On Changing Church Choirs

The following is an article I just read by Don Chapman who is the arranger of all the "Hymncharts" that I love to use in worship sometimes.  I agree with his explanation of how pop music has affected the music of the church, but please read my comment at the bottom that I submitted to his article.

How Church Choirs Are Changing
by Don Chapman

For literally hundreds of years, back to Bach, choirs led and performed church music in SATB four part harmony: Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass.
This SATB format can be seen in your hymnal. If you’ve ever read my “HymnCharts manifesto” you know this was one of the first problems I discovered when I became a music director for the first time – praise bands (specifically guitars) can’t play SATB music because the chords usually change on just about every beat.
Pop music has drastically changed the musical landscape of the Church in the past twenty years. Chord progressions propelled music in the past, rhythm propels today’s music. And that’s why guitars can’t play out of your hymnal – a pop song will linger on a single chord for as long as a measure or more while the guitars rhythmically push the song along.
SATB choirs are found in traditional and blended churches. They’re made up of fairly experienced choir members who have grown up in grade school and college choirs and they can sight read at a decent level. These choir members enjoy learning a challenging anthem and performing it for special music.
A new type of pop choir has been born in recent years, emerging from contemporary Churches using modern worship methods. This pop choir will have a mix of “proper” sight-reading choir members and untrained singers who have no clue what those dots on the page mean. But that’s ok, because the pop choir’s purpose is not to perform a complicated anthem but to lead and bolster the congregational singing.

My Comment:

Thanks for the post about church choirs!  But the thing that bothers me about a discussion on the changing church choir role in worship is that I wonder if our discussion helps shape the landscape rather than just describe it.  In your article you describe a traditional choir as "performing for special music" because the music is more difficult, while a pop choir singing easier music is there to "lead and bolster the congregational singing."  This gives a huge erroneous impression that a skillful choir that sings challenging music is there to perform for the audience rather than lead in worship. 

     The choir of about 75  that I direct works very hard on challenging music, but we stress so much about not being there to perform, but to lead in worship.  We have fallen into this idea that unless the people are standing and words are on the screens for every musical part of a worship service, the people are not as involved in worshiping God in their hearts, and this is just not the case.  Yes, we want to collectively fill the room with singing, and we do that when it is time for that.  But to take away the experience in worship when everyone is listening to an offering being presented to God by those who are fulfilling Psalm 33:3 where it says to play or sing skillfully because it doesn't look like everybody is engaged in worship is a sad loss.

     I think part of the problem that has resulted in the choir being replaced by a fewer number of more professionally sounding musicians is simply that we have become incredibly spoiled with perfect music and perfect mixes and perfect lighting effects and HD perfection in home theaters to where the average church choir of 20 volunteers just can't compete with the world's standards of acceptability, and we are embarrassed by anything that is not "professional."  I often wonder if we ever impress God with our worship as much as we think we are impressing each other.

Blessings,

Dan Williams

Lexington Baptist Church

Lexington, SC