Church Music Through the Lens of Performance PDF Download

Author: Marcell Silva Steuernagel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000344789
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
This book is an investigation into church music through the lens of performance theory, both as a discipline and as a theoretical framework. Scholars who address religious music making in general, and Christian church music in particular, use "performance" in a variety of ways, creating confusion around the term. A systematized performance vocabulary for the study of church music can support interdisciplinary investigations of Christian congregational music making in today’s complex, interconnected world. From the perspective of performance theory, all those involved in church musicking are performing, be it from platform or pew. The book employs a hybrid methodology that combines ethnographic research and theory from ritual studies, ethnomusicology, theology, and church music scholarship to establish performance studies as a possible "next step" in church music studies. It demonstrates the feasibility of studying church music as performance by analyzing ethnographic case studies using a developmental framework based on the concepts of ritual, embodiment, and play/change. This book offers a fresh perspective on Christian congregational music making. It will, therefore, be a key reference work for scholars working in Congregational Music Studies, Ethnomusicology, Ritual Studies and Performance Studies, as well as practitioners interested in examining their own church music practices.

Author: Esther M. Morgan-Ellis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197612466
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 1009

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Book Description
"The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing shows in abundant detail that singing with others is thriving. Using an array of interdisciplinary methods, chapter authors prioritize participation rather than performance and provide finely grained accounts of group singing in community, music therapy, religious, and music education settings. Themes associated with protest, incarceration, nation, hymnody, group bonding, identity, and inclusivity infuse the 47 chapters. Written almost wholly during the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic, the Handbook features a section dedicated to collective singing facilitated by audiovisual or communications media (mediated singing), some of it quarantine-mandated. The last of eight substantial sections is a repository of new theories about how group singing practices work. Throughout, the authors problematize the limitations inherited from the western European choral music tradition and report on workable new remedies to counter those constraints"--

Author: Mark Porter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197534120
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Ecologies of Resonance in Christian Musicking Rexplores a diverse range of Christian musical activity through the conceptual lens of resonance, a concept rooted in the physical, vibrational, and sonic realm that carries with it an expansive ability to simultaneously describe personal, social, and spiritual realities. In this book, Mark Porter proposes that attention to patterns of back-and-forth interaction that exist in and alongside sonic activity can help to understand the dynamics of religious musicking in new ways and, at the same time, can provide a means for bringing diverse traditions into conversation. The book focuses on different questions arising out of human experience in the moment of worship. What happens if we take the entry point of a human being experiencing certain patterns of (more than) sonic interaction with the world around them as a focus for exploration? What different ecologies of interaction can be encountered? What kinds of patterns can be traced through different Christian worshiping environments? And how do these operate across multiple dimensions of experience? Chapters covering ascetic sounding, noisy congregations, and Internet live-streaming, among others, serve to highlight the diverse ecologies of resonance that surround Christian musicking, suggesting the potential to develop new perspectives on devotional musical activity that focus not primarily on compositions or theological ideals but on changing patterns of interaction across multiple dimensions between individuals, spaces, communities, and God.

Author: Dulcie A. Dixon McKenzie
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040023002
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Black British Gospel Music is a dynamic and multifaceted musical practice, a diasporic river rooted in the experiences of Black British Christian communities. This book examines gospel music in Britain in both historical and contemporary perspectives, demonstrating the importance of this this vital genre to scholars across disciplines. Drawing on a plurality of voices, the book examines the diverse streams that contribute to and flow out of this significant genre. Gospel can be heard resonating within a diverse array of Christian worship spaces; as a form of community music-making in school halls; and as a foundation for ‘secular’ British popular music, including R&B, hip hop and grime.

Author: Erin Johnson-Williams
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003838480
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Hymns and Constructions of Race: Mobility, Agency, De/Coloniality examines how the hymn, historically and today, has reinforced, negotiated, and resisted constructions of race. It brings together diverse perspectives from musicology, ethnomusicology, theology, anthropology, performance studies, history, and postcolonial scholarship to show how the hymn has perpetuated, generated, and challenged racial identities. The global range of contributors cover a variety of historical and geographical contexts, with case studies from China and Brazil to Suriname and South Africa. They explore the hymn as a product of imperialism and settler colonialism and as a vehicle for sonic oppression and/or resistance, within and beyond congregational settings. The volume contends that the lived tradition of hymn-singing, with its connections to centuries of global Christian mission, is a particularly apt lens for examining both local and global negotiations of race, power, and identity. It will be relevant for scholars interested in religion, music, race, and postcolonialism.

Author: Nathan Myrick
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197550657
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Musical activity is one of the most ubiquitous and highly valued forms of social interaction in North America (to say nothing of world over), being engaged from sporting events to political rallies, concerts to churches. Moreover, music's use as an affective agent for political and religious programs suggests that it has ethical significance. Indeed, many have said as much. It is surprising then that music's ethical significance remains one of the most undertheorized aspects of both moral philosophy and music scholarship. Music for Others: Care, Justice, and Relational Ethics in Christian Music fills part of this scholarly gap by focusing on the religious aspects of musical activity, particularly on the practices of Christian communities. Based on ethnomusicological fieldwork at three Protestant churches and a group of seminary students studying in an immersion course at South by Southwest (SXSW), and synthesizing theories of discourse, formation, and care ethics oriented towards restorative justice, it first argues that relationships are ontological for both human beings and musical activity. It further argues that musical meaning and emotion converge in human bodies such that music participates in personal and communal identity construction in affective ways-yet these constructions are not always just. Thus, considering these aspects of music's ways of being in the world, Music for Others finally argues that music is ethical when it preserves people in and restores people to just relationships with each other, and thereby with God.

