We have talked quite a lot about sacred, or church music throughout this course so I leapt at the opportunity to attend a fairly large modern church music event. Bach would have definitely been confused had walked through the doors, not only at the lack of an organ or any traditional instruments on stage, but also at the blinding light show, pounding drums, thick haze and raucously loud sound system.
The event was hosted by an organization called Worship Central which is a global organization who’s purpose is to train and encourage local church musicians in their craft. The conference spanned Friday evening and all day Saturday, but I was only able to attend the Friday evening set where a guess singer from the Australian Christian band Hillsong United, Taya Smith, was leading the set with the local “house band” backing her up.
The music I heard was definitively not like any of the styles of music that we would have associated with the sacred music we have studied in the course, but having been involved and connected to church music for many years now, I can say that there are some similarities in motive, if not in method.
The hymn, and Martin Luther’s reformed influence on sacred music spring to mind when listening to those in the audience sing along to the songs. This is definitely not meant to be a spectator ‘sport’. Following in the footsteps of hymns, the melodies were simple and clear, and very homophonic. There were often vocal harmonies backing up the main melody, but they were always tied to the melody, not free to move around on their own, and much quieter than the main melody. The instrument’s primary purposes were to provide accompaniment for the voice, though there were often themes or lead melodies played on electric guitar, or piano during portions of the song where nobody was singing.
All the songs played that night were in a major mode, so the mood was set more by volume and tempo of the songs, rather than their mode. This mood ranged from soft ambient pad sounds (played on a keyboard, but generated in real time by a computer) with a softly plucked acoustic guitar, to powerful moments of thunderous drums and driving electric guitars and in the final song of the evening, piercing synthesizer melodies leading the crowd into jumping and dancing all the while singing along.
In the same way that a ‘surround sound’ organ in an old cathedral would have been used to portray the grandness and vastness of God, the booming subwoofer and flashy light show were serving an equivalent purpose in the contemporary sacred church music I heard. Who knows, perhaps with Bach had been composing today, he may have worked for a mega church in Australia.