At Men’s Katoomba Convention over the past three weeks, I’ve been overseeing the singing, and the most controversial aspect of what we did was… the old hymns. It’s actually not a surprise in one sense, although in the past I have often felt that I’ve struck a good approach to singing them. So it was interesting to be faced with a number of quite heated discussions about this in the wash-up.

My view is that if traditional hymns are to be sung traditionally, then they need traditional orchestration and instrumentation. You need an organ or a choir or a range of orchestral instruments, or some combination of the above. This is because they usually have a harmonic structure that lends themselves to these kinds of sounds.

In particular, there are usually 4 parts written out: the melody itself, the bass line, plus an alto and tenor line which harmonises with both of the other lines. This means that an alto in a choir is able to sing quite an interesting line of music with melodic movement, which is sympathetic with the lines that the basses, tenors and sopranos are singing. The same is true for a viola line or a trumpet part – the parts working together CREATE the harmonic movement, and therefore considerable musical interest. The chords flow out of the parts; they do not dictate the parts.

In contrast, in contemporary music (thinking especially of the rock/pop idiom that so much contemporary congregational worship music represents), it’s all about the chords, not the parts. The chords dictate any parts that the members of the band may play.

So therefore I believe that playing traditional songs with a band cannot be done properly without either making a mess or making some changes!

Here’s what I mean. Many of our contemporary song books such as The Source or Songs of Fellowship retain the traditional choral parts of the old hymns, but place chord symbols above the stave at the points where the harmonies imply a changed chord. This is indeed helpful in the situation where a church band consists of perhaps a guitar player (who needs the chords) and a classically trained pianist (who needs all the parts). Other instruments can easily be added, such as bass, which would also follow the guitar chords, or singers, strings players, horn players etc, who would be able to play one of the written parts.

Theoretically, this is fantastic. It can allow our church music to be inclusive of a wide range of musicians, regardless of the type of instrument they play. Traditional instruments can be blended together with contemporary instruments.

The problem is that, musically-speaking, it’s a recipe for a great big mess. Rather than parts being clearly heard and implying chordal changes, they are competing with the instruments (like guitars and synths) that pound out the chords. Worse, if a bass player cannot read the musical notes and simply plays the chords, there will be a monumental clash with any other instrument playing the bass line, such as an organ/piano, cello, or trombone. There is no subtlety left, unless something is done to reduce the competition between the different types of instruments.

Styles have developed throughout the history of music, and have often happened because of happy accidents. However, this is an unhappy accident! In an effort to maintain the use of hymns in an era where organs and choirs have given way to bands, we’ve come up with not a new style, but a rejection of stylistic distinctives, and therefore a problem for our listeners: it just doesn’t sound that good.

Perhaps you may say that you’ve heard bands just playing the traditional chords with the other instruments stripped away? I certainly have. The problem with this is that rather than the sweet lyrical interaction of harmonising melody lines, you’ve got the “clunk, clunk, clunk” of continually changing chords. The hymns weren’t meant to be played like that. The effect is that old hymns are made to sound more pompous than they need to sound.

I think we have a choice of two ways to approach the old hymns. Either do them with traditional arrangements and therefore also traditional instrumentation, or change the harmonic structure to fit the contemporary band. In my music ministry, I do both. 2 of our weekly services have a traditional feel to them. I have maintained the pipe organ as the main accompanying instrument, but added a range of other instruments to the rosters. We have a strings group that has 8 players and plays once per month. We also have a small once-a-month choir. I am working at pulling together some brass to make an additional group. The congregations love this kind of variety, and it really allows the old hymns to flourish in the way in which they were intended.

However at our other 3 services each week, there is a contemporary feel. We still want to do the old hymns because they are often very singable, connect us with our spiritual ancestors, and so passionately and richly express the wonders of our life in Christ together. So we do them with contemporary arrangements. For the lovers of the old harmonisations (a group which includes myself), this can be quite confronting, because it sounds a bit different. But if the arrangements are done well – in particular if the chord progression chosen properly SERVES the melody it is written to – it can revitalise an old melody.

I think the best thing about coming up with good new arrangements of hymns is that it allows a very wide range of age groups to sing the same songs. That is no small benefit.

Many churches have been torn apart over music, and it is undoubtedly the work of Satan, causing us to be more pre-occupied with the little stuff than the big stuff. Nevertheless, not every discussion about these things should be labelled the work of the Devil! Music raises many closely held opinions and feelings, and we must all listen to each other. Just because I have made these decisions for my own music ministries doesn’t mean that I’ll never change my mind or my approach. I must be humble, but also act with conviction.

