Yale Journal of Music & Religion Volume 4 Number 1 Voice, Media, and Technologies of the Article 3 Sacred

Sounding the Congregational Voice Marissa Glynias Moore Yale University

Follow this and additional works at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yjmr Part of the Christianity Commons, Ethnomusicology Commons, and Worship Commons, Music Performance Commons, Music Practice Commons, Other American Studies Commons, and the Other Philosophy Commons

Recommended Citation Moore, Marissa Glynias () "Sounding the Congregational Voice," Yale Journal of Music & Religion: Vol. 4: No. 1, Article 3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1093

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yale Journal of Music & Religion by an authorized editor of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sounding the Congregational Voice

Cover Page Footnote Many thanks to Rebekah Ahrendt, Brian Kane, Monique Ingalls and Michael Veal for their guidance, and to Nathan Myrick, Marcell Steuernagel, Adam Perez, John Klaess, and both reviewers for their thoughtful feedback on this work.

This article is available in Yale Journal of Music & Religion: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yjmr/vol4/iss1/3 Sounding the Congregational Voice Marissa Glynias Moore

Why are fewer people singing in church? This are pitched too high for congregants to sing. is a question that currently preoccupies main- Or maybe, as hymnologist John Bell has line Protestant and Catholic clergy, church argued, the blame rests with the musical musicians, and laity in the . 1 celebrity culture of the West, which disen- Through online listicles with titles like “Nine franchises individuals of their own voices by Reasons Why People Aren’t Singing in overly privileging vocal “talent.”3 Indeed, at a Worship,” “Six Reasons Congregational Sing- time when Evangelical megachurches are ing Is Waning,” or “7 Reasons People May thriving around the globe with a seemingly Not Sing in Church,” writers attempt to high level of participatory musicking, this diagnose the budding crisis in a variety of question becomes even more urgent for local ways: 2 maybe the musical style is to blame, American congregations to grapple with.4 because it is either too syncopated for congre- The fears being voiced in the contem- gations to replicate communally (a common porary blogosphere are criticism raised against Contemporary Wor- only the most recent manifestation of similar ship Music, or CWM) or too stylistically concerns that have resounded throughout the removed from what congregations listen to in . From the their daily lives (a critique of “traditional” to the to the American Protestant hymnody). Perhaps the issue is “worship wars” of recent decades over the purely one of vocal range, as many selections appropriateness of popular music in church, Christian institutions have implemented re- forms targeting a perceived lack of congrega- 1 Thomas Day, Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism (Spring Valley, NY: Cross-road, 2013); tional participation within worship. Because of Ruth King Goddard, “Who Gets to Sing in the congregational singing’s ubiquity across most Kingdom?,” in Congregational Music-Making and denominational , it is often prioritized Community in a Mediated Age, ed. Anna E. Nekola and Tom Wagner (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015). For as a privileged site for these reforms, since it is more on the “mainline” and its current worship a practice that depends on the active vocal practice, see Jason Lantzer, Mainline Christianity (New York: NYU Press, 2012). participation of the gathered body of 2 Kenny Lamm, “Nine Reasons People Aren't worshippers. Currently, solutions to the lack of Singing in Worship,” https://www.renewingworshipnc. congregational singing proceed even outside of org/2014/06/11/nine-reasons-people-arent-singing-in- worship/; Brian Moss, “7 Reasons People May Not Sing prescriptive institutional change, as evidenced in Church,” http://www.pastorbrianmoss.com/7-reasons -people-may-not-sing-in-church/; Thom S. Rainer, “Six Reasons Congregational Singing Is Waning,” http:// 3 John L. Bell, The Singing Thing: A Case for thomrainer.com/2016/10/six-reasons-congregational- Congregational Song (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2000), singing-waning/. This is just a brief selection of many 95–113. articles of this type. Reasons also include arguments over 4 As just one of many examples, see the recently liturgy and reduction of the congregation’s role purely to published volume on the globalization and worship singing; for example, see Jonathan Aigner, “Why Would practice of Hillsong Church: Tanya Riches and Tom Anyone Sing in Church These Days?,” http://www. Wagner, eds., The Hillsong Movement Examined: You Call patheos.com/blogs/ponderanew/2016/06/06/why- Me out Upon the Waters (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave would-anyone-sing-in-church-these-days/. Macmillan, 2017).