music in worship

[cellio]

A couple of the classes during the Sh'liach K'hilah program were taught by a cantorial student (who is very good, by the way, both as a musician and as a teacher). I mentioned some of this briefly before, but now I'm going into a little more depth.

Early in one of the classes he asked us to brainstorm about things to consider when choosing music for a service. Here's the list we came up with:

• who's singing (skill, role in congregation)
• who's listening (why are these people here?)
• connections with season, holidays, parsha
• difficulty of new music (introduce it, but sparingly)
• service themes?
• overall mood -- celebrating a baby-naming, commemorating a yahrzeit of someone promiment, events in the outside world, etc
• balance of new and familiar music
• accompaniment?
• do the text and music go together?
• tempo, dynamics, other performance practice
• accoustics of the space; sound system
• generally-comfortable keys, if congregation is singing along
• pronunciation (Ashkenazi vs. Sephardi)
• balance of Hebrew and English
• balance of singing and reading
• general shape of the service (hey, an allusion to an earlier class :-) )

(Sure, I could go on at some length beyond that, but we were time-limited.)

He handed out an essay entitled some notes on the future of of Jewish sacred music (yay Google!) by Cantor Benjie-Ellen Schiller. (Aside: we had her as a visiting cantor one Shabbat several years ago, and she's great to work with.) Despite its vague title the essay is good. Excerpt:

Sacred music nurtures meaningful, honest prayer, whether or not the music we ultimately choose satisfies our artistic selves. The real test is whether our sacred music satisfies our spiritual selves, as individuals and as a community. To me, a successful service offers a healthy combination of all three moods of prayer to express an array of three paths toward knowing God.

(Gee, you think there's some debate within the cantorial community? :-) )

Cantor Schiller describes four types of music (three in this essay, one added later):

• majestic, expressing awe
• meditation, expressing intimacy
• "meeting" -- coming together as a community (like when we all sing familiar melodies together)
• memory, instantly taking you to another place and time

As you might expect, it's all about balance and appropriateness, matching up the music with the goals of the service -- or rather, that part of the service, because most services will contain most or all of these types of music. We expect Kedusha, the proclamation of God's holiness, to be majestic, so don't use a wimpy low-key melody there. We expect the beginning of the Amidah to be meditative, so that's not the time to be grandiose. We expect everyone to join in on Adon Olam at the end of the service, so choose an accessible tune.

Leigh (the instructor) gave us his "10 commandments of congregational singing", which I enjoyed. (These are for the congregation, not the cantor.) I haven't asked for permission to distribute the document, but here are some highlights:

• Thou shalt sing fearlessly, ignoring the possible wondering glances of thy neighbors. They would like to sing with you if they had the nerve and they will sing with joy if you continue.
• Thou shalt sing reverently, for music is prayer.
• Thou shalt not resist new melodies, for it is written in the book of Psalms, "Sing unto God a new song".

All food for thought as I prepare to lead music this Friday. A lot of the music decisions were made several weeks ago, but my goal was to keep it simple and familiar, and I did have some of these instincts already, so we'll be fine.

Comments

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

The commandments you quoted remind me of Charles Wesley's exhortations in the first Methodist hymnal. Which isn't too surprising, really.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I like those rules.

A.
reading more than she gets a chance to reply, but still here...

[goljerp]

Thou shalt sing fearlessly

For me, singing is a really key part about services. I get excited by nusach, upset when I miss a cool bit of trope. I love new tunes, and mostly love the old ones. (There's one tune to "Le dor v'dor" in the kedushah (it's a sort of responsive one, with lots of repetition) that I've gotten rather tired of, but that's the exception...)

And now I simply must shop for the rest of the food I'm going to eat on Shabbat. Shabbat Shalom, and good luck with all the stuff you're doing!