Music is the art and science of combining vocal sounds, or instrumental sounds, or both to produce harmony in order to express emotion.
Christian music is the music composed, performed, rendered/presented for church or any setting of sacred, solemn, and spiritual purposes in order to express belief regarding christian life and faith, and having themes like praise and worship, thanksgiving, reverence and submission, penitence, supplication, and lamentation.
As there are many christian denominations, diversed cultures and social settings, so the creation, composition, significance, rendition, performance, effect, definition, and level of acceptability varies.
Over time, great changes have occurred to bring about the different genres of Christian music. This evolution have come in history, phases, spiritual conceptualization, thus encouraging the composers and performers tilt towards satisfying the consumer in ways and purposes ranging from religious, ceremonial, aesthetic and pleasure, or as a product for the market.
This presentation, therefore, is an attempt to highlight, contribute, and briefly examine the trends leading up to these changes so that your analysis will serve as a thermometer to gauge the spiritual health of christian music of the past and present, and a projection for the future.
*IN THE BEGINNING*
Since the beginning of recorded civilization, music has had some unique association with man’s evolution. The Egyptians, Jews, Hebrews, and Greeks, as evidenced in their iconography, and through their cultures have made extensive use of music in their religious rituals, thereby influencing their spiritual, moral, and emotional attachment to their gods.
The first mention of music in the Bible is in Genesis 4:21 where Jubal is spoken of as the father of all musicians who play the harp and flute. Find also Moses song – Exodus 15:2, Miriam’s song – Exodus 15:20-21, song of Deborah and Barrack – Judges 5:3, Hanna’s song of thanksgiving – 1Samuel 2:1-10, David’s song of thanksgiving – 2 Samuel 22.
Others include @ the fall of the Jericho wall – 2 Kings 3:15, Exodus 15, Judges 5, the Psalms especially the Israelites’ song of lamentation by the rivers of Babylon – Psalm 137.
With the arrival of Jesus and the exploits of his ministry as recorded in the New Testament, music assumed a more directional and purposeful role in the life of christians : Mary’s song of the magnificat – Luke 1:46-55, the song of Zacharia – Luke 1:68-79, the Angels’ song of Gloria – Luke 2:14.
Others include the communal song of Jesus and the Apostles at the Lord’s supper – Matthew 26:30, the song of Paul and Silas – Acts 16:25, Paul’s encouragement to the Ephesians and Colossians for songs of thanksgiving to God – Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16.
*CHRISTMAS CAROLS*
Christmas carol is a piece of vocal music in Carol form whose lyrics center on the theme of Christmas and Christmas season with the focus on the birth of Jesus.
The word “carol” comes from the French word “Carole” which means a circle dance accompanied by singing. Up through to the Middle Ages, carols were typically dance music for pagan festival communal celebrations used as procession songs during such festivals at the winter solstice. This pagan winter celebration grew larger each year spreading throughout Europe, with each culture adding its own local customs.
• Arrival of Christianity :
With the advent of Christianity, the early Christians adopted the culture of singing and dancing during winter celebration into church practices.
As we prepare for Christmas, events like shopping and decorating, parties, making new friendships, and renewing old friendships brings us excitement, we find mails and the social media messages, radio and TV, and in churches choirs, children and carolers singing the music that serves to remind us the reason for the yellutide season – the birth of the Child Jesus.
Every year as people anticipate the arrival of Christmas, the sounds of the season fills the air. There is no music more beautiful or beloved than these songs of Christmas, handed down from generation to generation, around the world to celebrate the birth of Christ.
• *Advent of Christmas Carols :*
It is widely believed that Angels sang the first Christmas carol on the night when Jesus was born – “Gloria in Excelsis Deo…….” (“Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace to people of good will”).
Interestingly, many sources indicates that Christmas carols began as litanies and as musical prayers chanted in church services.
It was not until AD 129 when Telephorus, the Bishop of Rome urged his people to sing “Angels Hymn” to celebrate the birthday of Jesus.
History also have it that Comas of Jerusalem wrote an early Christmas hymn in AD 760.
By the beginning of the 5th. Century Priests sang these early Christmas songs in their parishes.
• Christmas carol composition :
Christmas carol composition was written and sung in Latin but many people could not understand Latin.
However, all these changed in the 13th. Century when St. Francis of Asisi then known as “The Father of caroling” introduced formalized Christmas songs in church services in Italy in 1223 for the first time.
Until this time, it was only church leaders who could sing (chant), but now the congregation was allowed to join in the singing.
The use of other languages spread from Italy to France, Spain, Britain and the rest of Europe. A significant aspect of English Christmas carol was John Awdlay, who in 1426 listed in a work of “25 Carols of Christmas” told the story of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem.
Likewise in Renaissance Italy during the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, lighter and more joyous Christmas songs were introduced.
