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balaam wrote:Vain repetition? Repetition is not necessarily vain.
The musical worship worship at the Taizé community consists of chants which are far more repetitive than any praise band.
After 6 or 7 repetitions it gets boring, but it continues...
After 14 repetitions the mind switches off, we start to be distracted...
After 20 repetitions the mind is still bypassed, but the heart starts to worship free of the mind...
A few repetitions later the mind kicks back in. Worship is in heart and mind, and God is glorified.
Vain repetition? Repetition is not necessarily vain.
Repetitive chanting, often of scripture, has been part of christian worship, particularly monastic worship, for centuries for good reason. And continues for good reason despite modern innovations like organs.
Vain repetition? Repetition is not necessarily vain.
jochanaan wrote:In worship music, variation can save a piece from becoming boring and counterproductive. Black musicians seem very good at this: they will add grace notes, change up words and in general build up intensity so that instead of being bored we are transported. And the great classical composers were almost without exception masters of variation; when a musical theme returns it never sounds quite the same. We could learn a lot simply by studying how great musicians do what they do.
But when we are talking about worship some repetition is a good thing, Hymns with a chorus, such as 'Onward Christian Soldiers' are a testament to that. Songs with little variation may be a more intellectual listen, but are difficult to learn and make poor worship songs. J S Bach wrote hymn tunes with only 4 lines, with a simple harmonisation. Bach knew what he was doing. Writing a hymn tune is a different skill to writing a Brandenburg Concerto. Bach wrote them too.New_Adventurer wrote:Repetition verses variation is very well demonstrated in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, first movement; the theme, dit dit dit dah, is never repeated the same way. It goes up and down, has different speeds, has various scales, but it is never. Someone told me they thought classical music was boring. I told them that rock music was even more boring; the same thump, thump, thump, thump, thump from start to end. I challenged them to actually listen to a piece and point out the repeating notes. They failed and conceded my point. Mozart demonstrated this even better with his "Variations on a Nursery Rhyme" AKA Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezvj-De6bxY.
balaam wrote:But when we are talking about worship some repetition is a good thing, Hymns with a chorus, such as 'Onward Christian Soldiers' are a testament to that. Songs with little variation may be a more intellectual listen, but are difficult to learn and make poor worship songs. J S Bach wrote hymn tunes with only 4 lines, with a simple harmonisation. Bach knew what he was doing. Writing a hymn tune is a different skill to writing a Brandenburg Concerto. Bach wrote them too.
That device is so overused it's practically useless.bn2bnude wrote:jochanaan wrote:In worship music, variation can save a piece from becoming boring and counterproductive. Black musicians seem very good at this: they will add grace notes, change up words and in general build up intensity so that instead of being bored we are transported. And the great classical composers were almost without exception masters of variation; when a musical theme returns it never sounds quite the same. We could learn a lot simply by studying how great musicians do what they do.
In my experience, the standard thing to do in the Organ/piano Hymn crowd is go up one key (I don't ever remember hearing anyone go down a key).
jochanaan wrote:That device is so overused it's practically useless.bn2bnude wrote:jochanaan wrote:In worship music, variation can save a piece from becoming boring and counterproductive. Black musicians seem very good at this: they will add grace notes, change up words and in general build up intensity so that instead of being bored we are transported. And the great classical composers were almost without exception masters of variation; when a musical theme returns it never sounds quite the same. We could learn a lot simply by studying how great musicians do what they do.
In my experience, the standard thing to do in the Organ/piano Hymn crowd is go up one key (I don't ever remember hearing anyone go down a key).
I wouldn't want to confuse the poor worshippers!naturaldon wrote:Just keep going in a circle of 5th's until you get back to the beginning.
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