“I’ll Bring You More Than a Song”: Toward a Reassessment of Methodology in the Study of Contemporary Praise and Worship (original) (raw)
Related papers
Religions, 2023
“Performing” and “performance” are potentially contentious words within the context of contemporary Christian worship. However, performative elements are explicit in the lyrics of contemporary congregational songs (CCS), and in video recordings of CCS, through the actions of those on stage and in the congregation, as well as in the broader context of staging, lighting, projection, production, and video editing. However, to date, there is only a handful of scholarly works that explore performing in contemporary worship or contemporary worship as performance and most of them are ethnomusicological. This paper seeks to address notions of performing and performance through a broader lens of the most-sung CCS globally, examined through the disciplinary fields of performance studies, musicology, media studies and theology. It involves a two-fold complementary textual analysis of the most-sung CCS lyrics and the most-watched ‘live worship’ videos of those songs on YouTube. In so doing, this study identifies how the Christian music industry at large officially portrays and languages performance in worship songs and also identifies how performative elements are enacted in the live worship videos released. These analyses are finally synthesized to identify how performing and performance are understood and actively portrayed to and by the contemporary church.
Style Matters: Contemporary Worship Music and the Meaning of Popular Musical Borrowings
This article, appearing in vol. 32, issue 1 (2017) of the journal Liturgy, chronicles the “style periods” of contemporary worship music in the USA from 1960s to the present, showing the range of differing, sometimes conflicting beliefs and concerns communicated by musical stylistic choices. Liturgy is quarterly journal of dedicated to pastoral liturgy published by The Liturgical Conference, intended for both scholars and church leaders.
Musicking as Liturgical Speech Acts: An Examination of Contemporary Worship Music Practices
Studia Liturgica, 2021
This article examines the genre of Contemporary Worship Music (CWM) within worship contexts in terms of its formative and purposeful nature. In CWM settings, the worship leader plays a particular role in the selection and facilitation of CWM repertoire to be led by praise bands. Through the leader's consideration of the message of the CWM lyrics, and the relational nature of CWM practices, a worship leader's pedagogical decisions are integral to contributing to a space of dialogue for worship musicians. Drawing on previous literature addressing liturgical language in worship, I analyze the CWM context as a particular case where liturgical language shapes musicians’ spiritual formation. This examination of CWM practices includes an analysis of musicians’ engagement in relational musicking and meeting through I-Thou encounters. I therefore explore both the need for worship leaders to consider the multitudinous theological implications of their actions, as well as the way music...
Examining Contemporary Congregationsl Song - beyond sung theology
2013
What Christians sing as they worship is a focus of considerable attention in the contemporary church and yet it has been a contentious issue at almost every period of Christian history. Since the mid-twentieth century, significant social, cultural, and technological changes, all against a backdrop of increasing global consciousness, have affected the way music functions and the ways opinions about repertoire and performance practices are formed. The primary focus of this project is the analysis of eight songs composed between 1983 and 2001. The essential question is how musical analysis contributes to a greater understanding of the nature of contemporary congregational song and various performance practices. This project will focus on analysis of harmonic structures as the major element. This will provide a framework from which comparisons of other musical elements can lead to a greater awareness of the issues of music and worship, and of music and theology. Developing a greater und...
Dialog, 2009
In the heated discussion about different church music styles, one aspect often gets overlooked: the similarities between traditional hymns and the modern or contemporary Praise and Worship music (P&W). Aiming at unfolding some of these similarities, this article contemplates technological, sociological, and theological perspectives to reveal parallels between the two practices and postulates P&W as today's evangelical hymnody in North America.
Dialog-a Journal of Theology, 2009
In the heated discussion about different church music styles, one aspect often gets overlooked: the similarities between traditional hymns and the modern or contemporary Praise and Worship music (P&W). Aiming at unfolding some of these similarities, this article contemplates technological, sociological, and theological perspectives to reveal parallels between the two practices and postulates P&W as today's evangelical hymnody in North America.
Exploring the Contemporary Congregational Song Genre: Texts, Practice, and Industry
PhD Thesis, 2016
Contemporary congregational songs (elsewhere referred to as ‘praise and worship’ music, or contemporary worship music) began some forty years ago in Western Pentecostal/Charismatic contexts, but their influence is now worldwide and pan-denominational. While professional and popular discourses relating to this genre are widespread, scholarly engagement is still nascent. Where it is available, it is most often the examination of a specific contextualisation of the genre. Moreover, the music of the genre is under-represented in analyses because researchers have preferred sociological, historical, or theological methodologies. Finally, lacking from the contemporary congregational song (CCS) discourse is a research method and meta-language to facilitate a generic understanding of the genre; its texts, producers, and consumers. This thesis provides a broad scholarly platform for CCS; a framework for their creation, analysis, and evaluation upon which future scholarship can build. This thesis identifies, defines, and explores the CCS genre, its texts, its production and producers, and Christians’ engagement with these mediated texts as individuals, and in corporate worship settings. The methodology employed to achieve these aims is a tri-level music semiology (Nattiez, 1990). At the first level, twenty-five of the most popular CCS sung in churches around the world are subject to individual and collective analyses, based on their most-viewed YouTube versions. Key lyrical, musical, and extra-musical characteristics were identified. At the second level, Christians attending CCS-oriented churches were directly surveyed to ascertain their engagement with CCS. Two key questions were explored: What can Christians sing? And, What do Christians want to sing, and why? Supporting data from the 2011 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) was also analysed and cross-tabulated. Finally, key CCS writers/producers/performers were interviewed to ascertain the degree to which they considered diverse and localised congregational engagement. This study sheds new light on the CCS genre, articulating its musical, lyrical, and extra-musical elements in greater detail and depth than has previously been available. It also reveals CCS as primarily a functional genre, facilitating musical worship for individual and gathered Christians. Furthermore, CCS is a contested genre, constantly under a process of negotiation and transformation by various stakeholders. Tensions between the new and the familiar, the individual and communal, the professional and vernacular, all contribute to the formation and evolution of the contemporary congregational song genre.