Oral Theology in Lomwe Songs (original) (raw)
Related papers
Christian song in a global church: The role of musical structure in community formation
International Journal of Community Music, 2009
While recognizing the importance of musical style in congregational singing, this article suggests that the underlying structure of the people's song influences how they receive theology and the relationship of song to ritual action. The author, after introducing sequential, cyclic and refrain structures, defines the characteristics of each and proposes ways that each structure may enliven a ritual and enable community building.
THE VALUE OF SINGING HYMNS IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP
Music in and Out of Culture: Musical Arts Education Perspectives (a Festschrift for Isaac Ovabohrene Idamoyibo), Chapter 23, Ile-Ife: Malthouse. pp.459-476., 2021
This paper examines the value of singing Christian hymns in public worship with a focus on evangelical churches in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. It identifies the problem of lack of interest of youths in the singing of traditional hymns and their preferences for contemporary gospel music in Christian worship. It stresses the value of singing of hymns towards Christian maturation. Using participants observation and interviews with carefully selected worshippers in the area, the study examined the perceptions of Christians on the role of hymn singing public worship towards Christian maturation. It argued that Church Music is focused on fulfilling the mandate of Christ towards Church growth. That the primary essence of church music is not for commercial purposes or for entertainment, nor for other material gains, rather, it exists for spirit-filled and truthful worship, for ministry, and for Christian maturation. The paper highlights some values of singing hymns in Christian worship and concludes that church leaders have a duty to continually incorporate theologically appropriate hymns for use in worship to strengthen its values for nurture, fellowship, and for ministry. The paper recommends deliberate actions in choosing relevant hymns for liturgical process, more creative use of hymns in the liturgy of the churches, and the need to create avenues for more training of music leaders through music conferences and workshops.
Empirical study with regards to congregational singing in Potchefstroom
The presence of at least two prominent streams of church music within the DRC is evident – this is also true of most other Protestant and Reformed churches. There is tension between the ‘old music’ and the ‘new music’; traditional church music and contemporary church music; the official repertoire of church music and the utilized repertoire of songs. Liturgical singing often includes various free songs (songs outside the official hymnal). Songs from various traditions are cut and pasted or copied and merged into liturgy through a process of bricolage. Within bricolage liturgy there is a growing tendency towards bricolage liturgical singing. A brief overview of the history of church music illustrates the complexities regarding church music. The official song of the temple was often complimented by the ecstatic song of individuals. The more formal and official song of the church often stood in contrast to the song and music that were played and sung in houses and elsewhere. Christian believers in different eras expressed themselves in different forms and genres of music. The Bible does not support a blueprint for church music. There is no Biblical church music, mainly because no ‘melodies’ could be preserved (cf. Mowinckel 2004:9). The latter is further complicated by the culture-bound nature of Biblical music and songs. The Biblical data mostly provides snapshots of instances where God’s people utilized music and singing in their interaction with the Almighty and covenantal God. Certain principles and guidelines for church music could be drawn from these, although the danger of fundamentalism, relativism and subjectivism remains. A study of liturgy illustrates the important role of music and singing within the dialogue of the liturgy. Recent studies emphasize that church music could function as a ritual symbol within a specific cultural or sub-cultural community. As such church music is closely related to the culture (or sub-culture) of a given community and can never be evaluated apart from that culture. Within a postmodern culture, church music will be greatly influenced and coloured by the values and attitudes of postmodernism. The latter have major implications for musical styles, genres, repertoires and the sanctification of church music. Within postmodernism the borders between sacred and secular are not so clear, neither between sacred (liturgical) music and secular music. Within Western culture and postmodernism there is a growing need for an inculturated and an inter-culturated song, expressing the smaller narrative(s) of the local congregation in idioms, language, metaphors and styles true to the local culture. Church music is closely related to the spirituality of the local congregation. The dominant type of spirituality will necessarily have a sound influence on the musical genres, accompaniments, styles and repertoire of the local congregation. The growing phenomenon of popular spirituality has definite implications for church music. At least three circles of spiritualities must find expression in the song of the local congregation, namely an ecumenical spirituality, a denominational spirituality and a congregational spirituality. Where the official song (Liedboek van die Kerk) gives expression to the denominational or Reformed spirituality as well as the meta-narrative, the free song often gives expression to the congregational spirituality as well as the smaller narrative. It is argued that the freely chosen song is an important means of expressing the spirituality of the local congregation (culture). In this sense, it does not threaten the official church song but compliments it. These two could stand in a positive and creative tension. Regarding liturgical singing, the DRC is presently moving from a societas through a phase of communitas to a new societas. It is impossible to predict the outcome of this process. As Burger (1995:31) indicates, a communitas-phase releases a lot of new energy that could be of great value to the church. Church music, as folk music and cultural music, will have to be faithful to the culture and spirituality of God’s people living in the twenty first century within a given context. The age-old tradition must continue hand in hand with a new song. Vos (2009:5) summarizes accurately: “However, each generation of believers must interpret the ancient sources and traditions of the Church anew, within the demands of their time, without being unfaithful to the traditions in which a definitive liturgy exists”.
