“If you didn’t know it was Mahler you would have thought that it was Wagner.” I can imagine someone saying that in the 1880’s.
Original? Are we ever creating anything truly original? We are always building on materials crafted before our music was conceived. We don’t write in a vacuum. If I wrote a piece that was wholly original it would be so different that no one would have a frame of reference from which to understand the music. The only person who would like it is the type of person who has a shallow interest in the avant garde merely because it is avant garde. How deep would that shared meaning reach?
Like I said, we are building on materials crafted before our music was conceived. We dont write in a vacuum.
We dont think about theology or what we do in church and worship services in a vacuum, either. We have to walk back past the beginning, way before the beginning of our "new" idea. Let’s examine ourselves and our assumptions. Be circumspect. That’s an old KJV word. Look around…front to back, top to bottom, inside out.
Does my new, seemingly original idea convey meaning, a shared experience with the listener? Am I drawing an audience in to an enriching experience or am I forcing people to strain to find some connection with a sound or ideas that are being foisted upon them.
Does a new approach to developing “community” actually develop community? Or does it feel successful merely because it’s new, the "latest thing”? Do you ever feel coerced into becoming involved with a “new” program at a church? Maybe it would be helpful to do a deep dive to see if there’s really anything new about it and ask the question “Is the new better or just new?”.
I don’t know why I’m comparing those two things, music and church programs. Maybe it’s because I’m reaching an age that I can now see an earlier style being recycled, just like fashion in clothing. I’ll have to write another piece about the recycling of style or concepts in church music and throw out this idea to you: Much of the music we use in church worship services today is like music used in the 1890’s to 1930’s.
Intrigued? Thank you for reading :)