Friday, January 29, 2010

When was the last time...










[image by ajstarks]
...you listened to a choral project?

I love choral work. I love the harmony and the precision required to make a choral piece excel. But it's been awhile.

These days I serve in a church that has a full band, a couple of vocalists usually, strong multimedia elements and the occasional texting exercise in our service.

We're what some people call contemporary, what my mom would call too edgy, what others call over-produced, we're what churches like our's call relevant, welcoming and we love your kids.

All of that to say that I don't have a real regular call to incorporate the latest octavo into our services.

But I come from a background of years of exposure to some of the best choirs and choral work in the church world.

I grew up in a large church that had a choir of 200 and for the first 13 years of my career I worked in the church music industry promoting all of the best musicals and octavos and hearing them performed by amazing choirs.

And while styles have been and will continue to be debated, there is something to be gained from all of them.

So, when was the last time you listened to Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir? or whoever your favorite choir is? Has it been too long?

I guarantee there is something to be gained by stretching your repertoire. Whether you add that element to your services or not, there is something to be learned, ideas that can be incorporated that can make your existing style better.

So, I think I'll put that on the playlist today. How about you?

1 comment:

sherrigiles said...

Recently, After MANY years of being far away from what I used to be so much apart of, I have rediscovered the beauty of this format of singing. I've been to a hand full of local choral performances. I have now been to my very first Opera. Not only does this music ring with UNITY in the voices it's a great way to get a whole community of people involved, and it really reminds me of the joy of unifying with others with a common goal to produce a sound that is absolutely breath taking. We don't always think about music as a team sport, but the choirs I've performed with take on the same mentality of the basketball team I played with...and it's really hard work with beautiful rewards at the end!