In America, John de Brebeur wrote the first American Christmas carol – “Jesus is Born” in 1649. And in 1800’s Victorian era England, the singing of Christmas carols by Choirs in churches became a Christmas rituals, and therefore no longer a preserve for Italy, Spain and other European countries, but also in America, thereby opening the floodgates for Christmas carols composition, singing and rendition throughout the whole world.
• Major Christmas carols (some) :
(1) The First Noel (1823)
(2) Hark the Herald Angels Sing – Charles Wesley (1739)
(3) Joy to the World – Isaac Watts (1719)
(4) Mary’s Boy Child – Jester Hariston (1956)
(5) O’ Come All Ye Faithful – Fredrick Oakeley (1841)
(6) O Holy Night – Placide C.R (1847)
(7) Once in Royal David’s City – Cecil Alexander
(8) While Shepherds Watched their Flock – Nahum Tate (1700)
(9) Go Tell it on the Mountain – John Work (1865)
(10) Jingle Bells – Jame L. Pierpont (1857)
(11) O Little Town of Bethlehem – Phillips Brooks (1867)
(12) Silent Night – Franz Xaver Gruber (1818)
• Introduction of secular Christmas carols :
It’s generally accepted that one of the first Christmas carols ever to be recorded was the 129 AD “Angels Hymn”.
At this time Christianity – themed hymns started taking over the previous pagan songs celebrating the winter solstice.
More and more slow, solemn hymns started to emerge in the 4th. Century, and by the 12th. Century, songs referring to Nativity themes had emerged.
Unfortunately or fortunately, the arrival of modern and secular Christmas carols have so much made compositions of Contemporary Christmas carols such that they leave much to be desired.
Come to think of it, many of today’s most popular carols are dignified 19th Century offerings with tuneful melodies, rich harmonies, vocal and instrumental infusion for secular appeal at the expense of Holy and Solemn rendition.
The import of all these is to appeal to the aesthetic desires of the intended recipient for the market audience purchase.
More over, secular musical groups have been known to cash in on the growing popularity of Christmas Carols to wax song albums for market purposes.
Regrettably, such popular high tempo dance songs called “Christmas carols” have succeeded in taking the traditional Christmas carols through the back doors of the church to the street market corners in the name of modernity.
Christian Music: Entry of organized sacred music
For centuries, the earliest form of church music was a kind of Antiphons, Psalmody, and Canticles mainly vocal memorization or reading of texts in stanzas aloud by alternating groups of performers.
Prior to this period, no instruments was introduced as the earliest church Fathers like Clement of Alexandria, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and Martin Luther strongly denounced the use of instrumentals in the 4th and 5th centuries.
Their main reason for this was to keep christian music sacred, solemn, and a source of spiritual upliftment and fulfillment devoid of distracting noisy clinging and clanging of gongs and drums.
As time went by, the Gregorian Chant was introduced into church music which continued to be in use up to the end of the 6th century.
By the 7th century, instrumentals were introduced initially through the infusion of the organ. This was during the Papacy of Pope Vitalian, although the Gregorian Chant was retained.
However, the vocal-only rendition of the Krie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei during the various sections of the Mass eventually enhanced the infusion of the organ and thus paved the way for a rapid positive response to the use of instrumentals.
This innovation also paved the way for the introduction of a four-part vocal harmony, adapting major and minor musical keys led by the organist.
As church music began to sound appealing to the ears, this new found innovation eventually led to not only increased interest and participation in music, and therefore the formation of singing groups and chorales, but also progressing from unison singing to the harmonization of two or more vocals to produce main melody voice.
This ultimately became the gateway for composition of hymns and songs.
First boom in musical compositions
The entry, boom, and explosion in church musical compositions by world renowned composers began to saturate the christian music skyline to the extent that Martin Luther and the other church Fathers’ earlier reasons for questioning their suitability for worship due to lack of sound biblical concepts, and absence of scriptural relevance need not be taken with levity.
In order to keep track, monitor, control, and legitimize the boom in musical composition, the various churches and denominations had to introduce approved hymnbooks/hymnals.
Such hymnbooks/hymnals include
(1) Sacred Songs and Solos (1872)
(2) Hymns Ancient and Modern (1877)
(3) Catholic Hymn Book – begining from the first edition (1851), to several editions and subsequent reviews for years to the latest edition (2016).
(4) Sing with Joy
(5) Sing to the Lord
(6) Peace Hymnal.
To further protect the musical tradition of the universal church as a treasure of inestimable value, the Catholic Church enshrined such conditions in Vatican II Doc. Sacred Lit. No. 112, and Vatican II Doc. Sacred Lit. No.114.
