Church Choir Rant

I'm a music minister. That being said, I've been on hiatus a couple of years, but when people ask about my church service and my ministry its primarily been music ministry. I've led a number of groups in my time and am currently looking for opportunities to get involved again.

I've been playing in church for a long time. I think that gives me some credibility. I've been to a lot of services lately where I've been very frustrated with what I've heard. That's what I want to talk about today.

Playing contemporary music does not exclude you from being good musicians
Across several churches over the last year in particular, I find myself very frustrated with numerous choirs. I know that these groups are not professionals, but I'm sorry, there's plenty of good groups that aren't professionals.

Directors, listen up! There are some of you who seem way more concerned with playing popular music than building the musicianship of their choir. Some of you seem seem to waste your practices trying to figure out how a certain song was done on the radio rather than ensuring that the congregation can be led in worship. Some of you seem so concerned about being "popular" as opposed to running a good, musical choir.

I will point out two key examples:

1) Around Christmas I saw several choirs across several churches that like to play loud. The same basic scenario occurred over and over: I could not hear myself or my wife (sitting next to me) sing and that was pretty annoying, but the congregation seems to like this choir, so I can overlook that. The thing that frustrated me the most was the obvious lack of practice. You cannot flub Christmas carols!! I'm sorry, but everyone knows them, so your sax player missing notes, your out of tune trumpet and your pianist fighting with your guitarist for the key were noticed!! I'm sorry, but I just feel that players who can't play well enough should not been allowed to play.

Now, I know that someone is going to read this and saw "what about inclusion? We can't just not let people who want to play in the group play." And as a I director I have dealt with that over and over. The answer is yes, absolutely - people that want to play should come to practice and as they are ready play in a few pieces. I never had a problem (though some of my parents did) with telling a trumpet player that it was going to take a month of him coming to practice every week before he would be allowed to play with the choir on Sunday. The players understood, their parents did not. Most of the players that simply came to practice were able to play all the pieces in a short time.

2) There is a group at a church that I sometimes attend where the group is best described as inconsistent. I have heard some great things from this group. I have also heard some terrible things from this group. They work very hard to do radio versions of songs, and maybe that's what their practices are spent doing. They obviously aren't practicing intonation, or even reading the music. Again, some pieces are really good, some aren't. The last few weeks though, they flubbed the mass parts. You know, those pieces that you play all liturgical season. Some would argue some of the most important music in the mass. And they slaughter it. Obviously a lack in practice.

Now, before I get the angry comments of "at least they're voluntering" and "you could do no better" and "why don't you get up there" let me say that I absolutly do appreciate everything that volunteer musicians do. But, I have been up there, have done better, and will do better again. And I can't run all the choirs out there. Life Teen music ministry is critical for the development of music ministers for the future, and if they come out thinking that all music should just be Christian radio and if they come out not knowing how to play in a variety of musical groups, they will not be good music ministers. Many will be frustrated to learn that most groups aren't like Life Teen and instead of contributing to another group, they will stay away completely.

Maybe I'm just an old foggie, but contemporary Catholic musicians cannot be taught that their bubble is the reality of music ministry. I want those musicians to be the musicians of the future. I want those musicians to bring thier music to the mainstream. But that's not going to happen overnight. As a result, musicians (Life Teen are you listening?) need to know how to play the more traditional music or - the best thing- would be if volunteers were taught to be real musicians.

Musicians Save Lives

From an address to Freshmen at Boston Conservatory:


"Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. ”

I sometimes wonder how my life might have been had I been a music major. I know why I wasn't - parents said it didn't pay, the idea that I would be a 6th grade band director for the rest of my life scared me, and I sure didn't think I was nearly a good enough player to go that route. So instead I got my computer science degree and decided to be an 'amatuer' musician.

What's funny is that in taking this 'amateur' route to being a musician, I've ended up being a far better, more dedicated musician than I would have ever dreamed. In college, music was my past time, my passion. I played in lots of ensembles and loved it. I had started to play guitar my senior year in high school and through UTEP was able to take jazz lessons, classical lessons. I ran music at my church. I did all these things without being 'a real musician'.

Now, the working world has been less kind to me as an 'amatuer'. That's been hard. You work 40+ hours a week, add some travel, move around some, and its hard to re-establish yourself. That's been the part I've failed at. Part of starting this blog was to push myself to play more, to keep up my fading skills - that if I had an outlet then I would do better. Its still always a battle.

But at least I still play. So many folks that I knew in high school and college that were good players - some of them the best players - so few of them even touch their instruments anymore, and I think that's sad.

So, when I pick up my guitar today, and I think about what might have been I will remember that I practice my art to save a life, and that life may be my own.

Long Time Without Posting...

Wow! Its been a while since I've posted. Bad Rob!

The last many months have been hectic I have to admit. Its taken quite some time to get the office into shape so I could start recording again. Then there were some upgrades. On top of that work has been crazy busy with the economy and for some reason they just don't think recording should be a priority.

This doesn't mean that there's been no recording. These two little snippets are just that snippets, but I feel like they both show some potential for greater things.

Shaker Theme

The Shaker Theme is from the hymn "Simple Gifts". This is an original arrangement and was essentially improvised. I used the Xpand synth with Pro Tools 8. I was mostly testing the brass sounds, and while not perfect, they are pretty good.

Draco 2

Another attempt at "Magic Music" for my uncle. I'm really happy with this piece even though its not complete - and I need to go back, pull off the effects and figure out what I was even doing on guitar. Another improvisation, I used a combination of heavy reverb and a bouncing delay to get the effects. Very dark and eerie. Reminds me of the soundtrack from the game Diablo :-)