At Men’s Convention we did 5 old hymns to my own new arrangements. Some of them worked better than others. The most striking thing was that we had some people asking us for the arrangements, and we had other people saying that the treatment of the old hymns was disappointing (putting it nicely!). Here I have tried to express some of the reasons why our music group took the approach we did. One thing that I do take great comfort from, however, is that on average these older songs produced a much higher volume level from the crowd than much of the more contemporary stuff! We need to keep balancing our music programs with old and new material to ensure we’re connecting with our various generations. But we really should be looking at ways of making these old hymns continue to have relevance in our churches today.

For your interest, the hymns we rearranged and played at MKC 2010 were:

1. It is well with my soul
2. Amazing Grace (using Chris Tomlin’s recent re-arrangement)
3. Be thou my vision
4. Holy holy holy
5. Guide me O thou great Jehovah
6. Stand up, stand up for Jesus

I haven’t even finished listening to this new Hillsong DVD yet, and I just have to start writing about how good it is. Something seems quite different from previous offerings. It’s almost as if there’s been a kind of … maturing.

Hillsong Church has been doing amazing things in the world of Christian praise and worship music for decades. Who am I to talk about the maturing of a church who has put as much effort as they have into the ministry of music, connecting with so many people in our generation who have remained untouched by mainstream churches?

But the fact remains: I have to say that the most recent album Faith + Hope + Love from Hillsong shows signs of a bright new focus. It’s as if (as we’d expect from any professing Christians) they’ve taken on board critiques, and asked themselves, “What actually do we stand for, and what are we prepared to let go of?”

I have at times joined the chorus of complaint. Rarely have my complaints focussed on musical issues. Every Hillsong DVD has taught me something new to help me in my own music ministry, and I have often picked one or two songs from each of their albums for us to do in our church in Adelaide.

Nor have I ever been able to point the finger at anyone but myself and our own traditions when it comes to the enthusiasm of their congregations and the praise leaders on the Hillsong stage. Sure, there are significant differences in our church backgrounds, but we all know that God calls us all to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

For me, the biggest area of frustration with Hillsong albums thus far has been the emphasis of many of their songs not so much on God himself, but on the worshipper.

This is a somewhat subjective judgement in an area where balance for any church is hard to maintain. It’s not just as simple as removing the word “I” from your songs. The Psalms regularly use that little word, and there’s no point us trying to outdo them in correctness.

However, from the Psalms we learn that God is the centre of everything. Every personal statement, reflection or intention in the psalms is a response to the character and works of the almighty, merciful God. This response in the Psalms is always generously supported by lashings of awe-filling descriptions of God and reminders of his promises.

The overwhelming sense I had listening through the songs on Faith + Hope + Love is that they sound so much like the Bible. The songs are full of praise of God. The word “you” is sung over and over with passion, sincerity, and truthfulness. A wide range of biblical ideas and themes is there for our encouragement, including the overall theme of faith, hope and love from 1 Cor 13.

Lyrically, my favourite song on the album is “His glory appears”, by Marty Sampson and Darlene Zschech. It shows a balance of simplicity and life-giving theology.

You gave me hope, you made me whole at the cross
You took my place, you showed me grace at the cross
Where you died for me.
And his glory appears, like the light from the sun
Age to age he shines, look to the skies, hear the angels’ cry
Singing holy is the Lord.

In general, the singing of the congregation seems to be a higher priority on this DVD than previously. A number of the arrangements are stripped back to make the unamplified voices the priority, the mix generally picks up the congregation, and often the song leaders actually step away from the microphones to hear the sound of the crowd. This is a good thing! It is after all meant to be led praise, rather than watched praise.

And this, of course, raises the question of the extremely high production and performance values, and whether these things are a distraction. However, I really think they’ve done well to engage 10,000 people. The reality is that interaction for a crowd of that size is a different ballgame from your average 200 or so in a church building. At the Sydney Entertainment Centre, I’d imagine that involving the crowd just would not be possible without some degree of animated performance from the front. In the end, the true motivations of any of us ministering in front of a crowd are known best by our heavenly Father.

Perhaps there are various critiques we could make of this album. I’m sure the production team themselves would have a list of things they’d do differently next time. However I feel that this is a time to acknowledge some really good things.