Among the first musical boom greatest composers of all time are :
(1) Isaac Watts – “Joy to the world”
(2) Charles Wesley – “Soldiers of Christ Arise”, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”
(3) Augustus Taplady – Rock of Ages Cleft for me”
(4) John Newton – “Amazing Grace”
(5) George Fredrick Handel – “Messiah”
(6) JS Bach – “Ave Maria”
(7) FD Sankey – “Onward Christian Soldiers”
(8) Others are Mozart, and Vivaldi.
SECOND BOOM – GOSPEL SONGS GENRE
The African-Americans developed a kind of rich christian music out of their servitude identity. They called it ‘Gospel’. These songs evolved from, and were initially sung during the times of slavery with themes of hope and deliverance.
This brand of Gospel music got a boost during the years of the Civil Right Movements. This music came with a new, distinct, vibrant, and lively tempo made more popular during evangelical crusades and later during church services.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, the influence of Gospel music spread rapidly among the Protestant/Pentecostal denominations and much later into the others.
Some of the composers of these times include :
(1) Charles Albert Tindley – “We shall overcome”(1900)
(2) Joseph Scriven – “What a friend we have in Jesus”
(3) George Duffield – “Stand up stand up for Jesus”
(4) Jeremiah E. Rankin – “God be with you till we meet again”
(5) Philips Brooks – “O little town of Bethlehem”
(6) Dan Schultz – “Here I am Lord send me”
(7) Jim Reeves
(8) Don Moen
CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN MUSIC
Over time, the sounds of christian music has gone through phases of evolution, may be what I would call revolution. Popular secularity have progressively and increasingly influenced the composition, taste and style of christian music output. The use of hymnals and organ tradition have been set aside for the electric guitar, state of the arts instrumentals, and drums with hard hitting tempo, undulating rhythmically reverberating melody with a convergence of parallel harmony, sophisticated, unrestrained and exaggerating lyrics.
It has expanded to include an infusion of styles like rap, country, pop, rock, ragae, Afro beat, hip-hop, etc.
This innovations and intrusion have made christian music to go farther away from the church.
These modern church artists have taken music that speaks of Jesus and merged it with the modern times. They are making it more ‘user-friendly’ and revival in output, with the intent to use it aggressively for evangelism and outreach, sometimes for marketing purposes.
Some of these contemporary artists include Ron Kenoly, Kirk Franklin, CeCe Winans, Chris Tomlin, Mary Mary, Keith and Kristin Getty, Panam Percy Paul, Frank Edwards, Sinach, Chioma Jesus, Jeremiah Gyang, Lara George, Nathaniel Bassey, Joe Praise, Steve Crown, etc.
Interestingly to proponents of change or to the amazement of old time traditionalists, what we end up with in this contemporary era is a move away from music that is pious, solemn, and holy in composition and rendition.
What they have done is a simple blend of christian wordings, lyrics, phrasing, and language with an overall secular rendition and message.
More aptly, the contemporary gospel artists are drawing from the increasing popularity of religious themes to compose their so called christian music, while still keeping one foot in the secular world in order to maximize profit from the commercial consumers.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Arguments abound as to the nature of the evolving and the reasons for the changing sounds and face of christian music.
One thing that I know is that God doesn’t change even though the world does.
Every generation has challenges, and more worries and fears to face than the previous one. People today live with violence, killings and war. More children are having babies, unemployment and lose of jobs, hunger and diseases, displacement of families, and communal/tribal clashes over scarce resources.
People therefore desperately need something new and bigger than themselves and all that they face in order to cope.
They seem to want to feel that God is here and now, and not something else that can’t possibly understand the issues of today. This contemporary music speaks to them.
However, and no matter how much bad some of us may think about contemporary music, the one good thing about this modern model remains that this new contemporary christian music reaches out to us on a level that we can understand and feel.
It shows us that Jesus is still with us even when we are facing crises. The battle is as old as time itself but the weapons have changed, and according to them, christian music has to change its sounds and face in order to remain relevant while still being a shining example of just one of the many weapons in God’s arsenal.
And as St. Augustine would tell us, “he who sings prays twice”.Our efforts, therefore, as christians should be that of ensuring that music and songs will not only mirror the songs of Angels in heaven, but also that which will be regarded as a proclamation of Devine action of God in our lives.
This is because we are the composers, we are the songs, we are the hymns, we are the praise of God, we are the church.
In the words of Rev. Fr Julius Y. Kundi (now Bishop Kundi of Kafanchan Catholic Diocese), “We are thus because something within us responds to the music of the universe, to the songs which reach towards Heaven”
And so, if current form and mood is anything to go by, you are likely to hear a lot more of this money spinning enterprise called “Christian Music” in a world increasingly becoming secular.
Whether Christan music will retain its original identity, or it becomes the next major “reformation” craze after that of Martin Luther remains to be seen.
Peace. 🙏
