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Role of music in sacred worship
How religion affects music
How religion affects music
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Musical Worship
Throughout history, music has been used as a form of worship in the Christian church. From David playing his harp and writing poetry in fields to electric guitars being played in church buildings, we have explored almost every style of music. There are many views on how musical worship should be carried out in the church. So much so that style of musical worship has become a church splitting controversy. People draw lines in the sand and choose not to sway far from what they believe is pleasing to God, but this has led to more division than unity. Through music, these lines can be smoothed over, allowing Christ’s bride to come together as one body to worship Him.
Over the centuries, styles of music have come and gone, not only in the secular world, but also in the church environment. “In the ancient world, the normal way to praise a deity was through melodic words or chant.” (CHI). In 1 Kings chapter 18, we see prophets of Baal chanting to him and although it is never recorded before the time of David, we can assume that Christian prophets and teachers also had their own form of musical worship. The book of Psalm is completely comprised of songs written from David to God. He would often play his harp while tending the sheep. Jumping forward 2840 years to the beginning of the 19th century, we see the use of instruments become much more precedent in worship. Churches have become more locally based and organs are being played on Sunday mornings in almost every sanctuary across the nation.
With the spread of instruments and accessible church buildings, styles between churches became more distinct. While, most churches stayed with the traditional form of worship where an organ player and choir led the congreg...
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“For over one thousand years the official music of the Roman Catholic church had been Gregorian Chant, which consists of melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung without accompaniment” (Kamien 67). The credit for developing Gregorian chant music, also known as plain...
The first time I attended the Episcopal Church in my hometown with a girlfriend, I was shocked by the complexity of the melodies the organist played, by the sheer, tuneful competence of the singing. Until then I don’t think I knew it was possible to worship God in cadences and keys actually indicated in a hymnal.
African American religious music is the foundation of all contemporary forms of so called “black music.” African American religious music has been a fundamental part of the black experience in this country. This common staple of the African American experience can be traced back to the cruel system of slavery. It then evolved into what we refer to today as gospel music. The goal of this paper is to answer three main questions. What are the origins of African American religious music? How did this musical expression develop into a secular form of music? What is the future of African American religious music? These questions will be answered through factual research of African American traditions, artists, and various other sources.
Almost all the first Africans who arrived in the New World were slaves. They came from several regions of the African West Coast. Their ways of living were described by slaves themselves, in some narratives. They had to work either in plantations or in town. Slavery was an important issue facing churches, as slaves were allowed to meet for Christian services. Some Christian ministers wrote against on slavery. Rural slaves used to stay after the regular worship services, in churches or in plantation “praise houses”, for singing and dancing. But, slaveholders did not allow dancing and playing drums, as usual in Africa. They also had meetings at secret places (“camp meetings”, “bush meetings”), because they needed to meet one another and share their joys, pains and hopes. In rural meetings, thousands slaves were gathered and listened to itinerant preachers, and sang spirituals, for hours. In the late 1700s, they sang the precursors of spirituals, which were called “corn ditties”.So, in rural areas, spirituals were sung, mainly outside of churches. In cities, about 1850, the Protestant City-Revival Movement created a new song genre, which was popular; for revival meetings organized by this movement, temporary tents were erected in stadiums, where the attendants could sing. At church, hymns and psalms were sung during services. So...
As the church’s cultural influence continued to dwindle, the fundamentals of music rapidly began to alter. With less church-based restrictions, composers gained newly found freedom that allowed musical experimentation beyond secular and religious pieces. As this new freedom developed new musical advances, this allowed the earlier organum to develop and prosper into the musical harmony of today. The creativity that spawned during this era developed a new level of improvisation through harmonic change as the harmony was developed through the implementation of a figured bass to supplement the
Music is a form of art which blends melodies with words to produce a piece that communicates with people’s thoughts and emotions, by stimulating their senses and thus extracting responses. Gospel, a distinctive genre of music, makes use of sounds and words to praise and worship God. It is also used to teach the teachings of God in an entertaining and captivating manner. Gospel music not only fills people’s hearts with hope and joy, but also relieves their stress and comforts them. One of the most influential figures who has played a major role in the flourishing of gospel music is James Edward Cleveland. Cleveland was an accomplished vocalist, performer, composer, producer, philanthropist, preacher, choral director and pianist; hence earning titles such as: “Crown Prince of Gospel” and “King of Gospel Music.”
