Music and Religion

Wow, there is so much that could be said about music and religion. Geez, where should I start? Well, I was raised in the Methodist church. Our co-founders were the Wesley brothers, and they were famous hymn writers as well. So, I was exposed to a lot of well-known hymns in my youth. We had an organist who played a lot of traditional organ music, including Bach. Our choir masters were Doctors of Music, so we had a lot of very good music. I was basically raised in a traditional church with traditional music. It was not until middle school until I learned how other people used music in their church services. My piano teacher was also the choir director at a local Catholic church. The music was quite different. First of all, a lot of the music was written in a chant format without any harmonies, just a simple melodic line. Within that church, my teacher did all kinds of different things. She incorporated one African- American church into one of our services. The children's choir and the African-American choir sang a lof of music together, including "Wade in the Water" and "Ride on, King Jesus". That was a great experience. The two styles were completley different, but somehow they ended up working together. In high school, I became part of my church's Youth praise band. That was much more rock and roll than normal church services. Towards the end of my experice at the Methodist church, we switched choir directors, and we got a director who was a lot more contemporary. She was totally into the slide projector with the words to the songs kind of woman. I did not like it. I am not quite sure what it was, but the contemporary worship style was just not for me. Whatever my religious life has been, there has always been music accompanying it. Music is a good medium in which to practice a faith, because music can stir basically any emotion in a person. Music is by nature able to inspire, make a person think outside of themselves, make them focus and so many other things.