Singing the Church's Song

Schalk, Carl F., Marty, Martin E.

Published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers

Schalk, Carl F. and Martin E. Marty.

Singing the Church's Song: Essays & Occasional Writings on Church Music.
Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2020.
Project MUSE. muse.jhu.edu/book/73921.

For additional information about this book

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/73921

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 V
Meditations
and Homilies
 A Lament for Resounding Praise

And I will stop the music of your songs.

—Ezek. 26:13

Both the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation and the twenti-

eth-century Vatican II, it is widely observed, set God’s people free to sing
their praises in psalms and hymns. Through the ages, a variety of spiri-
tual canticles has constituted the people’s unique liturgy of song. In our
time, the sound of singing congregations has traditionally characterized
much of both Protestant and Catholic worship.
But today, congregational song is in serious trouble. It is being
strangled by the good—though often ill-informed—intentions of some
architects, pastors, church building committees, and church musicians
who simply haven’t done their homework.
Having literally been sold a bill of goods by church furnishing hous-
es, architects, and others who should know better, many parishes have
allowed their church buildings to become surrogate living rooms with
wall-to-wall carpet, cushioned seats, and an aura of comfy coziness. Wor-
shipping at the altar of “dry” (i.e., dead) sound, architects and church
interior designers continue building and furnishing monuments to lack-
luster liturgy and stifled song. The symbol of the movement: the padded
pew. Its marching song: “Sit Down, O People of God.”
The result, of course, is an abominable acoustical environment. In
church after church, the song of the faithful—in fact, the total sound
of worship—is muffled and hushed, the victim of an environment that
inhibits and represses, that stifles and suppresses the best efforts of con-
gregations to lift up their voices as one in praise and adoration.

Originally published in The Christian Century (March 23–30, 1983).

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 SINGING THE CHURCH’S SONG

The designers’ goal seems to be the creation of a hushed funeral par-

lor atmosphere in which no sound can be allowed to disturb the private
meditation of the people. If not the funeral parlor, the model must be
the radio studio. The watchword concerning sound is “Absorb! Absorb!”
Where the voices of worshippers should be buoyed up, reinforced, and
made ever more vital as they “do their liturgy,” they are more likely to
be smothered by ubiquitous carpet, omnipresent acoustical tile, porous
brick walls, and thick drapes.
In recent months I visited several middle-western churches. I had the
opportunity to experience again the agony and the ecstasy of both good
and bad acoustical environments and their effect on the vitality of wor-
ship. Two examples stand out. They are undoubtedly typical of hundreds
of other similar churches throughout the nation. Both church buildings
were small- to medium-sized, seating perhaps 200 to 300. Both were com-
fortably full when I attended, though not jammed to capacity. The people
reflected what I suppose to be a fairly normal mixture of children, teen-
agers, young couples with children, the middle-aged, and the elderly. The
hymns sung were familiar to the people. But there, at least as far as the
singing and general participation in worship was concerned, the similarity
ended. The two churches were as different as night and day.
In the first church—a modest-sized, suburban St. Louis A-frame with
tile floor, plaster walls, and wooden ceiling—the participation in worship
and song was thrilling. Full-throated and exuberant, the singing was led by
a modest-sized pipe organ which sounded fuller and larger than its 25 ranks
of pipes suggested it could. Young and old joined together in songs of praise
which almost raised the roof. The resonance of the building encouraged
even the recalcitrant and those who could only drone along an octave below
the prescribed pitch to join in. It didn’t matter. When we sang “Hallelujah!
Let Praises Ring!” to Philip Nicolai’s majestic tune, the praises really rang.
Even those songs of a more subdued and quietly reverent nature were haloed
and made vibrant by the rich reverberation of the building.
The song was the voice of God’s people at prayer. The building was
the instrument upon which that song was played. And the sound of
the building reinforced, amplified, and unified our individual contri-
butions, enabling us to sound as one. The congregation that morning

