What’s in a Song?

What’s in a Song?

Our friend Ben Brody blogs about community and music this week. Join Ben and many from the Fellowship Community at our National Gathering next week in Dallas, Texas.

It isn’t too late to register at www.2014nationalgathering.com, and hotel accommodations are still available. Come and learn, worship and sing with us!

This past week I came home from work to find my eight-year-old son sitting at the piano plunking out the tune to the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Noah has been taking piano lessons for the past year, and has just begun to enjoy playing by ear, rather than simply following the music on the page. Along with the theme from “Star Wars”, and the earworm “Let it Go” from the movie “Frozen”, “Come Thou Fount” has now entered the piano-plunking canon of our household.

And I couldn’t be happier. “Star Wars” and “Frozen” are woven into my children’s imaginations because they have seen each movie so many times that they can hum or sing the music by heart (In our house, humming of the Darth Vader theme is often accompanied by duels with homemade light sabers). “Come Thou Fount” has entered our family canon because we sing it regularly at church. The reason my sons know all of these songs well, is because they have regularly, repeatedly listened to (or sang) them over months or years.

Music shapes us.

We are shaped by music we listen to, but we are shaped even more profoundly by the music we sing. When we sing, our bodies are producing the music and words that we then hear. Our muscles engage our lungs which circulate the air which surges through our vocal chords to the resonating chamber of our mouths to produce sound. When we physically enact something, we remember it, often long after other memories have faded.

I recently read a blog post written by a mother who wanted to help her sixth-grade son make good choices when confronted with peer pressure. She felt he was well-equipped to know what was right, but realized that he had no practice in actually responding to peer pressure. Together they brainstormed potential awkward situations, and came up with several viable ways to respond. The son then chose the response that felt best to him, and rehearsed it with his mom. It was not enough to simply teach him what is right: it was just as important to let him practice his response.

I think that singing in church works in a similar way. Communal worship trains us in the vocabulary of faith. Singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs shapes and seeps into our souls as the words and music are repeated over weeks and months and years. Songs that we sing in church form us by giving us the words to respond in thanksgiving, confession, lament, and praise. When one of my parishioners is overwhelmed with God’s goodness, I want her first instinct to be to sing “Bless the Lord, O My Soul”. When another is feeling lonely and hurt, I want “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly” to be words of comfort. When one encounters doubts and temptations, I want the words of “On Christ the Solid Rock I stand” to be the response that encourages faithfulness. When one is dying, suffering dementia, and can’t even remember the names of her children, I want the words “Jesus loves me, this I know” to be among the last words to leave her lips.

When I choose music for my congregation, I am acutely aware that we have a limited amount of memory, and a limited number of songs to sing. When I choose songs for worship, I want them to count. I want them to be texts and tunes that will dwell deeply in our souls, and become our instinctual responses when we are confronted with the joys and challenges of life. As I look forward to our worship together in Dallas, my prayer is that our singing together will not only allow us to express our praise to God, but will also form us as we allow the text and tunes of new and old songs of faith to shape our souls.

Benjamin Brody has served as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Church Music Studies at Whitworth University since 2003. He studied music education and church music as an undergraduate at Whitworth and went on to complete graduate degrees in choral conducting from the University of Washington. At Whitworth, he teaches courses in church music, music history, and choral literature, and serves as Director of Campus Worship. In addition to his work at the university, Ben is Director of Music at Colbert Presbyterian Church, in Colbert, Washington.