In-Between Music

There is a whole category that often slips into the worship service mostly unnoticed by worshipers. Sometimes this music is well-planned; sometimes it is improvised. It may be among the most effectively used music in the service, or it may be a hindrance to the worship experience. I'm talking about "in-between music," that is, music that takes place between major elements in the worship service.

By the time of J.S. Bach's death and Charles Wesley's most productive hymn-writing years in the mid-18th century, sonata form was well on its way to ruling musical form and structure of the Classical Era. Sonata form included an exposition of two themes in contrasting keys and usually contrasting moods. The exposition was followed by a development section, in which the two themes were individually exploited for their melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic potential through a variety of compositional techniques. The development section was followed by a recapitulation section, in which the two themes, having just gone through manipulation, distortion, combination, variation, transposition, augmentation, diminution, etc., are then restated, more or less in their original form, so that the listeners could hear and remember them once again. Thus, the main sections of exposition-development-recapitulation came to define sonata form. But in the sonatas, symphonies, and concertos of the Classical and Romantic Eras, we discover much in-between music within sonata form. This is the music that comes in the introductions, the transitions, the transpositions and retransitions, and the codas. Some of this in-between music is even more interesting and wonderful than that of the exposition, development, and recapitulation.

There is also in-between music in our worship services. Here are some examples:

1. music for seating: We offer preludes at the start of the service, interludes for late-comers to take their seats, and music to announce that it's time to sit following a time of greeting or fellowship.
2. traveling music: We play or sing music to accompany children coming forward for the children's sermon, movement of candlelighters or liturgists, ushers bringing forward offering plates, parents bring children to be baptized, movement of the wedding party, the bringing in of a casket or the seating of the deceased's family.
3. musical commentary: Some churches have the organ punctuate the preacher's sermons with chords, glissandi, arpeggios, and other interjections, just as do many of the congregation add their "Amen," "That's right," and "Yes, Lord."
4. dead space music: Some congregations abhor a vacuum of silence, and require soft organ music during silent prayer. Churches that broadcast or telecast their live services cover over these dead sound spaces with music from the organist or even from CDs and taped sources.

There are also in-between places for music during congregational singing:

1. introduction: This is the most obvious. It sets key, tempo, volume, and mood, in addition to giving the people time to find the page.
2. between stanzas: This might consist of nothing more than a chord sustained longer than the note indicates, or it might include a brief reprise of a portion of the preceding phrase, or even the instrumental repetition of a complete phrase or refrain. This might be useful in hymns with many stanzas, thus giving the people time to breathe, regroup, or even to reflect on what they've just sung before going on.
3. between phrases: Some phrases within hymns conclude with a sustained note, and organists or guitarists will harmonically and rhythmically fill in the sustained note.
4. long notes: Some hymns make frequent use of long notes, and as with the in-between of the phrases, accompanists will often fill these in, or, as with "One Bread, One Body," the composer has already done this for us.
5. transition to new mood or tempo: This in-between music might include a brief interlude to change tempo and mood, as between stanzas two and three or three and four of "How Great Thou Art." It could be several chords to propel the congregation on to what follows, perhaps a new stanza, as in "Lift High the Cross."
6. transposition: Ah, the ever-popular and in some churches REQUIRED last stanza transposition! It might be a simple, single pivot chord, such as playing an Ab7 chord to move from the key of C to Db, or it might be an extended musical elaboration. The organist in my own church is especially good at this as he moves from the choral anthem sung during the offertory into the Doxology that follows.

As with those in-between sections of the sonata form's exposition-development-recapitulation, the in-between moments of the worship service can be useful, interesting, and meaningful moments, filled with beauty and purpose. But as did Haydn and Mozart, so must we church musicians plan and rehearse them ahead. In addition to advance planning and careful execution, I offer the following questions for deciding whether to include in-between music at all:

1. Is it needed? Why?
2. What does it accomplish?
3. Does it help the people to sing? Hinder them? How or why?
4. Does it help the people experience the presence of God?
5. Does it serve the needs of the liturgy, or interfere?
6. Does it rob the people of an opportunity to experience God in stillness and silence?
7. Does it primarily entertain?
8. Is it emotionally manipulative?
9. Is it to provide an opportunity for the musician to display his or her virtuosity?
10. Is the in-between music consistent with and supportive of the liturgy or music on both sides of it?