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 28 by the emerging market for “worship inquiry to the act of voicing rather than the consultants” tasked with empowering con- voice as an object. Congregational singing is a gregations to reclaim their voices.5 performative act that must be communally But what is it about the communal act of produced; as a result, the voices (or communal producing sound through voices that inspires voice, if one prefers) are only the result of that such intense attention over its practice? Why action. And it is clear from the flurry of public does it matter if congregations sing? 6 commentary cited above that singing (or not) is Underlying these concerns is an assumption the primary concern, rather than “the voice.” about the power of vocal acts: voices have the As such, a performative model of voicing ability to do something in worship, both literally allows us to consider the specific priorities of and metaphorically. Congregational singing has congregational singing as practice.8 the capacity to accomplish liturgical actions, However, a shift toward vocal performance just as it facilitates community formation and has consequences for the material voice—the catalyzes encounters between congregants and sonic phenomenon produced by individual Christians around the world. An inquiry into bodies. What role does sound play when the the role of voices in worship represents a new voice is considered through its practice, rather way of considering the age-old problems of than through its materiality? Such a question is congregational participation raised above; and, particularly pertinent to music scholars, who by reinserting the voice into the conversation are understandably preoccupied with the around liturgical action and worship, we can characteristics and meanings of sound. begin to explore the kinds of meaningful Drawing on recent musicological work on spiritual efficacy that voices carry through voice by Brian Kane, I explore how the act of congregational singing.7 congregational singing has the capacity to In order to theorize vocal acts within redefine established relationships between congregational singing, I first suggest that the sound, content, and source, three components practice requires a model of voice that that comprise Kane’s model of voice.9 The act emphasizes the doing of voices, shifting my of congregational singing therefore destabilizes vocal sound as a category, due to shifting priorities over language compre-hension, 5 Well-known examples include John Bell and musical style, and intensity of community Alice Parker, both of whom travel extensively throughout the U.S. and U.K. for this purpose. The participation. In addition, I posit that the nonprofit Music that Makes Community holds work- practice of congregational singing represents a shops to empower laity to lead music congregationally and further invite their own congregations to sing; see fruitful case study for formulating theories of www.musicthatmakescommunity.org. 6 Note here that as an ethnographer, my concern is practical rather than theological. In essence, I am not asking why congregations should sing, but rather what 8 Marcel Steuernagel has traced the concept of motivates singing when it occurs, therefore prioritizing performativity into the congregational music scene in a the experiential motivations of congregational practice. recent conference paper presented to the Society of 7 I do not mean to suggest here that a theorization Christian Scholarship in Music (2016), “Between of voicing can fully account for the dearth of Kantor and Frontman: Gesture as a Source of congregational singing in mainline contexts; rather, this Authentication and Context Creation in South Brazilian work is intended to excavate the motivations under- Lutheran Congregational Worship.” girding concerns over congregational musical partici- 9 Brian Kane, “The Model Voice,” Journal of the pation through focusing on voices. American Musicological Society 68/3 (2015).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 29 voice that are both performative and discourse has catalyzed a similar interest within communal. Through this exploration, I provide musicology, as music scholars attempt to tackle a conceptual framework for future inves- a subject that “is nothing if not boundless, tigations into the active potential of furtive, and migratory, sometimes maddeningly congregational singing, guiding us closer to so.”12 Just as the skepticism directed toward understanding what voices have the capacity to formalisms has led voice scholars to investigate do in worship. the relationality and permeable boundaries of voice, body, sound, and subject, others within Voice to Voicing: A Performative Vocal Turn music studies have reasserted the role of bodies and their musical interactions through an Humanistic scholarship within recent decades emphasis on performance. As Nicholas Cook has undergone a vocal turn, resonating through noted, such a performative turn reveals “a fields as diverse as anthropology, philosophy, gathering emphasis on performance as a sociology, comparative literature, and media 13 fundamental dimension of music’s existence.” studies. Always “in between” the material and Drawing together the rich hermeneutical the metaphorical, the voice has been analyzed tradition in musicology with ethnomusicologist variously as a medium of communication, a Jeff Todd Titon’s oft-cited definition of source of political power, or a marker of ethnomusicology as “the study of people subjective or collective identity, all in an making music,” Cook suggests that under- attempt to understand the multifaceted nature standings of musical meaning are most of this embodied sonic phenomenon.10 Within effective when they stem directly from studies religious discourses in particular, the voice is of musical practice, an assertion that has understood as a primary “domain [for] . . . the spurred scholars to more closely examine formation and expression of a religious sense 11 musicking as an equally fruitful area of inquiry of being-in-the-world.” Such newfound 14 as “the music itself.” attention to the voice in broader academic However, few scholars have explored the voice at the intersection of these two discursive 10 For a thorough review of voice studies, see Amanda J. Weidman, “Anthropology and Voice,” An- turns, to investigate the doing of voices nual Review of Anthropology 43 (2014). For more recent through practices of vocalization. Of the work approaches, see issues of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and Konstantinos Thomaidis and Ben that exists at this intersection, much has Macpherson, eds., Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience (London and New York: Routledge, 2015). 