The CATHEDRAL TIMES The weekly newsletter of the Cathedral of St. Philip · Serving Atlanta and the World · June 27, 2021
REENGAGING WITH MUSIC IN WORSHIP By Dr. Dale Adelmann, Canon for Music For months church musicians have wondered, what will it be like when we are allowed to sing together in worship again? Will all of our choir members return? Will long under-used vocal cords need months to become accustomed to singing again? Will our congregations sing more timidly, or with greater gusto? One thing seemed sure. We will nevermore take singing for granted! Then it happened. The CDC confirmed that fully vaccinated persons could safely sing together, unmasked and indoors. The Cathedral Choir got to see one another in person again, after 59 Zoom “happy hours” and 14 months of what felt like exile. There were smiles, hugs, involuntary outbursts of joy, even applause… and not a few tears. I wondered what might happen at my first gesture to our beloved, longvaccinated singers? And to my amazement, it was as if we had never missed a rehearsal! We plunged joyously into the preparation of our first anthem back, C.H.H. Parry’s heaven-revealing setting of Psalm 122, I was glad when they said unto me, we will go to the house of the Lord, and we were more than glad! Indeed, we were as near ecstatic as most Episcopalians probably ever get! And we still are. Now I wonder, once the initial euphoria has passed, will our reengagement with live music be a more intentional and profound experience than it perhaps once was? In modern Western culture – almost unavoidably – music has become a background soundtrack to life. We have become accustomed to hearing music nearly everywhere… music that does not demand our focus and is not intended to do so. Our primary attention is taken by a hundred other things, while music plays unobtrusively at a fraction of the volume it would be experienced live. Of course, music as accompaniment to other activities is not a new phenomenon, but within the span of human history, the constancy with which we hear such music is. Until relatively recently, the only way humans ever experienced music was to hear it live, or to perform it themselves. All of this invites the question, how often do we ever give our full attention to music? And especially as people of faith, does the ordinariness of not giving music our full attention unintentionally diminish the depth of our engagement with the profound texts that we or others sing in worship? It seems to me that this present point in time offers a unique opportunity to reenter more deeply into the musical practices of Christian worship. Throughout Judeo-Christian history, singing has been one of the vehicles by which God has uniquely – and especially – chosen to speak to, and through, humankind. (Indeed, singing inhabits this role in nearly every religion.) If it were not true that music helps us experience God in ways that words alone cannot, would there be compelling reasons to make music in worship at all? Having been so long deprived of participating – or even simply basking – in sacred sound made by real people, together, in the same sacred space, at the same time, perhaps now we have an opportunity to learn to listen more attentively to how God might be trying to commune with us, each week, through the music of worship. Having read hymns without melody during our in-person worship services since last summer – which prompted so many of us to engage with these sacred texts in a different and surprisingly profound way – I hope we will continue to engage more mindfully with our sacred texts as we get to sing them again. Yes, let us lift whatever voice God has given us with joy and fervor, to praise and bear witness to the Light and Love that no pandemic can ever silence. As we have gathered together in the Cathedral nave again, worship has been uplifting, joyous… yes, even glorious! One does not need to be a musician or a music theorist to enter fully into music. One needs only to be present in the moment, open to hearing whatever the Spirit might wish to say through the inexplicable gift of music.