Author: Nathan Myrick
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000360067
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
The relationship between musical activity and ethical significance occupies long traditions of thought and reflection both within Christianity and beyond. From concerns regarding music and the passions in early Christian writings through to moral panics regarding rock music in the 20th century, Christians have often gravitated to the view that music can become morally weighted, building a range of normative practices and prescriptions upon particular modes of ethical judgment. But how should we think about ethics and Christian musical activity in the contemporary world? As studies of Christian musicking have moved to incorporate the experiences, agencies, and relationships of congregations, ethical questions have become implicit in new ways in a range of recent research - how do communities negotiate questions of value in music? How are processes of encounter with a variety of different others negotiated through musical activity? What responsibilities arise within musical communities? This volume seeks to expand this conversation. Divided into four sections, the book covers the relationship of Christian musicking to the body; responsibilities and values; identity and encounter; and notions of the self. The result is a wide-ranging perspective on music as an ethical practice, particularly as it relates to contemporary religious and spiritual communities. This collection is an important milestone at the intersection of ethnomusicology, musicology, religious studies and theology. It will be a vital reference for scholars and practitioners reflecting on the values and practices of worshipping communities in the contemporary world.

Author: Andrew Mall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429959656
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Studying the role of music within religious congregations has become an increasingly complex exercise. The significant variations in musical style and content between different congregations require an interdisciplinary methodology that enables an accurate analysis, while also allowing for nuance in interpretation. This book is the first to help scholars think through the complexities of interdisciplinary research on congregational music-making by critically examining the theories and methods used by leading scholars in the field. An international and interdisciplinary panel of contributors introduces readers to a variety of research methodologies within the emerging field of congregational music studies. Utilizing insights from fields such as communications studies, ethnomusicology, history, liturgical studies, popular music studies, religious studies, and theology, it examines and models methodologies and theoretical perspectives that are grounded in each of these disciplines. In addition, this volume presents several “key issues” to ground these interpretive frameworks in the context of congregational music studies. These include topics like diaspora, ethics, gender, and migration. This book is a new milestone in the study of music amongst congregations, detailing the very latest in best academic practice. As such, it will be of great use to scholars of religious studies, music, and theology, as well as anyone engaging in ethnomusicological studies more generally.

Author: Pete Ward
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119756898
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
A unique introduction to the developing field of Theology and Qualitative Research In recent years, a growing number of scholars within the field of theological research have adopted qualitative empirical methods. The use of qualitative research is shaping the nature of theology and redefining what it means to be a theologian. Hence, contemporary scholars who are undertaking empirical fieldwork across a range of theological subdisciplines require authoritative guidance and well-developed frameworks of practice and theory. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Theology and Qualitative Research outlines the challenges and possibilities for theological research that engages with qualitative methods. It reflects more than 15 years of academic research within the Ecclesiology and Ethnography Network, and features an international group of scholars committed to the empirical and theological study of the Christian church. Edited by world-renowned experts, this unprecedented volume addresses the theological debates, methodological complexities, and future directions of this emerging field. Contributions from both established and emerging scholars describe key theoretical approaches, discuss how different empirical methods are used within theology, explore the links between qualitative researchand adjacent scholarly traditions, and more. The companion: Discusses how qualitative empirical work changes the practice of theology, enabling a disciplined attention to the lived social realities of Christian religion and what theologians do Introduces theoretical and methodological debates in the field, as well as central epistemological and ontological questions Presents different approaches to Theology and Qualitative research, highlighting important issues and developments in the last decades Explores how empirical insights are shaping areas such as liturgics, homiletics, youth ministry, and Christian education Includes perspectives from scholars working in disciplines other than theology The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Theology and Qualitative Research is essential reading for graduate students, postgraduates, PhD students, researchers, and scholars in Christian Ethics, Systematic Theology, Practical Theology, Contemporary Worship, and related disciplines such as Ecclesiology, Mission Studies, World Christianity, Pastoral Theology, Political Theology, Worship Studies, and all forms of contextual theology.

Author: Jonathan Dueck
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134785984
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Congregational Music, Conflict and Community is the first study of the music of the contemporary 'worship wars' – conflicts over church music that continue to animate and divide Protestants today – to be based on long-term in-person observation and interviews. It tells the story of the musical lives of three Canadian Mennonite congregations, who sang together despite their musical differences at the height of these debates in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Mennonites are among the most music-centered Christian groups in North America, and each congregation felt deeply about the music they chose as their own. The congregations studied span the spectrum from traditional to blended to contemporary worship styles, and from evangelical to liberal Protestant theologies. At their core, the book argues, worship wars are not fought in order to please congregants' musical tastes nor to satisfy the theological principles held by a denomination. Instead, the relationships and meanings shaped through individuals’ experiences singing in the particular ways afforded by each style of worship are most profoundly at stake in the worship wars. As such, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working across the fields of religious studies and ethnomusicology.