12 Martha Feldman, “The Interstitial Voice: An 11 Don E. Saliers, Music and Theology (Nashville: Opening,” Journal of the American Musicological Society Abingdon Press, 2007), 3. Saliers’s somewhat 68/3 (2015): 656. Recent work on voice within phenomenological understanding of voice and musicology includes the colloquy “Why Voice Now” in subjectivity resonates with Gordon Adnams’s work on JAMS, from which Feldman’s article comes, and the congregational singing; see “The Experience of special issue “Voice Matters” in Postmodern Culture 24/3, Congregational Singing: An Ethno-Phenomenological edited by Annette Schlichter and Nina Sun Eidsheim. Approach” (Ph.D. diss., University of Alberta, 2008). 13 Nicholas Cook, “We Are All (Ethno)Musico- For more on voice and sonic transcendence, see Jeffers logists Now,” in The New (Ethno)Musicologies, ed. Henry Engelhardt and Philip V. Bohlman, “Resounding Stobart (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008), 58. Transcendence—an Introduction,” in Resounding 14 Ibid., 56. For more on “musicking” as essential Transcendence: Transitions in Music, Religion, and Ritual, ed. to music studies, see Christopher Small, Musicking: The Jeffers Engelhardt and Philip V. Bohlman (Oxford: Meanings of Performing and Listening (Middletown, CT: Oxford University Press, 2016). Wesleyan University Press, 1998).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 30 focused on the physical process of producing to song.19 This imperative is particularly potent vocal sound, utilizing sonographs and other within the Psalms, in which practitioners are measurable means to explore performance encouraged to “sing unto the Lord!,” to “make aspects like dialect or pronunciation, vowel a joyful noise,” and, at least six times, to “sing a placement, or vocal timbre. 15 But recent new song.” While the content of what is sung musicological scholarship by Martha Feldman shifts (for example, a new song or a joyful and Nina Sun Eidsheim seeks to understand noise), the directive remains the same: sing!20 the voice “from the perspective of verbs,” Grounded in scripture, theologians ranging investigating the intersections of bodily from early church fathers to denomination practices, “action-based singing,” and vocal founders to contemporary liturgists emphasize production. 16 Such an analytic frame is the necessity of singing in worship, citing its unquestionably useful for many kinds of beneficial influence on prayer, communication singing practices, which require a physical act with the divine, and community formation.21 to produce sounds that can be full of cultural These psalmic passages are cited by many or social meaning, and often point back to the Christians as a call to action, a divine request to corporeality of the producer through the produce sounds through their voices, voice’s materiality, or the body of the singer regardless of what is being sung. For through its sound.17 theologians and practitioners alike, the concern Understanding the voice through the is the act of singing, rather than the framework of production is crucial for any hermeneutic potential of “the voice” once it is investigation into congregational singing as a produced.22 This articulation of the efficacy of communal practice.18 Scripturally, singing in/as physical action in worship parallels the worship is a command traceable across the Old performative nature of the liturgy more and New Testaments, with roughly three- broadly, as both emphasize how worship and quarters of all Bible verses on music referring faith are enacted through lived experience,

15 Examples of this approach include Steven Feld 19 Jeremy S. Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian et al., “Vocal Anthropology: From the Music of Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Language to the Language of Song,” in A Companion to Academic, 2007), 61. Linguistic Anthropology, ed. Alessandro Duranti (Malden, 20 Begbie similarly points to the use of music as MA: Blackwell, 2004); Steven Rings, “Analyzing the music in action within scripture, arguing that “it was Popular Singing Voice: Sense and Surplus,” Journal of the something made and heard”; see ibid., 60. American Musicological Society 68/3 (2015). 21 For an overview of the role of musical 16 Nina Sun Eidsheim, Sensing Sound: Singing and instruments and voices in scripture and the writings of Listening as Vibrational Practice (Durham, NC: Duke early church fathers, see David Music, Instruments in University Press, 2015), 2–3; Martha Feldman, The Church: A Collection of Source Documents (Lanham, MD: Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds (Berkeley: Scarecrow Press, 1998). For the role of music as University of California Press, 2015). communication in worship, see Thomas Troeger, Music 17 Nicholas Harkness’s theorization of voice as a as Prayer: The Theology and Practice of Church Music “phonosonic nexus” also attempts to draw together (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). For a these aspects of voice; see Songs of Seoul: An Ethnography discussion of congregational identity specifically, see of Voice and Voicing in Christian South Korea (Berkeley: Timothy D. Son, Ritual Practices in Congregational Identity University of California Press, 2014). Formation (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014). 18 Engelhardt and Bohlman rightly point out that 22 Stephen Webb connects the human “voice” to this emphasis on production of sound in sacred space God’s voice as a part of his theological argument for is centered in Western music (even though they refer singing; see The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and directly to “musical specialists” like cantors and choirs); the Theology of Sound (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, see “Resounding Transcendence,” 14. 