Opus 2011-11, The Heritage of Music

I find that I have to laugh when I hear music from a few years ago called “classic rock” or “classic praise.”  It doesn’t take long to become classic today.

I want to put in a word for the more traditional music of the church.  There is something to be said for music that has stood the test of time.  As I sit and worship I have my I-pod presenting me a variety of music.  Right now it is play a version of “Therefore the Redeemed fo the Lord Shall Return” done by Maranatha Music in an upbeat traditional way.  Just before that was something done in totally contemporary style from one of the WOW Worship disks.  It all has a place.  I enjoy most, but not all, of what comes over the speakers.  But there is something about a song that I can still sing and worship with after 55 years.

Have you had the experience of singing a chorus that really raised your spirits last year and now it seems boring, boring, boring.  It is still the same song.  You have changed.  It met a need in your life for a moment but did not have the staying power of truly inspired music.  Only time will tell what endures.  It will be somewhat different for everyone but if it depended on a pumped up lead guitarist or a driven drummer then “this too, shall pass.”  100 years from now people will still be singing “Amazing Grace.”  Bernard of Clairvaux wrote “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee” in the 12th century.  He probably wrote it in Latin.  It is still around.

The variety that endures will be wide.  Even after centuries, it will be evolved music that will touch different people.  In time there will be variation.  3/4 time will become 6/8 or even worse, 4/4.  Baroque will develop some elements of jazz.  New instruments will be blended in.  But some will endure.  And the stuff that endures will be the stuff of worship for diverse multitudes.

So give me my old music.  It has endured.  It could touch you if you would let it and unlike a lot of the six week praise songs your worship team wrote it will be around when we are gone.  So will some of your new compositions, we just don’t know which ones yet.

Just picture the music of the spheres with celestial bands.  Some people will complain about that.