Music, Instruments, Worship and Singing – How about this history? Part 3

If worship transforms us into kinder, more loving people, then why do we fight over worship? Paul Basden

Until the AD 300s almost all church music consisted of psalms chanted. A ‘cantor’ or leader would sing or chant a line and then the congregation would repeat the line. From Solomon’s Temple in 950 BC to the cathedrals of the 1300s music was handled by trained ‘professionals.’ The average person could only participate in the music and singing part of worship service by responding to the cantor. One of the dilemmas birthed in this practice was that the importance was put on the sound and the tone of the music and not on the message or on the involvement of everyone in worship.

In the 4th century, St. Augustine complained that sometimes music in church seems "directed to the sound rather than the sense" of the faith, in which case he "would prefer to hear no singing at all." Augustine was bothered that the music had become more about personal taste, likes and dislikes and quality then about the conveyance of truth. The ‘truth’ was there in the songs but it was buried under the highlighting of the cantor and the vocal gymnastics.

In the 9th Century Pope Leo IV discovered that the most important monastery in the region had quit singing the Gregorian Chants because the Abbot disliked the music. He sent orders to the Abbot: “We command under sentence of excommunication that, in the singing and readings in your churches, you carry them out in no other way than that which Pope St. Gregory handed down, and we hold that you cultivate and sing this tradition [Gregorian Chants] always.”

With the development of polyphonic singing (music in which two or more strands sound simultaneously), a new problem arose. Singers were improvising and singing their own songs during church services. They were no longer following the ‘handed down’ music. In the 12th century, the Bishop of Chartres complained that much singing in church is "full of ostentation." "Such is the facility of running up and down the scale," he wrote, "the ears lose their power of judging." He called on singers to return to tradition.

The controversy around music continued! Stay tuned for Part 4.