2004).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 31 rather than being understood as abstract vocalizations of individuals—a castrato, an concepts.23 opera singer, or a vocal student—and do not One of the advantages of reconceptualiz- address communal practices of voice that ing congregational singing as an active practice occur across many singers simultaneously, is that it allows us to understand what the mirroring a trend within the broader discourse congregational voice can do, opening avenues of voice studies that privileges individual to investigate the active capacities of the voices. As a result, group singing practices are communal voice and its role in worship. often only addressed ethnographically, without Philosopher J. L. Austin famously asserted that any attempt to theorize the communal voice the voice has the ability to accomplish specific beyond its meaning or use within a particular actions through his construction of “perfor- group.25 Stephen Connor has recently pointed mative utterances,” referring to spoken phrases to this gap in voice discourse, suggesting that that accomplish the action of the words within scholars should turn their attention to what he them. Austin’s performatives, like congrega- terms “chorality,” or collective voice acts.26 tional singing, depend on a sonic utterance for In what follows, I take up Connor’s charge the action to occur, though in his formulation, by investigating congregational singing as a the action itself is defined by the words spoken collective voice act, one that requires a and the contextual circumstances surrounding rethinking of the role of sound in communal them. Yet, as Michelle Duncan argues, shifting sung practice. to the “verb” of sung vocal acts through performativity “opens up a space in which to Sound in Voicing interrogate acts of utterance as material events The distinct risk in shifting one’s priority to the and to investigate the effects of those action of voices and away from voices events.”24 themselves, especially for scholars of music, is However, there is a crucial difference in the resulting de-emphasis of sound. While source between congregational singing on the Eidsheim’s action-based singing in fact requires one hand, and the vocal acts proposed by such a minimization for pedagogical purposes, Austin and Duncan and those analyzed by an investigation of congregational singing Eidsheim and Feldman on the other. These should still consider the sounds of voices prod- scholars narrow their inquiries to the uced, even if the practice of creating sounds carries more theoretical and experiential 23 See Mary E. McGann, Exploring Music as Worship and Theology: Research in Liturgical Practice (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002), 7–10. The field of ritual studies often directly addresses the intersection of performance and religious action; for more, see 25 For examples, see Gregory F. Barz, Performing Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Religion: Negotiating Past and Present in Kwaya Music of Oxford University Press, 1992). For a recent Tanzania (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003); Karen Ahlquist, application of ritual theory to communal musicking ed., Chorus and Community, vol. 2 (Champaign: practice, see Helen Phelan, Singing the Rite to Belong: University of Illinois Press, 2006); and Caroline Bithell, Ritual, Music, and the New Irish (Oxford: Oxford A Different Voice, a Different Song: Reclaiming Community University Press, 2017). through the Natural Voice and World Song (Oxford: Oxford 24 Michelle Duncan, “The Operatic Scandal of the University Press, 2014). Singing Body: Voice, Presence, Performativity,” 26 Steven Connor, “Choralities,” Twentieth-Century Cambridge Opera Journal 16/3 (2004): 289. Music 13/1 (2016).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 32 weight. 27 So how can we consider sound determined investigations of voices. In Kane’s through the lens of vocal acts? model, the sound of the voice (or voices) Brian Kane’s recent theorization of voice cannot be understood on its own terms, nor is offers a productive way to engage with vocal it the determining factor in analyzing voice; sound and its interactions with other aspects of instead, sound must be examined through its “voice” as it is traditionally understood. Kane relations with content and/or source.30 proposes that voice consists of three main For any kind of investigation of voice as components: echos (the sound produced), logos action, such a model has three main benefits: (the content of the utterance) and topos (the one, it allows for any one of the components source from which the voice emits).28 These of voice (content, sound, or source) to be three aspects of sound, content, and source are scrutinized in relation to the other com- derived from philosopher Mladen Dolar’s ponents, thereby avoiding a discussion of voice work on voice, in which he systematically that is overdetermined by a preoccupation with reduces each one of these aspects to reveal the one of these aspects. At the same time, Other that is always present within the voice, however, Kane’s model allows for scholars to an argument inspired by the psychoanalytic assert the place of sound and the materiality of philosophy of Jacques Lacan. 