I do wonder whether at times we find ourselves looking on with jealousy at Hillsong’s successes and writing our own mental lists of the things they’re not doing right, perhaps even to help us to feel better about our own more modest successes. But a more godly approach is for us to pray for them. And I believe some of my own prayers of the last couple of years are being answered.

Will you join with me in continuing to pray for our brothers and sisters at Hillsong and in other high profile churches? May God prosper their ministry and our fellowship together in the gospel!

I think that in song leading, there are 2 things going on. First, the leader is indeed worshipping God individually, and I think needs to be sincere and to sing from the heart. People in the congregation take their lead from this, and join in. When we all do that together, our worship takes on one aspect of its corporate dimension.

In that sense, I am not too fussed about eyes closed, hands clapping or in the air. I’m much more interested in the person displaying an overall appearance that is convincing! (eg smiles in songs of joy, reflective looks in reflective songs etc). A parallel example might be leading the congregation in prayer, where your own physical approach to prayer will help people in their prayer. Some do it with eyes open, others with eyes closed.

The second thing that’s going on for songleaders though is a communication with the congregation. Not only are we expecting them to copy us, but we’re also deliberately trying to get a message across to people. Music is a ministry of proclaiming the word, in a similar but not identical way to preaching, or bible reading. I reckon that in this aspect of the role we benefit from eyes open, since it’s hard to communicate to someone in front of you when your eyes are closed. I do sometimes find it difficult when I’m in a congregation to engage with the song leaders if they’re closing their eyes to me.

To make the point another way, another important aspect of our corporate worship is the actual focus on our togetherness. In our awareness and engaging with each other, we build one another up in the truths of the gospel. When we do this, God is worshipped, a point that the New Testament makes very clear (eg the sheep and the goats story in Matt 25, where in serving Jesus’ brothers, you are serving Jesus himself).

My own practice is that my eyes will be open and shut at different times when I sing, depending on the situation. If I’m doing an item, especially one that is personal and individual, often I’ll sing with my eyes shut, but never for the whole song, because I still feel that there’s a communication element to it. Most congregational songs I’ll have my eyes open for the majority of it, but at times when I’m particularly aware of God’s interest in me personally, my eyes will shut for parts of it.

At my own church, I don’t tend to make rules about what people can and can’t do. This seems to me to be unnecessary and can I think smother the ministry of music! We try to think about what we’re actually doing when we lead singing, and leave it to individual songleaders to make up their minds.

Once again, yes and no, in my opinion. From a classical music perspective, being a great musician is like being a great gymnast. You learn routines, which are performed as well as possible. All sorts of considerations are relevant in judging who is great, but essentially people are sizing each other up and comparing each other, to see who is the best.

This is also notably relevant in the jazz scene, where there is a grand pecking order or “food chain” that each musician tries to work his or her way up.

Additionally, from a commercial point of view, music can be about promoting self. You perform and promote in order to sell products and remain viable.

However I think it’s just too big a statement to say that being a great musician is essentially about promoting self. Music is first and foremost a form of art. We can and do use it as a communication vehicle, but this is primarily because of the way it appeals to the human soul at a deep level.

A person who engages deeply and powerfully with art is not necessarily promoting him or herself. In a true unfallen (or redeemed) sense, people may be rejoicing in and praising the creator! That is of course what art is meant to do: display the beauty of God. Music is not just a means to an end, where it is either exploited for self or for service. It is a place in which a person can dwell, a place that is so easily affected by corruption, as people worship the art form instead of the great artist himself!

Yes and no, in my opinion. The reasons why music must be good are different from the reasons why lyrics must be good. It’s a bit like comparing apples with oranges, I think. In one sense, the answer must be yes, because we’re talking about the gospel, the word of God. That is the thing that makes lyrics especially important, and means we must get them right. One of the risks of not getting them right is that we will misrepresent God, which we mustn’t do (E.g. we could slip into heresy or idolatry, or just plain old shallow, ill-informed theology). The other thing that we can do wrong with lyrics of course (often not mentioned much in my circles, since we tend to focus more on “correctness”) is just make them unpoetic, or unengaging. All the best songs in the world have gripping lyrics. So yes, lyrics are critical. They carry the message, explicitly.

