Comments on: Baptists

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:46:25 +0000

The human voice is a wonderful instrument and a group of them will blend in fabulous and amazing ways. There is a long history of singing in southern churches that has produced many famous popular artists, but the music needs to be designed for the instrument.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:25:34 +0000

one of the things i truly enjoy about going to church with my very fundamentalist relatives [women will go to hell if they wear pants, cushions on the hard wooden pews are an abomination unto god, musical instruments are instruments of the devil] is that they can flat sing. few things can equal the experience of standing in the middle of a roomful of people with incredible vocal range and harmonizing that seems to come as naturally to them as breathing.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:09:57 +0000

The chant, carol, and hymn are all very old forms. I have heard contemporary composers who use those and similar forms for new religious music. Some of it is featured on the St. Olaf’s Christmas special that was on NPR today.

One of the most important things to remember is to keep the song within the vocal range of a congregation, while leaving space for soloists to work their magic.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:46:35 +0000

grandma got run over by a reindeer is positively celestial compared to practically anything that can be labeled contemporary christian.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:54:53 +0000

I view most of them with the same regard I have for Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, which some regard as a "Christmas classic."

By: Badtux

Badtux — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:01:49 +0000

You should hear Minstrel Boy over at “Harp & Sword” mutter about “praise songs”. To quote:

A yearly gripe with me is most of the “new christian” music. Usually it’s a combination of bad music and bad religion. A friend stopped by with a song she wants to sing at her church and is wanting me to play backup. My gripe with this song is typical of my gripe with both this kind of music and this kind of faith.

Here’s my short version of the song. . .

We start out with nice, light holidayish full of baroque filigrees stuff and the lyrical theme is along the lines of Oh, look at the lovely stable, see the beautiful star, there in a lowly manger, how happy we all are. . .

then there is an abrupt change to dischordant crashing and jangling minors and the voice tone switches to sound like Korn with a hangover

HE’S GONNA DIEEEEEEE! YOU’RE GONNA KILLLLLLLLL HIMMMMMMMMMM!
HE’S GONNA SUFFFFFFFFEEEEERRRRRR
IT’S YOUR SINNNER’S FAULLLLLLLLLLT!

Give me Pretorius, Luther, Mendholsson, Bach, Handel and the other tried and true classics of the holiday. Lest any of you think that I’m a faithless bah humbug Grinch I must also report that I have already agreed to accompany my 12 year old nephew who has been taking guitar lessons for three whole months when he plays “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Silent Night” at his church Christmas weekend.

That’s what a musician with 30+ years in the industry thinks of “praise songs”. Needless to say, I agree fully :-).

– Badtux the Music Penguin

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:38:11 +0000

Weddings tend to bring together diverse groups and it is always helpful if at least something is the service is familiar to the difference groups. It isn’t conducive to the successful event when someone’s elderly relative is muttering rather too loudly that “I thought this was a church. Sounds like rock and roll to me. Bunch of hippies, the girl is marrying into a bunch of hippies.” Not everyone enjoys “praise songs.”

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:17:32 +0000

I’m sure you meant “perennial,” badtux, but I think “perineal” (“of, relating to, or situated in the perineum,” the area between the anus and the genitalia on a human being) may be a far more appropriate adjective to use with regard to the modern-day SBCers.

I’d agree, Bryan, that it’s probably not a good idea to use music from only one composer in a wedding, unless that particular composer was hired expressly. From my few experiences with weddings, the couple (or at least one member thereof) usually comes in with a laundry list of songs they want to hear that’s longer than all four of their arms placed end-to-end, many of whom are guaranteed to be inappropriate for a church service. I’d be amazed to learn that anyone in the modern era could be convinced (without being browbeaten, anyway) to give up creative control of the wedding music, since these days it seems “whatever the couple wants” has become the watchword in the wedding industry. Never mind that what the couple wants is totally beyond their means or those of whoever is paying the bills, is totally unworkable, and in the most abysmal taste possible: it’s “their” day.

Pfeh. Makes me rather happy to think that I’ll probably never have to worry about any of that BS in my lifetime, at least assuming I don’t move to some other point on the globe between now and shuffling off this mortal coil.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:44:32 +0000

That’s different than down here, because the SBC affiliation is pretty prominent, but then, they publish a local “Christian” business directory and put “fish” on their advertising and signage I don’t quite understand what the difference is between a “Christian” and a secular lawn irrigation system, but I have the choice.

Given the history of the local area, it seems an awful lot like the “white robes on Saturday” crowd to me.

California is definitely a schizoid environment with the widest range of possibilities of any state in the union.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:58:49 +0000

Here in California, a survey was done by the California Southern Baptist Convention of the Southern Baptist churches and found that less than 10% of them identify themselves as “Southern Baptist” in their literature and/or signage. It has been a perineal item on the yearly convention blotter to “Change name of CSBC to simply California Baptist Convention” to reflect the fact that while its members are officially Southern Baptist churches, they do not identify themselves as such. Thus far the crazies have kept that from happening.

Note that California has a fair number of Southern Baptists due to the Okie migration during the Great Depression. But even the Central Valley rednecks, who are as inbred as the North Florida crackers, are getting a bit uneasy with the crazies, thus the reason why the word “Southern” is getting dropped from many church’s names.

The point, the point… a church’s name has nothing to do with whether it belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention or not. Indeed, a church can even have the words “Southern Baptist” in its name, like, say, “First Southern Baptist Church of Bakersfield”, and not be affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention because, say, the board of deacons at some point in the past withdrew the church from the SBC rolls for some reason or another. The only way to know whether a particular church belongs to the SBC or not is to ask them. And even that isn’t all that enlightening, because as I noted, probably 60% or more of Southern Baptist churches are still “officially” members of the SBC on paper but have ceased providing anything but lip service for that membership — they support their own parallel set of seminaries and such to provide a clergy for their churches that is, well, not crazy. They prefer remaining members of the SBC because they believe this gives them more clout with society as a whole as well as access to discount hymnals and such, and the crazies keep them on the roster because the crazies *know* that saying they represent 16,000,000 Southern Baptists gives them more clout than saying that they represent the 4,000,000 Southern Baptists who are, well, crazies.