The public reading of Scripture

Good post by Josh Otte over at Eucatastrophe with some tips for scripture reading in corporate worship. (Thanks for the recommendation, JD.)

Though he does address it in point 4 when he talks about preparation, I would emphasize that your reading of the text (meaning out-loud) will depend heavily on your understanding of the author's argument. The way your voice inflects will change depending on how you understand what the author is saying. So I'd say it's important for those who read scripture to have a basic exegesis of the text in mind before they get up to read--perhaps the preacher could give this to the scripture-reader in a phone call during the week.

Regarding the monotone reading of God's word, I'd say a church needs to carefully choose who's reading publically just as they do with those who preach and sing. Some people read aloud well, and some don't. I guess erring on the other extreme would apply as well--you wouldn't want someone who's distractingly theatrical.

Avoiding the "wall of sound"

I'm fixing to get with the guitar players in my worship band and have a little heart-to-heart about playing less. The deal is that, in every song, from beat one until the end, both the electric player and the acoustic player play full chords in a steady strumming pattern. They're never not playing, and what they play is pretty much always full volume. (We also have a keyboard player who does the same, but that's another story.) Their philosophy is, basically, the more notes you can cram into the song, the better. I know playing too much is a temptation for everyone, because I used play in Denton with some professional players who had that tendency as well. But I think things are magnified for these guys because of their background in Mexican folk guitar styles (like rondalla, where several guitars all play the same thing all the time), as well as because they simply haven't been exposed to alot of music that makes successful use of dynamics.

My plan is to listen to a bunch of good music with them (the easy part), and also try to get them to buy into the idea that, when playing with a group, the goal is to play as a group. I was impressed several months back by a post on Andy Osenga's blog in which he was talking about his old band, the Normals:

One day we were talking about symphonies, and how they’re a group of musicians who make this amazing sound, but everybody only plays one note at a time, whereas we had two guitars and a piano banging out big, six-note chords while the bass player played the bottom note right along with us. Somehow our sound was much less stirring and beautiful.

We started experimenting with what we played. Instead of playing chords, we tried to each play a melody, like a symphonic instrument, that would all add up to voice the chords. Eventually we got to the point where we didn’t feel a song was done until we could sit aroud and each sing our parts individually and know that the song still made sense. This gave our sound a real depth and complexity that it had never had before, and we were all doing less. It’s usually easier to just play chords, but this really set our band apart AND we all became much better musicians in the process. Not that we became the best band in the world or anything, but this philosophy really transformed the band, at least to us.

Obviously, in a worship band, where we have a limited amount of rehearsal time, we're not going to realistically be able to create individual parts for every instrument on every song. But I like this kind of thinking. Plus I dug the Normals' last album alot.

The High Road

Here's where I share with you some music that moves me. For a musician, or for that matter anyone who loves music, it's always painful trying to get someone to appreciate some musical moment on a favorite record, only to have them ask some unrelated question right in the middle of the part that sticks out to you as being so awesome. So I figure if I do it on this blog, at least I can't hear you talking over the brilliance.

If you go to the ANTI- Records website, you can download for free a Bettye LaVette performance of a song called "The High Road". Do it. No, seriously, do it.

I listen to alot of music, and a lot of good music, but rarely do I hear recordings where the songwriting and performance come together so effectively. The copy on the ANTI- Records site says that the song was written by Sharon Robinson especially for LaVette. This song has that pathetic quality where you know the grandiose declarations of stoic resolve you're hearing barely mask deep, regretful, and perplexed wounds, almost as if she keeps talking just to keep from bursting into tears. These days, all the hit break-up songs have the female victim hurling a scathing deluge of vengeful one-liners that essentially say, "I hate you, you %^$@#*!", but this song, like all good art, is worth a thousand words.

And LaVette's performance is as convincing as it could possibly be. As she sings, "I'll walk away with my head held high, Forgive and forget--uh, uh, daddy--not this time", you simultaneously burn from her scorn and hurt from her pain and weakness. In his review of the album at Reveal, Josh Hurst says:

And for her part, LaVette sings each song with a sort of lived-in passion, as if it’s her last night on Earth and she’s hell-bent on telling her life story. She may be a soul singer by trade, but don’t let that fool you—here she channels something more akin to black magic than traditional R&B, singing in a pained hush one minute and spitting her way into a righteous fury the next.

I'm a huge fan of this kind of production, and the band takes a masterful "less is more" approach in the performance. They accompany her so minimally in the quiet parts that it seems on the verge of exploding when they build. Check out the drum fills at the end of each major section--I don't think I've ever played with a drummer who'd be willing to play such a thing.

Anyway, as outstanding as each of the elements is--the songwriting, the accompaniment, the vocal performance--it's really the way they all combine that brings me into this character's head.

Comments?