29 Kane takes the voice in investigations of voicing, even if Dolar’s breakdown of component voice parts they are not the primary object of inquiry. as a starting point for his own model and Taking Eidsheim’s case study of the singing suggests instead that voice is comprised of the lesson as a starting point, for example, Kane’s circulation of sound, content, and source, rather model allows for a fruitful exploration of the than being the reduction of any term. Kane sound produced through action-based singing further suggests that the pairings of these aspects—content and sound, sound and 30 This model of voice is particularly useful because it avoids a reduction into a single aspect or source, source and content—can serve as pairing, which is common in previous scholarship on useful theoretical frameworks for contextually the voice. For example, while Jakobson’s six functions of language address the content of utterances and their situational contexts, his analysis is grounded in the 27 Eidsheim’s intention is to require students to communicative function of speech, and does not focus solely on the act of production instead of the address the physical presence or bodily practices of the sound that emits, recognizing that previous pedagogical speaker, nor the actual sound of the utterance; see models begin with an ideal sound that singers are trying Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Style in to replicate. See Eidsheim, Sensing Sound: Singing and Language, ed. Thomas Sebeok (Cambridge, MA: MIT Listening as Vibrational Practice, 132–53. Press, 1960). Bauman and Briggs similarly address the 28 Kane, “The Model Voice.” Kathryn Meizel’s content of utterances in their work on context- “vocality,” while it is intended toward connecting voice ualization, but again do not include vocal sound or and identity, shares some similarities with Kane’s voice: source in their work; see Richard Bauman and Charles her vocality comprises productive (source of sound), L. Briggs, “Poetics and Performance as Critical acoustic (way sound is structured), and perceptual Perspectives on Language and Social Life,” Annual (sensations produced by sound) aspects. See “A Review of Anthropology 19 (1990). In addition, while work Powerful Voice: Investigating Vocality and Identity,” by Bakhtin and Goffman critically examines the Voice and Speech Review 7/1 (2011): 269. “source” of voicing through theorizations of het- 29 Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More eroglossia/polyphony and performance, respectively, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006). For Kane’s neither includes both content and sound in his analysis; critique of Dolar and his explanation of philosophical see Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays voice studies as a response to Derrida, see Sound Unseen: (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992); Erving Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice (Oxford: Oxford Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New University Press, 2014), 180–222. York: Random House, 1956).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 33 and its relationship to the physical actions of the body, philosophical argument as a given, investigating representing the crossing between sound and the timbral and performance markers that source. Finally, these crossings provide a useful distinguish particular artists from one another, framework to explore how the different while other music scholars explore how these components of voice work together in practice, same aspects of timbre and performative and how these components are ontologically expressions are understood as indices of redefined and negotiated through the act of racialized or gendered bodies.34 Vocal source voicing. In the singing lesson, then, a student’s therefore can be understood both as the sound is redefined as the direct result of physical body of a vocal producer and as the physical actions that point to the student’s aural characteristics of that body heard in the bodily practices as a source, giving it an voice. ontological status that is not only beyond The practice of congregational singing, materiality, but is also devoid of content as a however, complicates the traditional under- useful analytic. I use Kane’s model here as a standing of vocal source. Perhaps most framework to investigate how the vocal sounds obviously, the “source” of congregational produced in congregational singing can be re- singing consists of many voices and in- examined through an action-based understand- dividuals, rather than a single body. This ing of the crossings that sound participates in: multiplicity of bodies poses issues for sound–source and sound–content.31 Cavarero’s ontology of uniqueness: individual voices are neither heard nor recognized in Congregational Singing: Sound ßà Source group singing, so their sound cannot be directly tied to their subjectivities or their It is a common trope within the discourse of bodies. An argument could be made to extend voice studies that the sound produced through Cavarero’s assertion of vocal uniqueness to one’s voice often points back to its source.32 groups, especially in cases of professional On the most basic level, Adriana Cavarero choral ensembles that meticulously curate their argues that the sound of the voice is an index sound. Yet, a congregation’s sound can change of individual uniqueness, thereby attributing from week to week, indeed even from song to aural characteristics to subjectivity. No one’s song within a single service, depending on the voice sounds the same as another’s, says level of participation and the identities of Cavarero, and therefore each person’s people present. uniqueness as a subject can be heard and While such shifting of personnel does recognized in their voice. 33 Indeed, much create a series of “unique” sounds, this set of scholarship in popular music takes this varying sounds is attributable to a single body of participants. Thus, the very fact that the 31 In employing Kane’s model toward the analysis of musical practice, I am responding to the challenge “same” congregation can produce different proposed by Steven Rings and Kane himself; see Rings, sounds destabilizes the idea of directly “Analyzing the Popular Singing Voice: Sense and Surplus,” 667; and Kane, “The Model Voice.” 