Vernacular Music

American musicologist Gilbert Chase refers to the great divide between the popular music of the people and the more learned, classical styles as vernacular and cultivated styles. In the church it's the difference between a Bach fugue sounded by 100 ranks of pipes and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" through a spinning Leslie speaker attached to a small Hammond organ. It's the difference between the choir singing Randall Thompson's "Alleluia" and Robert Ray's "He Never Failed Me Yet." It's the difference between our hymnal's Holy Communion musical setting E (p. 25) and setting B (pp. 19-20). It's the difference between "Christ Upon the Mountain Peak" (UM Hymnal no. 260) and "Victory in Jesus" (UM Hymnal no. 370).

Music Musings 43 ("Fighting in the Philippines") discusses the divisions in the church over musical style. A message was posted to the MethodistMusicians List the following week by a music director. It described the less than enthusiastic reception given to a recent choir program that included Faur's Requiem, "Cantique de Jean Racine," and Moses Hogan's arrangement of the "Ride on, King Jesus" spiritual. Apparently the choir and people complained about the first two ("Music by dead people") but gushed over the spiritual. The music director wrote: Why should they, as a whole, be so against classical music for worship? I'm thinking the issue is less about style and more about educational level. I think there is a feeling of hostility towards higher education in worship. This would carry into "cerebral" sermons and high-church liturgy as well. This is kind of ironic, because we are a university town with many professors in our congregation! But my guess is that they believe true worship to be only at the "feeling" level. I sense among our congregation a scorn of the way "First" / Downtown churches do worship.

I think it's quite possible that there is a "feeling of hostility toward higher education" on the part of some United Methodists that finds expression in disdain for high liturgy, cerebral sermons, and some kinds of music; but I don't think that's the main cause of our differences over music style. People don't have any idea what constitutes a vernacular style. They don't understand things like harmonic progression, consonance and dissonance, melodic inevitability, rhythmic regularity, and simple, repetitive formal organization. What they understand is that some music is comfortable and familiar, and some is strange and unsettling. Some music is harsh, and some is pleasing. Some music makes them feel tense and irritable, and some makes them feel peaceful and relaxed. Some music lifts them spiritually and emotionally; some music is depressing or angry. Some music brings back pleasant memories; some brings unpleasantness and confusion. Some music they can know; some is forever unknowable.

For many believers, vernacular music is the music that helps or allows them to experience the presence of God in worship. That vernacular music might be Moses Hogan, "What a Friend" and "Victory in Jesus," a praise chorus, "Shout to the Lord," or hip-hop. There are as many vernacular musical styles and preferences as there are cultivated, learned, and classical styles. All of my experience in church music convinces me that nearly everyone likes some vernacular style, but that many of us also cherish cultivated styles and find great meaning and inspiration in their use in the church. This distinction will be with us forever, probably into eternity, where the music and style will survive but the divisive distinction will disappear. I personally believe that it is all a gift from God to be used in our worship of God, and that God takes great delight in our musical offerings, both vernacular and cultivated. It is abominable that we allow this distinction to continue to divide us on earth. How shocked we will be to hear heavenly choirs singing Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms right along with "I'll Fly Away." Kyrie eleison.