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Nov
11,
2006
How to
Merge Modern Music into Our Traditional Hymns
Introducing modern music into a traditional
church can generate a unity among our church members and new
generation and by fastening their chain together and praise our lord
Jesus Christ.
It appears to me most religious believes there
are certain things that will not go together, praying and dancing,
and traditional churches and modern music.
Strongly, I had this feeling that contemporary
music would make a big difference in reaching our goal to link our
new generation into our church. I like modern music better than
traditional music in our church. I understood my feeling were not so
different from the generation I was a part of. I knew that to reach
people, you have to eat their food, dress their dress, and
play their music. I
knew if I go to Africa, the Africans religious would employ drums,
not pipe organs in their worship service. Why we are using
traditional hymns in our church while new generation that listened
to drums, guitar and synthesizer? Why did our hymns sound so
different from others hymns? I experienced several churches that
were employing modern music. I noticed more than 100 different
contemporary praise and worship CDs and tapes available in the
bookstores. Somebody is buying these CDs and tapes because somebody
likes contemporary worship. These are not for “listening to music”
they are live worship
services. In reality,
we wanted that this link to be happened. In other words traditional
hymns should be modernized into contemporary worship.
Contemporary earnings varied things to diverse
people. To understand the definition of modern hymns I will format
three elements. It has to do with selection of songs,
instrumentation, and "feeling" and taste. The most of the hymns in a
modern church have been written for the youth and today’s
generation. New songs will bring new feeling to our youth. Every
generation has their own principle why we should keep them away from
their feeling and taste.
It is crystal clear selection of songs; however,
is not a big issue as most people think. You could take a very
traditional selection of hymns, add the right instruments and the
right feel and it would sound logical modern music. I knew it drums
and beats are the biggest issue in our church. More than possibly
any other single factor, drums split contemporary from traditional.
My perception is music with out drums is
absolutely far away to the modern ear. Unfortunately drums or beats
may bring a unique problem to the traditional church. Drums or beats
appear to be just about the last instrument to be accepted to employ
in our church. I think acoustic guitars and any orchestral
instruments can form their way into a traditional service without
too many problems. We have people in our church who do not even like
to see any modern
instruments in the church.
The
last issue of modernized music is what I will call is "feel".
It is very hard to define
the “feel”, but, like being in love, you know
when you have it. I had my first experience to modern worship at my
neighborhood Catholic Church. I attended a few times there and I was
drawn to the spirit of the modern music .That brings me up this
experience that contemporary music nearly has to understood. If I
had not had these experiences of attending these mass services,
readying any article or book could be substituted to explore
contemporary music. There is only the music language will
communicate the feel of the music. If there are some catholic
churches in your area that employ contemporary music, it will be
significance value if you to take a weekend off and experience it
for yourself.
I am coming from a traditional church, but let
me confess if our church were more open to change and innovation in
our liturgy we were not losing our youth in our church and there
were no hesitation for them to attend to the Sunday Mass. I
believe any innovation will establish our legacy as a traditional
church.
There are some basics of modern worship that can
be merged into a traditional service without too much irritation or
unsuitability. I am totally confidence blending of old hymns and
contemporary music wouldn’t irritate our liturgy and we observe an
attraction not only from our youth side but from the adults who
regularly attended to the traditional mass.
About that time I was really enjoying our
traditional service, but today we are ongoing getting more and more
complaints about traditional service no innovation in our services.
At one point I thought this was not an issue for our liturgy, but as
conclusion people does like to worship God in term of Contemporary
worship and is an issue of taste. Tastes are acquired and take time
to change.
Let’s be realistic over time, we will reach a
whole new strain of people who love contemporary music. It is
obvious contemporary music attract them to the church and taking
contemporary worship from them would be as like separation of their
soul from their body. We don't have to ask people to change their
traditional worship in order to reach people who want more
contemporary worship. All we have to do is get them to contribute to
accept another type of worship. Our people will do contribute as
long as we don't gradually introduce more and more contemporary
elements into traditional services. There is no question we want to
have a high quality traditional worship because we believe it is
gratifying to God and tactically precious in ministering to our
community. But contemporary music has very perceptive taste in terms
or quality. I think the contemporary worship helps the people it
reaches to worship better than they would in a traditional worship.
I think it would be very difficult to start a contemporary service
in our church unless the leadership does enjoy it and support the
change in our liturgy divine. I worship better with contemporary
music than I do with traditional music because I am not fighting
against my own tastes.
Paul Caldani Los Angeles
November 2006
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