32 For a critique of this, see Kane, Sound Unseen. 34 Examples emblematic of these two approaches 33 Adriana Cavarero, For More Than One Voice: include Rings, “Analyzing the Popular Singing Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression, trans. Paul A. Sense and Surplus”; and Nina Sun Eidsheim, “Marian Kottman, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), Anderson and ‘Sonic Blackness’ in American Opera,” 1–16. American Quarterly 63/3 (2011).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 34 attributing vocal sound to source, because the mainline Protestant church would disagree source is not defined by a specific makeup of with (and might even laugh at!) the idea of individuals. The qualities of each voice, then, choral volume as a determining factor for do not necessarily determine the overall congregational singing. Instead, the pure mag- congregational sound. Or, in Connor’s words, nitude of chorality within congregational vocal “the choric voice gives rise to the fantasy of a practice lies in the widespread participation of collective voice-body that is not to be individuals: the number of voices comprising identified with any of the individuals who the choral sound that results from a high compose it.” 35 My own ethnographic work percentage of participation. with congregations not only supports Connor’s Many congregations consider themselves assertion, but suggests that individuals actively to be participatory musical communities at resist identification within congregational their core, as their performative “success” is singing, as many of my interlocutors express a “judged by the degree and intensity of strong desire not to be heard. participation,” in Thomas Turino’s words, If the sound of a congregation singing is meaning that “everyone’s contribution is not aurally reducible to individual voices, what valued and considered essential.” 37 Con- is the nature of the relationship between sung gregational singing is intended to be an activity congregational sound and the body (and for all those who are gathered, especially bodies) of worshippers from which it comes? because it is one of the only moments in a First, rather than being understood primarily in typical mainline Protestant liturgy in which terms of vocal quality, congregational singing congregants can engage. The imperative of should instead be analyzed in terms of widespread participation can be traced back quantity: the sheer number of voices present. specifically to the Reformational theologies of For many mainline Protestant and Catholic , who drew an explicit con- congregations, for example, ideal congrega- nection between his doctrine of the royal tional sound is additive—the more voices, the priesthood of all believers and congregational better—contributing to what Connor refers to singing.38 Each individual worshipper is ex- as the “pure magnitude” of chorality. Connor pected to participate, not only for their own alludes to Elias Canetti’s work on the spiritual formation, but also to aid in corporate “agglomerative impulse” of crowd sound to praise, with God as the primary (and only) partially explain choral magnitude, describing the process of more voices being swept up into a group’s sound, and the necessary space that is 37 Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life (Chicago: taken up by the corporeal producers of that University of Chicago Press, 2008), 33. 38 sound.36 But while Connor’s focus is on the Robin A. Leaver, “Liturgical Music as Corporate Song 1: Hymnody in Reformation Churches,” in Liturgy intensity of sound created through increased and Music: Lifetime Learning, ed. Robin A. Leaver and volume, congregational singing as a practice Joyce Ann Zimmerman (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), 283. In addition, the painstaking demands a different analytic frame: indeed, documentation of the historical and denominational anyone who has spent time worshipping in a developments in congregational song that comprise the academic discipline of hymnology points to the longstanding importance of congregational sung 35 Connor, “Choralities,” 5. worship within Protestant, Reformed, Evangelical, and 36 Ibid., 11. Catholic communities.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 35 audience.39 In addition, Turino argues that the identifiable, depending on anything from a success of participatory communities is space’s acoustics to the intensity of listening explicitly not judged by “some abstracted undertaken by participants. 43 The congrega- assessment of musical sound quality,” further tional sound can be considered as an illuminating the transition of sonic importance assemblage, in Manuel DeLanda’s terms, with- from quality to quantity.40 In these commun- in which the fluidity of identifiable sonic ities, as in congregational singing, widespread contributions does not negate the autonomy of participation overrides concerns regarding each participant. 