this one included, contain sufficient elements to determine how they should be sung by a congregation in worship. In this case, they include: a subdivided meter, the rhythmic pattern of the melody, the pattern of leaps and steps in the melody, the contrasting of the A & B sections with the B section sort of "breaking free" of the more controlled pattern of the A section, the "royal" and "majesty" key of D Major (think "Hallelujah Chorus" and "Worthy Is the Lamb"), and the big one -- the militant anti-apartheid, liberation context of its text. To sing this song contemplatively does two bad things: (1) it imposes an entire set of musical, emotional, and relational characteristics on it that come from someone's external conception or agenda; (2) it fails to recognize, affirm, and give expression to those musical, emotional, and relational characteristics that are inherent in the song.

There are many who believe the musician's responsibility is to serve the intent of the composer first. Let the composer/creator determine how a piece is performed. Some believe it is entirely up to the performer to decide how the work is performed without regard for the composer's intent. But others of us believe that the role of the composer ends with the creation of the work, that it then is the work itself that serves as the primary determiner of interpretation and performance. While there is a role for personal interpretation and expression, as well as for performance context, our responsibility is to give expression to the characteristics and elements contained within. I would have to be convinced that "Goodness Is Stronger than Evil" contains musical and textual elements on the page -- divorced from composer and performer -- that demand a slow, meditative interpretation. They are not present.

I recently received a hymn submitted for our website. It was actually a good text. Unfortunately, the text commanded one set of interpretive elements and the music another; they were in conflict. The words were contemplative, while the music was a rollicking jig. When I rejected the hymn and told the composer why, the writer said, "Well, why not just play it slower?" That lack of insight and awareness is in frequent play in our churches on Sunday morning. I believe the best use of a song or hymn in worship will take its most important cues -- not from the composer's intent, the publisher's context or medium, the arranger's setting, or the performer's ability or whim, but from the hymn itself, the melody, rhythm, harmony, form, shape, and text.

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