More Thoughts on Church Music

On the Conductor in Sacrament Meeting:

In my last post, Schmath questioned the relationship between the organist and the conductor in a typical worship service. This is an interesting question for me based on my musical training at the G.O.D.U. where I learned to play the organ with regard to church music and also where I learned congregational/choir conducting. In each class we were basically told we had control over tempo and phrasing. Of course, they never got the organists and the conductors together to practice like it would actually happen at church. In an ideal world the organist and the conductor would get together and decide these things together and practice them before the service.

But since we live in a fallen world, this doesn't always happen. I'm fortunate in that the woman who conducts in my ward may not have a lot of musical training, but she has a good musical sensibility. And she's dealt with a lot of beginning organists so when I was called she just told me she would follow me. Now this was good and bad because I needed practice following but I also didn't want to get caught having to play a hymn faster than I could. But now after performing together for almost two years, we have a good working relationship. I usually start the hymn intros as fast I would play them and then follow her. We haven't had any disagreements yet. I also warn her when I'm going to do something fancy.

That's been my fortunate experience. The real key is communication which out to happen before the singing starts. But I've had enough training in orchestra that I always follow the conductor, even if it is slower than I would want to play it.

Now, if I were called as the conductor, I would probably be more aggressive. I would probably give suggested tempos to the organists and ask to practice together before hand. Which is probably why I won't be called. (Maybe Car has some insights on this position?)

I believe there are two reasons why we have a conductor at all when most other Christian denominations only have an organists. First, most other denominations have a professional organist play, who has been trained to lead church congregational singing. I would venture that the majority of our organists have had little training and even less beyond the technical aspects of playing onto the actual performance of hymns in a worship service. A conductor hopefully adds another person into the mix who knows something about music and can lead everyone along as needed. Second, the church seems wary of putting all of its eggs in one basic, and almost every level of the church as at least two people involved.


On the reasons and remedies for slow hymn-singing:

There are many reasons for slow hymn playing:

1. Reason: Mediocre organist.

Remedy: Leave out the tenor line, play the bass line on the manuals, play the
melody in both hands. Playing the hymn at a singable tempo is more important than playing every last note. The major hindrance to this is that we have a strong tradition of four part singing. The more I play the organ, the more I wish we had more unison singing.

2. Reason: The organ is too soft. When the organ is too soft, the congregation can't hear their notes to sing and slow down because they're unsure or stop singing all together.

Remedy: Hymns should always be played with at least a foundation of principle stops. Many church organists feel these are too loud, but unless people can really hear their notes, they won't sing. However, sometimes the speaker power is simply missing with electronic organs. This is the case with the organ in our stake center which has two speakers rather than the maximum four. Two is fine for ward services, but when I played for stake conference I had to literally pull out all of the stops to get it loud enough for the congregation to follow.

3. Reason: The organist is following the congregation. This is a simple physics problem. The organist plays a note which travels general from a speaker situated right next to the organist out into the audience. The audience hears that note and sings back at the organist. The delay in the travel of the sound can be enough that if the organist tries to actually play the note when s/he perceives the audience singing it, s/he will go slower and slower.

Remedy: This is where a good conductor would actually be useful, especially if s/he isn't positioned right in front of the speakers. But for all intents and purposes the organists is not really "accompanying" a choir but leading a congregation in musical worship. The short answer is, the congregation should sound slightly but consistently behind.

4. Reason: Mack W. and the MoTab. I wouldn't go as far as saying that they top my "reasons I don't belong in this world anymore list" (like someone I know), but they certainly suffer from what I call "precious sound syndrome." This is when you sound so good and your harmonies are so beautiful that you just keep extending them out, often losing sight of the bigger musical picture. I hadn't realized how bad this had actually gotten until I was preparing to play "Gently Raise" for this Sunday. I wanted to see at what tempo the MoTabs sing it, so I clocked it with a metronome. In the version I used (a typical opening for their Sunday show), they start out at about 120 beats per minute and almost immediately (after about three measure) slow down to about 90 BPM. By the end of the second phrase they are at about 70 BPM, where they stay until the last phrase when they bottom out at around 60 BPM. So, in the space of one verse, they started at 120 BPM and end at half that speed.

Remedy: The MoTabs are a great choir - but we have to remember that they are a choir made up of trained musicians with professional conductors and organists, who practice regularly together. In a worship service, the volunteer conductor, organist, and largely untrained singers get one shot at having a meaningful musical experience. This means that subtleties that the MoTab can perform, such as tempo changes and dynamics, are simply unlikely to be achieved at the congregational level.

But in many ways, they are unnecessary to the purposes of music in our worship. Like fight songs, national anthems, and union songs, hymns unite us as a group in a common purpose and ideology. The hymns in sacrament meeting are the only opportunity for every member of the congregation to participate actively in worship that simultaneously signals a group solidarity. With the merging of performer and audience, the "performance" aspect is less important than cohesive sing-ability, which hinges on a constant, appropriate tempo. This is also why I support unison singing, because most people will be familiar with the melody than with the part their range might fit and are more likely to sing the melody well and happily than their "part".

The other solution to all of these problems is to worship in Wales with a Welsh congregation. But alas, most of us don't have that option.