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...
Sacred Liturgical Music Ways to Promote Congregational Singing
Asian Journal of Religious Studies , 2024
The congregational singing in numerous Indian churches has undergone significant transformations. Congregations singing in Catholic Mass foster community building through social, communitarian, and spiritual experiences. It connects people to God, builds community, and experiences sacred religious texts as prayer. This paper examines parish music and Church liturgical norms, focusing on sacred music and appropriate music for liturgical celebrations, aiming to promote congregation-centered singing and communion, rather than a choir-centered church culture. "The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this preeminence is that, as sacred song closely bound to the text, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy." (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, SC 112)
European Journal of Musicology, 2021
onique Ingalls’s Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community is a landmark publication, inviting vitally diverse readings. Fusing distinct disciplinary traditions and settings of field research, the book offers much more than a fresh understanding of popular religious music. With ethnomusicology and congregational music studies at the foreground, Ingalls’s undertaking spans popular music and media studies, sociology, theology, among other fields, to propose an analytical model for congregation and worship. The book evokes a novel understanding of the reasons and ways in which contemporary worship music constitutes congregation; an understanding that, even though primarily addressing the North American evangelical context, concerns broadly the shaping of worship within and between certain denominational families across the globe today. The model comprises five distinct ways in which congregations are formed through music-making. These musical ...
Examining contemporary congregational song - beyond sung theology
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 Use of Singing in Public Worship
I must confess that, after some 68 years of being in Christ, I am still uncertain about singing hymns in mixed congregations. The present debate on singing has been attended with my uttermost interest. The question to me is, how can one compel mixed gatherings of Christians and non-Christian to sing praises to God for their salvation when many of the singers are strangers to the House of Israel? One Baptist minister told me that he loved to have non-Christians in his Worship-Leaders Choir (that is what he called it) because he hoped that they would sing so often of Christ's salvation that it would become truly theirs. It is interesting to note that our earlier hymn-writers such as Cowper or Newton never intended their poems to be used for congregational singing. Indeed, Cowper was surprised when he heard a neighbour who had a put one of the Olney Hymns to music. Watts confessed that he had introduced hymn-singing in his services merely to 'liven up' the worship and give the singers a 'happy' (Watt's own word) feeling. If anyone cares to read Watt's theory of hymn-singing and his NCT approach to the Old Testament, one will see that it is based on very shaky theological grounds, causing his Reformed contemporaries to object to 'Watt's Whims'. Though the Church of England had been putting pious thoughts to music for generations, the Dissenting churches had generally withstood the temptation until the time of Cowper, who teased them for imitating the Church of England. He would never, he declared, support the building of an organ in the Olney church. Her protested at the red-nosed singers in a church choir and told his dissenting friend William Bull that if he looked to jigs for his amusement, he must join the 'mother church'. Indeed, hymn singing was almost unknown in Dissenting church services up to the end of the 17th century. The Psalms were sung in metrical versions in the Anglican Church but most Dissenting churches had given up this practice in their efforts to rid themselves of all that was attached to Anglicanism. Baptist churches who continued the Anglican practice were looked upon by other ´purer` churches as if they had opened the doors to the Devil and all his works. Anti-singing Baptists, who were taken by surprise in a meeting where psalms were sung, would immediately put their hats on to indicate that as this was not a display of true worship, and neither a Church nor gospel ordinance, they need not doff their caps. Yet psalms