44 In addition, this sound is musical competence, as it is much more im- created through the bodily practices of singing portant for congregation members to sing than together, of which vocal production is only one it is for them to sing well. The shift from part. 45 Congregational vocal sound therefore product to process within congregational sits at the intersection of choric and solo, singing is, according to Linda Clark, a whole and part; the contributions of in- fundamentally ethical one, as it allows for the dividuals may be heard without being widespread participation necessary for worship identified, but do not override the communal to take place.41 sound. Moreover, congregational singing compli- Yet, because each congregant physically cates the role of individual bodies within a topos generates their own voice within congre- defined by a group of participants. For singing gational singing, individuals retain bodily groups like choirs, the “grain of the voice” that autonomy through production, even when is attributable to each individual voice is their “bodies” are not audible. In his analysis of subjectively and communally identified, as the choric voice, Connor posits that group individual singers adjust their own sound with singing could be analyzed as a manifestation of that of others around them in service of an the acousmatic voice, since the sound is not ideal communal sound.42 Choral singing de- traceable to a specific visible source.46 pends on the aural corporeality of each However, I suggest that the voicing of individual body as integral components of its congregational song turns the acousmatic voice voice. Yet, many congregations have no “ideal on its head: the presence of participating sound,” creating instead somethi ng closer to bodies is affirmed through congregational heterogeneous noise than meticulously crafted singing, regardless of the audibility of their harmony. Within this sound, the bodies behind individual voices may be heard without being 43 While not the focus of this article, the interaction between listening and voicing in 39 Brian Wren, Praying Twice: The Music and Words of congregational practice deserves further inquiry. Congregational Song (Louisville, KY: Westminster John 44 See Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Knox Press, 2000), 85. Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity (London: 40 Turino, Music as Social Life, 33. Continuum, 2006). DeLanda’s understanding of 41 Linda Clark, “The Difference between Concert assemblage theory builds on the work of Giles Deleuze Music and Music for Worship,” in The Complete Library and Félix Guattari; see A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism of Christian Worship, ed. Robert E. Webber (Nashville, and Schizophrenia (London: Bloomsbury, 1988). TN: StarSong, 1994), 104. 45 For example, see Nathan Myrick, “Relational 42 This is one interpretation of what Roland Power, Music, and Identity: The Emotional Efficacy of Barthes calls “the grain of the voice”; see “The Grain Congregational Song,” Yale Journal of Music and Religion of the Voice,” in Image, Music, Text (New York: Hill and 3/1 (2017). Wang, 1977). 46 Connor, “Choralities,” 5–6.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 36 voices or the visibility of their bodies. Such an Ashbury in 1797, “than a congregation, with analysis of sound and source in congregational one heart and one voice, praising His holy vocal practice also attests to the “inescapably name.”49 bodily” nature of musicking that carries The practice of singing hymns has often theological weight for scholars like Jeremy been cited as a pathway toward promoting Begbie and Don Saliers; individual worshippers congregational unity through its expression of gain the spiritual benefits of vocally common theological ground; yet, its unifying participating through their bodies without any power is understood to reach beyond the walls repercussions for the quality or audibility of of the sanctuary, “affirm[ing] the participants’ their voices.47 place within the universal church.”50 Singing Further, for many practitioners and together in worship therefore not only theologians alike, the role of individual bodies symbolizes unity, but engages the “body of within congregational singing must be Christ,” a phrase often cited by practitioners to negotiated with the unifying power of singing describe the worldwide ecumenical community as one body, one voice. Kathleen Harmon of Christian followers.51 While the use of the points to this juxtaposition of subjective bodily term “body of Christ” can differ de- experience with collective identity formation as nominationally, it stems from the writings of crucial to understanding the power of song in the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the worship as opposed to speech. For Harmon, Corinthians: singing “elaborates the resonance of the body’s For as the body is one, and hath many center,” which confirms to participants both members, and all the members of that one their presence as individuals and their body, being many, are one body: so also is connections to other bodies. As a result, “the Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized sense of increased autonomy which is into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all generated by the body’s expansion through made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is breath in singing is transmuted into a sense of not one member, but many.52 collective identity in the experience of By singing together, practitioners both identify communal singing.”48 Harmon’s recognition of their gathering as a manifestation of the body communal experience resonates with theo- of Christ, and assert their place in the wider logical writings on congregational singing, body of Christian followers. Topos, then, which often see one’s individual singing experience as subordinate to the experience 49 Fred Kimball Graham, “With One Heart and One and efficacy of collective voicing. “Few things Voice.” A Core Repetory of Hymn Tunes Published for Use in can be more pleasing to the Lord,” wrote early the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, 1808– Methodist bishops Thomas Coke and Francis 1878 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004), xv. 50 See Martin V. Clarke, “‘Meet and Right It Is to Sing’: Ninetenth-Century Hymnals and the Reasons for Singing,” in Music and Theology in Nineteenth-Century 47 See Saliers, Music and Theology; Jeremy S. Begbie, Britain, ed. Martin V. Clarke (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, Theology, Music and Time (Cambridge: Cambridge 2012). University Press, 2000). 