“He Who Sings, Prays Twice”? Singing in Roman Catholic Mass Leads to Spiritual and Social Experiences That Are Predicted by Religious and Musical Attitudes (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.
Beyond the Individual and the Moment: Examining Music-Induced Emotion in Congregational Singing
The theological concept of the body of Christ sees a church congregation as a single, living organism. Because of this, it may be profitable to examine music-induced emotion in this corporate body as if in an individual one. Klaus Scherer and others have developed the Component Process Model (or CPM) as a comprehensive framework for exploring emotion experience in individuals, including emotion stimulated by music. Because of this, I would like to suggest that the CPM may be an effective framework with which to examine musical experience in congregational singing. Perhaps by reinterpreting appraisal theories of individual emotion states and applying them to a corporate body, we may better understand both group emotion and religious emotion experiences.
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”.
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)
Emotion in congregational singing : music-evoked affect in Filipino churches
Durham University, 2020
The link between music and emotion is essential for understanding the importance of music in life. A significant variety of research has focused on perceived emotion in musical sound and music-evoked emotion in listening. However, what performers experience has only recently begun to attract scholarly attention. Research in non-performance music activities, such as communal singing or simply “jamming” with friends, is sparse. This thesis aims to answer the following questions about the latter: Do singers experience actual emotion while singing? If so, do such experiences fit with prevailing emotion models? What lingering effects come from emotion in music- making? The answers to these questions may promote the understanding of music and emotion in several fields of study, such as cognitive musicology, music therapy, music in education, and congregational music studies. An examination of congregational singing addresses these questions. Two aspects of the activity suggest broader applications of the findings: communal singing does not include the elements of practice and performance inherent in choral music; and many Christian congregations sing for distinctly non-music goals, such as theological instruction, spiritual maturation, or a palpable engagement with God. Two Filipino Baptist churches with strong singing traditions agreed to an in-depth study of their congregational singing experiences to help answer the research questions. The research was shaped by the use of the Component Process Model (CPM), a framework rooted in the idea that emotion is primarily a cognitive experience. A combination of ethnographic surveys and phenomenological interviews was used to gather data about the theological expectations of and personal experiences in congregational singing. The data was then examined through the lens of the CPM. The results of the study are presented after chapters detailing emotion theories, the theological perspectives of the case study churches, methodology, and descriptions about the churches and their congregational song repertory. A final chapter presents other pertinent findings. The triangulation of emotion theory, theology of emotion, and phenomenology of emotion in performative music activity created for this thesis offers a significant approach to further study the complexity of emotion experience in communal singing and other music-making experiences.
WHY WE SING ALONG: MEASURABLE TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL CONGREGATIONAL SONGS
Songwriters have been creating music for the church for hundreds of years. The songs have gone through many stylistic changes from generation to generation, yet, each song has generated congregational participation. What measurable, traceable qualities of congregational songs exist from one generation to the next? This document explores the history and development of Congregational Christian Song (CCS), to discover and document the similarities between seemingly contrasting styles of music. The songs analyzed in this study were chosen because of their wide popularity and broad dissemination among nondenominational churches in the United States. While not an exhaustive study, this paper reviews over 200 songs spanning 300 years of CCS. The findings of the study are that songs that have proven to be successful in eliciting participation all contain five common elements. These elements encourage congregations to participate in singing when an anticipation cue is triggered and then realized. The anticipation/reward theory used in this study is based on David Huron’s ITPRA (Imagination-Tension-Prediction-Reaction-Appraisal) Theory of Expectation. This thesis is designed to aid songwriters and music theorists to quickly identify whether a CCS can be measured as successful (i.e., predictable).
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 ...
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.
2013
This short piece introduces the book _Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity, and Experience_. Collected from presentations during the first biennial Christian Congregational Music conference (congregationalmusic.org), this book explores the role of congregational music in Christian religious experience, examining how musicians and worshippers perform, identify with and experience belief through musical praxis. Contributors from a broad range of fields, including music studies, theology, literature, and cultural anthropology, present interdisciplinary perspectives on a variety of congregational musical styles - from African American gospel music, to evangelical praise and worship music, to Mennonite hymnody - within contemporary Europe and North America. In addressing the interconnected themes of performance, identity and experience, the volume explores several topics of interest to a broader humanities and social sciences readership, including the influence of globalization and mass mediation on congregational music style and performance; the use of congregational music to shape multifaceted identities; the role of mass mediated congregational music in shaping transnational communities; and the function of music in embodying and imparting religious belief and knowledge.