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hardly seemed to notice the special sound of their building. They were
used to it and what it meant for their common prayer. To this visitor,
however, it was evident that it was the physical character of the building
which facilitated such a vital and lively response of the people in word
and song.
The second church building—in another city—was depressing indeed.
It was as though we were singing into a giant sponge which sopped up
the sound as soon as it was out of our mouths. I could hear only myself
and the two people closest by. Others were singing, but our song was
a gray mumble. The organ which accompanied us was larger than the
first church’s—a relatively new instrument designed and built, I was told,
especially with congregational singing in mind. But strangled by the op-
pressive deadness of the building, it was forced to play full out most of
the time simply to be heard.
We sang the Venerable Bede’s great American text “A hymn of glory
let us sing, new songs through the world shall ring,” but the ringing
was largely in my mind. As I sang what passes for my own full-throated
sound, I realized that people were staring, wondering who this stranger
was who presumed to lead the singing all by himself. I tempered my
voice, retreating to a more subdued sound. The listless and lifeless sound
of worship spread like a contagious infection, effectively muting every
other aspect of the church’s gathering that morning.
It was the building that prevented us from actualizing all that we
knew was true: that we were the people of God gathered together for
common prayer. Instead we were forced to fight the depressing acoustics.
The building won.
The prodigal use of the sound-deadening material has been aided
and abetted by several basic misconceptions about what corporate wor-
ship is and how it is most effectively done.
A renewed understanding of the Church as the people of God and
the liturgy as their work suggests that not only is the arrangement of the
worship space important but an acoustical environment which enables
the people to do their work is crucial.
For much of American Protestantism, the Sunday gathering for wor-
ship has become primarily the time for a private moment with God. It

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 SINGING THE CHURCH’S SONG

is too often a time that is personalistic and without reference to those

about us. But if we have been listening at all to the shapers of liturgical
renewal, worship is first of all the corporate response of God’s people. To-
gether we offer our common prayer, praise, and supplication. For many
Roman Catholics, the realization following Vatican II that the people
were to participate actively and corporately came as a shock. The Mass
had been something that others did while the people simultaneously
carried on their private devotional exercises. Protestants have their own
parallels to that privatistic tradition.
A bright, lively, and reinforcing acoustical environment is important,
therefore, primarily for the sake of the congregation. Certainly a live acous-
tical situation has much to do with the success or failure of much choral
and organ music, particularly where the resources are modest, the singers
few and the organ weak. Church musicians will be the first to affirm that
fact. The building itself is an instrument which must be designed so that
the praise of God—whether spoken or sung, whether with voices or in-
struments—is a thing of beauty, lifting the spirits, bringing God’s people
together in a unified whole, encouraging and reinforcing their song, rather
than draining its vocal energy as it attempts its praise and prayer.
A second misconception is the idea that live acoustics are possible
only in large, cavernous interiors. Even the most cursory visits will re-
veal that some of the finest acoustical environments for congregational
song are to be found in church buildings of modest size where care has
been taken to ensure that hard, reflecting surfaces of walls, ceilings,
and floors predominate. Ironically, a whole new industry has developed
which attempts to introduce—through elaborate and expensive sound
systems—artificial reverberation into a building whose natural resonance
has been destroyed.
A third misconception mistakenly pits the spoken word against con-
gregational song. Such alternatives are often set against each other, as
though one must win, the other lose. There are, of course, parishes in
which the sermon is the single focus. Where that is so, congregational
participation in worship is largely ancillary and subordinate.
What is often overlooked where choices between singing and speak-
ing are suggested, however, is that a worship space sufficiently reverberant

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for spirited singing can easily be made suitable for public speaking. But
a worship space designed only with the speaking voice in mind has ef-
fectively been ruined for the music-making of congregation, choir, and
organ. Since the people’s song—whether hymns, psalms, or liturgy—is
such an important and vital ingredient in worship, it is not only natural
but imperative that the public speaking voice accommodate itself to an
environment that is sufficiently live for effective congregational song.
Recapturing a vital sound for congregational song will mean, among
other things, the recovery of the congregation’s awareness of its role as
chief “actor” in worship, a refusal by parishes with smaller buildings to
acquiesce to a cathedral complex that suggests that good acoustics are
possible only in large interior spaces, and a realization that vibrant acous-
tics are not incompatible with the needs of public speech.
All this may mean ridding buildings of all those sound-deadening
furnishings with which so many are burdened. It may mean a return to
the simple integrity of slate or tile instead of carpet, and wooden ceilings
uncluttered and unencumbered with acoustical tile. It may mean install-
ing or uncovering hard surfaces for walls and ceilings.
If congregations ever become seriously exercised about the “sound
of worship” and its importance for their corporate praise and prayer,
there is no telling what might happen. Worship spaces might once again
come to life with the canticles of the faithful. Organs might once again
speak out bright and clear. Churches might once again become halls of
resounding praise. Even heretofore recalcitrant singers might be enticed
into joining the song.
Such a joyful noise would certainly make glad the heart of Isaac
Watts, were he here to enjoy it. His paraphrase of Psalm 100 said it well:
We’ll crowd thy gates with thankful songs,
High as the heav’ns our voices raise;
And earth, with all its thousand tongues,
Shall fill thy courts with sounding praise.
(Lutheran Worship, #454)
The only honest—though not very attractive—alternative seems to be
a respectful silence.

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