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My one escape at work is to browse the net on my lunch hour. For some reason, I actually enjoy checking out different news stories, finding out what's happening in the world, and just being basically nosey about who's doing what.
I came across a little blurb on CNN about an interview done recently with Sting, where he commented about today's rock music. He said he found it boring, that it just wasn't developing any further, and he actually gets more enjoyment out of playing 16th century english folk music.
Sting, I couldn't agree more!
I will admit, Sting is one of my favorite secular rock/pop artists, for the reason that he truly is an artist. I really enjoy his experiments with mixing different music genre's, odd time signatures, and just plain being "interesting". And lets face it, he's a rarity in today's music world. How many new groups/solo artists are having the kind of creative impact that groups like The Police and The Beatles have had in the past? Could it be because their success was based on the artistry in their music, not the artistry of their public image?
I have to say, I can easily apply Sting's comment about boring rock music to today's worship music. Now, before you get your back up, remember that I'm heavily involved in the worship team at my church, and the majority of my new CD's are worship music. It's just that, well, an awful lot of new worship music, is, well, boring. For the non-musician, I guess 3-chord music and 7-11 lyrics are easy to learn and perform, but for a musician, it's actually very annoying.
(by the way, for the un-initiated, "7-11" refers to "7 words, 11 times over")
How about a bit of an analogy. (oooooh, an ANALOGY!.....) If a musical classic like, oh say, How Great Thou Art, could be a painting by a member of The Group of Seven, then a not-so-classic like Trading My Sorrows could be the cheap paint-by-numbers you see sold at a flea market. (Sorry if you like Trading My Sorrows - it's one I've gotten rather sick of!) Yuck!
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm an artist and a musician. I therefore can be very finicky about what I find to be "music", and what is just noise. Unfortunately, so many worship teams have taken the lesser quality songs and done them over and over, that I feel it's given worship music a bad rap. If more musical selections are used, with lyrics that involve some thought, there might be a little less resistance to the whole "contemporary" idea.
And there are some very good worship songs out there! I'm thinking of truly beautiful selections like "How Deep the Father's Love" by Stuart Townend. Songs written by trained, talented musicians, with lyrics that are actually lyrical, meaningful, and theologically accurate. They could add so much to a worship service! The trick is actually finding them. The popular stuff, of course, is the simple stuff that a beginner guitarist could play. Hence, the popularity. The more musical songs are more difficult to pick up if you haven't had some musical training, so they tend not to be as popular for worship teams that don't practice on a regular basis. (that's another blog for another day...)
Overall, there is an awful lot of boring music out there, and no, it's not just limited to worship music and rock music. It's in every genre. There are also a lot of people who enjoy boring music, mainly because they don't know what good music is supposed to sound like, nor do they care. For a lot of people, music is just to be played in the background, not listened to or performed for pleasure. But, for us musically-artistic-types, it just doesn't cut it.
I gotta say, Sting, I really identify with you on this one.
I came across a little blurb on CNN about an interview done recently with Sting, where he commented about today's rock music. He said he found it boring, that it just wasn't developing any further, and he actually gets more enjoyment out of playing 16th century english folk music.
Sting, I couldn't agree more!
I will admit, Sting is one of my favorite secular rock/pop artists, for the reason that he truly is an artist. I really enjoy his experiments with mixing different music genre's, odd time signatures, and just plain being "interesting". And lets face it, he's a rarity in today's music world. How many new groups/solo artists are having the kind of creative impact that groups like The Police and The Beatles have had in the past? Could it be because their success was based on the artistry in their music, not the artistry of their public image?
I have to say, I can easily apply Sting's comment about boring rock music to today's worship music. Now, before you get your back up, remember that I'm heavily involved in the worship team at my church, and the majority of my new CD's are worship music. It's just that, well, an awful lot of new worship music, is, well, boring. For the non-musician, I guess 3-chord music and 7-11 lyrics are easy to learn and perform, but for a musician, it's actually very annoying.
(by the way, for the un-initiated, "7-11" refers to "7 words, 11 times over")
How about a bit of an analogy. (oooooh, an ANALOGY!.....) If a musical classic like, oh say, How Great Thou Art, could be a painting by a member of The Group of Seven, then a not-so-classic like Trading My Sorrows could be the cheap paint-by-numbers you see sold at a flea market. (Sorry if you like Trading My Sorrows - it's one I've gotten rather sick of!) Yuck!
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm an artist and a musician. I therefore can be very finicky about what I find to be "music", and what is just noise. Unfortunately, so many worship teams have taken the lesser quality songs and done them over and over, that I feel it's given worship music a bad rap. If more musical selections are used, with lyrics that involve some thought, there might be a little less resistance to the whole "contemporary" idea.
And there are some very good worship songs out there! I'm thinking of truly beautiful selections like "How Deep the Father's Love" by Stuart Townend. Songs written by trained, talented musicians, with lyrics that are actually lyrical, meaningful, and theologically accurate. They could add so much to a worship service! The trick is actually finding them. The popular stuff, of course, is the simple stuff that a beginner guitarist could play. Hence, the popularity. The more musical songs are more difficult to pick up if you haven't had some musical training, so they tend not to be as popular for worship teams that don't practice on a regular basis. (that's another blog for another day...)
Overall, there is an awful lot of boring music out there, and no, it's not just limited to worship music and rock music. It's in every genre. There are also a lot of people who enjoy boring music, mainly because they don't know what good music is supposed to sound like, nor do they care. For a lot of people, music is just to be played in the background, not listened to or performed for pleasure. But, for us musically-artistic-types, it just doesn't cut it.
I gotta say, Sting, I really identify with you on this one.
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