But I would argue that the musical side in a sense is just as important, but its importance is measured in different ways. The tune carries the message, perhaps implicitly, or indirectly (as distinct from explicitly or directly as in lyrics)

If a song has a brilliant tune and harmony, then regardless of how good or bad the lyrics are, people will quite likely want to sing it! If it doesn’t, they won’t. You then do the lyrics either a service or a dis-service, but how important therefore is the tune, if it can make people either sing or not sing the lyrics!

Think of what happens when the melody is good and the lyrics are poor… people sing bad (or shallow) theology. And you can’t stop people getting into it because they love the music. The music has a power over people that ‘correct theology’ doesn’t have. I’m not denying the power of the Spirit to work through poor tunes! I’m just saying they’re operating in different realms, pulling on different heart strings.

In summary, I don’t think it’s a good idea to put lyrics and tunes up against each other, since both need to be good for a song to be considered good. Perhaps it’s better to focus on the consequences of doing each poorly. The consequences of doing lyrics poorly are far greater than the consequences of doing tunes poorly. With one, you can commit heresy or idolatry. With the other, people simply won’t sing the songs.

We recently installed a new PA system in our church building. It increases the potential volume considerably. That’s not strictly why we bought it, but now that increased volume is a possibility, it is also quite often a reality!

It has led me to wonder what are the pros and cons of loud music for congregational worship…

At my church (Holy Trinity Adelaide), our biggest and most successful congregational worship event of the year is our Christmas carols service in the Adelaide Town Hall. (Quick plug: you can buy the DVD and check it out at www.emumusic.com/albums/carolsinthecitydvd)

Things are loud. A combination of a large reverberant room and a lot of people singing songs they know very well, and the decibel metre is reaching high numbers!

Yet rarely do we get any complaints about the volume. There is something awesome about that kind of singing experience. It’s not about the PA. It’s about the 1000 voices. There’s actually an old hymn by Charles Wesley called, “O for a thousand tongues to sing”, which delights in the awesome power of that number of voices singing in unison, and longs to have it for oneself. When we encounter the true God in our lives, we can be spurred to sing with all our might. Imagine having the power of a thousand voices to express praise of my maker and saviour…

Having said all this, it’s not every Sunday that we experience hearty, loud singing. Many factors come into play to prevent it. Uninspiring song leaders, uninspiring preachers and service leaders, a building that deadens the sound rather than resonating with it, a band that cannot get it together and express the heart of the song. And, of course, an inadequate PA is one of the biggest constraints on congregational singing.

In a sense, this seems like a contradiction, since it’s not the band we’re ultimately trying to amplify, but rather the voices of the members of the congregation. But in the end, there really is only one reason that there is a band in the first place, and that is to urge the congregation to sing! You could do the same with a pipe organ, or a choir or an orchestra. But then you’d probably be playing traditional music, and not all churches want to do traditional music, especially not your youth service. So the contemporary equivalent is a good band and a good PA. For any reasonably large sized congregation, you will need both, from my experience.

The problem with a small PA is that it is like trying to use a small portable CD player. No matter how good the CD is, it won’t sound any good in anything bigger than a small room. It’ll just sound tinny. And if you push it loud, it’ll sound harsh. Harshness, in my opinion, is the main cause of “volume” complaints in the churches I’ve attended. I know that in some churches, it is just plain too loud. And I know that some sound operators can manage to make it sound harsh no matter how good the PA system is! But often there is an impression of loudness created by the fact that the sound source is not adequate for the building size.

It’s the same principle at work that led our forefathers to build large pipe organs for our old church buildings. If you want people to be moved by the music, then the music needs to be generated by a source that can actually, literally move people. Rarely do people complain about the volume of the organ (not these days, anyway!). I wonder if that’s because over the centuries of organ-building they eventually got the size and volume right!

In the Adelaide Town Hall, the organ effectively occupies an entire wall, protruding several metres from it. It is a massive sound source. With modern technology, we can be much more efficient of course. We can use loudspeakers to move large amounts of air, and give the warmth and fullness that is required to spur on loud singing.

But there are still limits. You’ll never get that warmth and fullness if you use small speech-oriented speakers. You need a bass speaker. And subwoofers are not just for showoffs in their hotted up cars! They’re for churches.

At Holy Trinity, we are trying to use our new PA to inspire loud singing. I always think that the volume of the congregation is a good place to start when working out if our music ministry is effective or not. It’s not everything, but people need encouragement to praise with strength and volume.

As a music director, my role is not really to direct the music at all. It is more importantly to urge and encourage the singing.