Day 40

Well I'm back...I know, I know, most of you out there thought I was dead. Actually most of you out there knew I was alive because you either live with me, spoke to me on the phone, or actually don't care if I'm alive or dead because you got to this blog by googling the Tool album 10,000 days. Truth of the matter is, it started out as me being really busy, followed by me being really lazy. But I'm back! And I'm listening to Bach!

Side One
Pieces: Cantata No. 103: "Ihr werdet weinen und heulen"
Cantata No. 200: "Bekennen will ich seinen Namen"
Cantata No. 118: "O Jesu Christ, mein's Lebens Licht"
Composer: J.S Bach
Performers: Heinrich Schuetz Choir of Heilbronn, Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra
Conductor: Fritz Werner
Record Date: None Given

Side Two
Pieces: Cantata No. 7: "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam"
Composer: J.S Bach
Performers: Heinrich Schuetz Choir of Heilbronn, Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra
Conductor: Fritz Werner
Record Date: None Given

Ok, they don't write them how they used to, or at least they don't write church music how they used to. Seriously, go and sit in church, and listen to the new crap they turn out (mostly by David Haas). I understand that in order to make god (or God or G-d or whatever) more accessible everyone got on the "Let's all sing together and feel the mystery of the Lord through our community" bus. I have no problem with this, but save it for the retreats and the campfires (insert priest joke here). But by removing the complexities from church music, I always feel that we have lost something. Yes, we gained the ability to feel as "one" with the 45-year old balding father of three next to you belting out "Blest are They" three keys off the one that it is written in, but to me faith is something that while containing a communal aspect, is better suited by a metaphor using the vast complexities of sonic punctuation that is found in a Bach Cantata (or better yet Prelude and Fugue) or a Rachmaninoff choral mass. These are long, complex pieces, which require multiple listenings, thought and study in-order to help grasp their fullness; and yet, always, some of the beauty is undefinable, unexplainable, lacking the ability to define its wholeness through interpretation of the dots on paper that we in error call music. This is my metaphor, this is why I am disappointed every time I see that the majority of hymns sung during a service are composed by Haas (not to pick on him too much, he has written some nice tunes). Faith, for me, involves work, it involves thought, study and knowledge, and when all of that sweat and headaches are through, there will always something else, some other mystery, undefinable, unexplainable, lacking the ability to define its wholeness.

I rail against this modern conception of church music not because it's bad music (though a lot of it really is terrible [in my opinion]), but rather because it represents the "dumbing down" of the concept of faith (whether or not you have faith is on you, I know where I stand). Dumbing it down to the idea that just because you were born into a certain family/had water poured on your head/foreskin cut off/blessed prayers said and weekly make the trek to a building to sit next to people who you would never speak to outside said building that you can have a reliable, fulfilling relationship with God; to me cheapens the very concept of faith. But what do I know? I'm just a moron with a blog...