The MONSTER
I’m becoming a monster! All the kids in my class know it. And the closer it gets to concert time--the more the monster shows up!
I’m a public school music teacher at the middle school age, grades 6-8. I love my job, and I love putting on exciting concerts for our community. We usually have about 200 kids performing, with an audience of about a thousand people. It’s really an amazing sight when all 200 perform together in precision, and everything comes together the night of the concert. But to get there takes a lot of work.
So I warn the kids ahead of time, you need to practice your part, and anyone who is not ready in time will not be able to play in the program. And I tell them I expect a perfect performance. This includes teaching them some tricks, such as what I tell my beginning recorder players--if you make a mistake, immediately stop your breath, keep your fingers moving, and don’t start playing again until you find your place. The effect is, even if you make a mistake or lose your place, no one knows about it. Because again, the goal is a perfect performance!
And to make this happen, I warn them, I am going to be a monster! I will not have time to beg you or ask you politely when I need to make changes in the program or tell you where to stand or get your attention--I will have no tolerance for any mistakes I can hear or see and if you don’t make the grade I will immediately kick you out of the program! This is simply the only way to make things work when I have to handle 200 kids at once!
And that’s how we put together a perfect program. The new kids learn soon enough that it all pays off at the performance, and that the monster wasn’t so bad after all. Even most who get kicked out of the program during rehearsals beg me to let them back in, and come back with a healthy change of attitude. They come to understand that I work them hard because I know what they can do, and I love them! And they know that the monster is just a device I use for their own good, to keep them on their toes and ready to create that perfect performance.
But I have an important question--does the monster belong in the church?
Is the goal of our singing in church a perfect performance?
In the New Testament we are commanded to sing with our hearts. And when we come together to sing we lift our hearts together to sing for our Lord. Our goal should be perfect devotion to God. But this does not mean a perfect musical performance!
If our goal is a perfect musical performance, we would need to change our priorities. Every member would have to take voice lessons and music theory, and we would have choir practice every week instead of Bible study. There would have to be a lot of changes! And we would rehearse over and over, until each song was just right and carefully prepared for the next “performance”.
I hope it’s pretty clear that the monster does not belong in the church! But sometimes we let him in, when people are tempted to bring him over to help out with some musical “problems” in our worship. For example:
During the worship service the songleader suddenly stops. “That was a whole note we just passed! Now, a whole note has four beats. So we need to hold it out a little longer. And we start on Sol, not on Do, so make sure you get that right. Let’s try it again.”
Have you heard this happen before? The worship service is not the right time for this! What just happened? We forgot all about what we were singing, now we’re only thinking about whole notes and shaped notes, and that’s only those who know what that means--if you don’t know those words, you’re totally lost! And all at the expense of our worship time. This should never happen! If you’d like to arrange a time to learn and practice these things, great. (We’ll be glad to do a workshop for you!) But this kind of musical rehearsal should not happen during our worship services.
Here’s two more deadly examples.
-------On Sunday morning a sister is singing with all her heart, when suddenly some one turns around and whispers, “Can you keep it down? We have visitors!”
-------At a small gathering, the usual songleader is not present, and another brother steps forward to take his place for the first time. After the song is finished, one of the members speaks up. “I don’t think you should lead songs anymore!”
As we have traveled to give singing workshops around the U.S. and in different countries, one horrible thing has never ceased to amaze me. At every single workshop, someone has approached me and told me, “You can try to teach me something brother, but I just can’t sing!” Without fail, after talking to them later I find out that they had an experience something like these two mentioned above, and had basically shut down their singing ever since. What a tragedy! These people were crushed by the monster! In all of the examples above, I imagine the other members were trying to help. But they were looking at our singing from a worldly perspective, instead of rejoicing that their brethren were practicing true biblical singing, from the heart. And when we see things from our own worldly perspective, we usually tear down instead of building up.
(By the way, a lot of these “traumatized” brethren ended up having some musical talent! With a little encouragement and some help from our workshops we found out just how much they could do. But they had listened when someone told them their singing wasn’t worth much. What a tragedy.)
What has happened within Christ’s church that while we look to the Bible for so many things, when it comes to singing many people think about the physical (reading notes, leading with the right pattern, etc.) more than the spiritual?
I’ll finish with a personal story that really amazed me. The names will not be mentioned to protect the innocent. I don’t know if those involved will remember this at all, but it was quite an experience for me!
I was at a large gathering of several churches of Christ. Before an afternoon break there was an invitation for anyone who would like to return early and have some singing. I was excited to show up and participate.
Several of us sat down and we started to pick songs out of the songbook. I enjoyed singing with everyone, but I was a little concerned with the small talk in between--all about what tempo should we take, what time signature is this one, people usually sing this one wrong--I was a little distracted, since I was just enjoying singing with the brethren!
Then we started a song with very nice four-part harmony. There was one brother singing a very strong tenor, so I decided to fill in the sound by singing alto along with the sister sitting next to me. I guess it threw her off a bit, maybe she expected me to sing tenor again--I noticed she couldn’t find her part. Suddenly, in the middle of the song, she turned and glared at me!
Now, I had seen this elderly sister around earlier and even greeted her a few times. She was very sweet and kind, and I was very impressed with her love for the brethren. But when she turned around to look at me, the monster was there!
She practically yelled at me, “What are you singing?!”
“Um, the alto,” I said, surprised.
“No you’re not!”
I didn’t know how to respond, but I couldn’t tell a lie--I just said the first thing that came into my head--
“Yes, I am.....”
She turned back to her songbook, furious.
Later that day I had to make an announcement about our singing workshops. I was presented as a member of the church who was also a music teacher. After that meeting, the sister came up to me and apologized. I’m sorry, she said, I guess you know what you’re doing, but I’m just not used to hearing a man sing alto.
I accepted her apology, of course. But it made me think--what if I wasn’t a music teacher? What if I was just a regular guy with a high voice singing alto, would she still be mad at me? Or, even worse, what if I didn’t know anything about music and wasn’t able to understand what happened with the harmony there? I would have learned that if you don’t know anything about singing, don’t try, because people will get mad at you!
Finally, I want to say again that probably all of the situations above were created by brethren with good intentions, who are used to aiming for the best in everything, and have a hard time accepting music that is less than perfect. But we have to understand--that’s the monster! And while that monster may be helpful in preparing a perfect musical performance, it has no place in our worship.
©2009 Jonathan Hinckley
Jonathan Hinckley produces the website ChurchOfChristSing.com
He can be reached at jhinc25686@aol.com or (626)287-8184.