For centuries, brilliant composers released their works of music that became important part Christian churches. The result of these music works - a huge number of hymns, oratorios and other musical works. Nowadays, they use the organists and the heads of the church choirs around the world. I have attended one of Christian concerts that I would never attend myself. I have completed eight years of music school playing piano. I do not have any good memories of it for I have never enjoyed it. I was that girl playing piano inform of all teachers and parents with their kids. I have never liked it and I have promised myself that I will never go to that type of a concert. I have attended Mary Grace’s concert at Tacoma
In an age when culture continues to lower standards of intellect, Marva Dawn makes compelling observations and suggestions for the Church to rethink its’ strategy on impacting society. How do we evangelize without weakening the message of what we are communicating? The majority of her text focuses on the worship environment generally, but later she focuses on music, preaching, and liturgy specifically. According to Dawn, a gathering of believers should emphasize God as the subject and object of worship, challenge each individual to grow in godly character, and accentuate the community of believers (not only in the room, but throughout history as well). Through this grid, she encourages leaders and participants to evaluate each worship element. If these primary goals are accomplished, then worship will not be empty and simpleminded. Instead the worship atmosphere would be held to a higher standard and, she believes, both pleasing to God and attractive to those who do not know God.
Music has been relevant in Christianity since its beginnings. Some of the first music was written in Latin and they were called Hymns. “Hymn is a song of praise” (Van Camp) and were sung only by catholic churches. When Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation and helped create Protestant Christianity, he began translating hymns into German. All around Europe people were translating hymns into different languages. These translations were brought over by European settlers coming to America and were used frequently in both Catholic and Protestant churches.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him: male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:1,27) These two passages from the Bible showing the beginning of the earth describe the power of God and what He gave mankind. This creation began the reason for worshiping God. Because of Him, people needed to sing and give praise for the greatness that God has done. The purpose of this worship began as personal expression of passion for God, and has continued in this purpose. But the music has also transitioned to aide man in a desperate pursuit of God. In this essay, the purpose of worship music to man will be discussed through stating the topics and purpose of the worship throughout time. These times will continue from the beginning, through the Medieval period, all the way to modern day music. Before delving into the objective within the time periods, it primarily needed to examine the reason behind the purpose of this music.
It was very simple vocal music that was entirely monophonic with freely moving rhythms that changed with each performance. The term monophonic means that there is only one melody being heard at a time. Every voice was singing the same notes at the same time in unison. The most important thing to note is that this music was purely sacred and was only performed in “organized religious settings” (Abel, 3) particularly the Roman Catholic Church. Currently music and religion are so closely intertwined that It’s difficult for us to look back in history and even imagine a time when religion had no music. Almost all major religions in the world today worship with music, from catholicism, to islam, to buddhism. Though, it has not always been that way. Music became the language that humans chose to use to worship their creator because of its universality. Rhetoric is usually defined as the art of persuasive speaking or writing. Music took a role that in sense was used to persuade people that god was the almighty creator. Whether this was purposeful or not, it still had an effect. It’s a fact that music makes us feel things that nothing else can and when religions claim that music is a glorious gift directly from god they can use the way music makes us
In our day an age, music has been used throughout numerous spiritual occasions. For this assignment, I used my personal experience from a funeral church service I attended on November 3, 2015. Throughout my life, I 've been to numerous spiritual events and one type of event that really has a strong emotion towards it, is a funeral service. One important aspect of a funeral, is the music that is used during the services. The funeral I attended was for my parents old friend and it was a very emotional event that was paired with music. Music in this type of spiritual event is really important in how it changes the atmosphere and the role it 's used in the service to convey certain feelings from the music.
into a richer experience of worship and a more effect life of service" (Crabb, 1977, p.31). The method to establishing an
When planning to adjust seating, it is important to know the costs of each plan. This secondary research gave approximate costs when considering different types of seating including pews, church chairs, and theater style seating. When interviewing with Ms. Nguyen, she briefly mentioned that the church financially stable, but it may not have enough money to do an entire overhaul to the church. This means that finding a comfortable price is essential when implementing plans