Mountain Music
I really enjoyed this post by Patrick Mead at Tent Pegs about new interest in old music:
For the first 150 years of the Restoration Movement, our songs were relics and reflections of the old songs brought to us by our British forebears and kept sacred — while transformed — in the mountain fastness of the Appalachians, the Alleghenies, and the Smokies. Flavored, bettered, and respun with the songs of the Delta and songs of the southern, poor, isolated blacks our hymnals rang with four part harmonies that extolled the painful realities of life as seen through the eyes of faith.
The Melungeons, a people unto themselves, gave us shaped note singing, Harp singing, and other forms of mountain melodies. The power of that racial/genetic/historic legacy can still shine through as it did in the Coen brothers’ “O Brother Where Art Thou” and the companion DVD/CD that showcased more old time music, “Down From The Mountain.” The price of Gibson guitars skyrocketed and a whole new generation grabbed onto it. But why? Perhaps it is because their own music became unsingable (at least, without backup dancers and a producer) and something in them called for a drink from a deeper well.
Perhaps it is genetic, but being an Ozark Mountain hillbilly myself, I have become obsessed with Gillian Welch. We have sung “Down to the River to Pray,” from the O Brother soundtrack a few times at FXCC. I wonder if an acappella, congregational arrangement of “By the Mark” would work (listen).
related articles
- The Case Against Adolescence (June 12th, 2007)
- The Clash of Civilizations (June 9th, 2007)
- Feminist Anti-Americanism (May 14th, 2007)
- Getting Hitched: Who is? Who’s not? Who splits? Kay Hymowitz takes a look. (April 8th, 2007)
- Do we really need government-run social programs? (March 27th, 2007)
September 28th, 2005 at 11:28 pm
SOunds like a good song. I will check this album out. I love a variety of music styles and mountain music happens to be one of them.
September 28th, 2005 at 11:55 pm
Every once in a while one of the old songs will creep into the line-up of “happy, clappy songs” & I do so enjoy the harmony. The old songs were written just for the purpose of congregational, four-part harmony. Everyone has a part and we all work together to praise God in a way we are incapable of individually.
While I do have a certain fondness for what I call the “devo” or devotional songs I learned at church camp and there are a handful of new songs that I think are truly inspirational…by and large I find the newer songs disappointing. The melody isn’t as interesting, the harmony isn’t as interesting, the words aren’t as interesting. They sound hollow to me. Those that I have heard (& been able to recognize) with instrumentation are perfectly nice songs with their intended accompaniment. Some are even pretty good. But either they are arranged badly when written for accapella use or they just can’t pull it off. And the clapping can be comical at times. Who decides where to clap? Why here & not there? What’s with “Above All Else”? If the Spirit moves you to clap, by all means, do so. I have a hard time meaning it so I abstain.
I don’t mean to be a Great Songs of the Church snob. I think “There’s a Stirring” and “Days of Elijah” are AWESOME! As a history geek though, I also love the idea that we can sing the same songs that our ancestors did a hundred or more years ago. My grandmother says her mother would sing all the verses of “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Blessed Assurance” (& one other hymn) while churning butter. By the time she had sung all the verses her butter was done. How many funerals have been accompanied by “Amazing Grace”? How many were comforted by “Where No One Stands Alone” or “It Is Well With My Soul”? When we sing the songs of previous generations we are joining together with them in the most massive chorus we can imagine this side of Heaven.
September 29th, 2005 at 8:35 am
I think we’ve got to have a good mix in our churches. I love the old hymns (pre-20th century) and I also like the contemporary stuff (1990 and up).
What I can’t stand is most of the stuff written in the early to mid 20th century — the Stamps-Baxter stuff that’s fun to sing, but pretty shallow theologically (”A Little Talk With Jesus”; “I’ll Meet You in the Morning”; “A Beautiful Life”).
Just one preacher’s opinion!
September 29th, 2005 at 10:19 am
I am one who also thinks that some of the contemporary hymns have some pretty shallow theological thoughts to them. I also love some of the older hymns that date before the 20th century (”O Sacred Head” “On Zion’s Glorious Summit”).
However, as much as I like many of the older hymns, the words found in them only have meaning to the churched folks. Being the voice for the unchurched non-Christians, these people have the right o hear faith in their own culture. This calls for the church to be incarnational, which means the church must be sacrificial for the sake of ministry and stop operating by the standards of personal preferences (which happens in most Churches of Christ, as well as other denominations too).
This is why we need to sing the contemporary hymns more rather than less, and not worry as much about balance (Jesus was not very balanced). Of course we also need to remember that some of the song we coin as “contemporary” are already outdated, so we also need to be constantly writing new songs.
Writting new songs is being done in the emerging church movement. I know that one emerging church plant writes there own worship hymns. Now that is incarnational.
Of course, I know some will read my post and say “So if we listen to you, our churches must just jetison all of our wants for the sake of the lost?” YES! However, there is one way to do that and not upset the existing church. Plant a church that has the freedom to be autonmous and not simply just be a reproduction of the mother church. This church could be an incarnational adventure for the unchurched and the traditional church could still exist to minister to the “churched” Christians. The good news is that this is starting to occur within the Restoration Movement and even in the Churches of Christ. Check out “Stadia Churchplanting” (Independent Christian Churches) and “Kairos Churchplanting” (Churches of Christ), and Harding University also has Marvin Crowson on board to develop domestic incarnational church planting teams.
September 30th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Rex said… “Of course, I know some will read my post and say ‘So if we listen to you, our churches must just jetison all of our wants for the sake of the lost?’ YES!”
I don’t agree that singing contemporary music more rather than less would necessarily mean growth or greater “relevance.” The point of the post is that many young people are yearning to “drink from a deeper well” by calling back to older musical forms, hence the renewed popularity of bluegrass.
I’m actually not sure if the song I mentioned, “By the Mark” is an old song Gillian Welch recorded or if it’s new song she wrote that just evokes older forms of music. I had assumed it was the latter, but after trying to check, now I’m not sure.
October 1st, 2005 at 10:28 pm
I too wonder about why “new” songs are assumed to draw more people to the Lord. I attend a church complete with worship leader and contemporary songs and it is true our attendance has soared over the past year. On Sunday mornings at one service. Not in bible class attendance on either Sunday or Wednesday night, not on Sunday nights, and not in small groups. I believe the people who attend are better to have heard one service in worship to Christ than nothing. But I do wonder sometimes if the attendance is maybe just for the musical entertainment value and not a drawing to the Lord in the sense of the heart. I admit I really don’t know what, if anything, to do about that, but it is troubling. The other thing I notice with the “praise team-new song-worhsip leader” package in the “progressive” Churches of Christ is that what most people call “worship,” as in “we’ve had a really inspiring worship today.” etc., really means the singing. The “worship” of giving, for example gets about 1/10th of the total “worship time.” Instead of a balance in old and new songs, I wonder if perhaps we might be missing the balance boat in other arenas. Just my humble ponderings…