51 This is only one of many definitions of the 48 Kathleen Harmon, “Liturgical Music as Prayer,” “body of Christ,” a term that is employed to a variety in Liturgy and Music: Lifetime Learning, ed. Robin A. of theological ends; however, this is the most common Leaver and Joyce Ann Zimmerman (Collegeville, MN: usage in my ethnographic contexts. Liturgical Press, 1998), 272. 52 1 Corinthians 12: 12–14 (KJV).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 37 resonates across three distinct registers: the congregational song across various disciplinary body of an individual worshipper, the body of perspectives often reflect this logocentric worshippers gathered, and the body of Christ ideology. Historical debates over musical worldwide. Echos can be said to be produced at appropriateness were centered on the each one of these levels; indeed, an argument comprehensibility of the words, such as the could be made that through the singing of the reformation of polyphony enacted through the music of another community, whether a Council of Trent, and the subsequent predominantly Anglo church singing African- celebration of homophony audible in Palestrina American gospel music or a missionized and later Reformed hymnody alike. Hymno- church in China singing Western hymns, logists have long considered hymn texts and practitioners are singing the body of Christ into tunes separately, a result not only of the their own spaces through their voices.53 The methods of authorship and combinatory practice of congregational singing therefore possibilities of texts and tunes, but also of the disrupts the traditional relationship of echos and perceived importance of lyrical efficacy. topos within the voice, due to the expansion of Couched in arguments over appropriate topos to include many voices, the privileging of musical style—especially within the recent widespread vocal action through participation worship wars—scholars often focus on the over the resulting sound, and the circulating (sometimes theologically problematic) lyrics of roles of individual, communal, and global Contemporary Christian worship songs as a bodies.54 site for discussion and dissent.56 The relationship between music and words Congregational Singing: Sound ßà Content in Christian discourse has been long debated: should the music be subservient to the Word, When the term logos is invoked within Christian or should it work in conjunction with it? For music spaces, its definition is often confined to Renaissance and Reformation Christians words: the Word of scripture, the Word within especially, the comprehensibility of the words a homily, the Word of God made flesh. In was crucial not only for congregational church music, as in Christianity more broadly, listeners, but for singing participants as well: voice is therefore reduced to a carrier of logos, the efficacy of hymnody depended on people due to the privileging of the biblical and understanding what they were singing. liturgical Word within theoretical and practical Denominational fathers like and theology.55 Even when sound is considered, its therefore advocated for simple role is often subservient to logos, useful only to musical settings, which served both to clarify animate the words being sung or spoken. As a result, discussions of hymnody and 56 These debates can be found in Richard J. Mouw, The Message in the Music: Studying Contemporary Praise and 53 I am currently pursuing this line of inquiry in my Worship (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007). Even own work on global song and music from Taizé. within ethnomusicological or musicological approaches 54 The emphasis on participation through vocal- to congregational singing, the words of songs and ization could be said to mirror the attention paid within hymns continue to be prioritized as the main concern Protestant theologies to process over product. for practitioners; for example, see Jeff Todd Titon, 55 Engelhardt and Bohlman also point to the Powerhouse for God: Speech, Chant, and Song in an centrality of the word in discussions of sacred voice; Appalachian Baptist Church (Austin: University of Texas see “Resounding Transcendence,” 14. Press, 1988).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 38 the words being sung and to encourage hearty sounds of popular music genres within the participation.57 Music’s role was to amplify the voice. After all, debates about CWM were not lyrical content, working in service to the words. solely about what was being heard in a church Luther, on the other hand, believed that context, but also about what was being sung. musical sound and Word must work in tandem The sounds of CWM—the simple melodies, for the message to fulfill both its intended syncopated rhythms, and lack of “traditional” liturgical role and its role as a manifestation of four-part homophonic motion—can be God’s creativity through human invention. 58 directly tied to the actions of voices, because Luther’s position is echoed by Kathryn congregational voicing necessarily includes the Nichols, who writes that “the inherent powers musical characteristics of what is being sung. In of language are magnified when married to turn, it is these musical characteristics that are music and used as a vehicle for praise,” as this deemed to directly affect congregational marriage has the ability to express something participation, as the online critics cited above “deeper” than the words alone.59 Regardless of attest.60 the position taken vis-à-vis music and lyrical While the sounds of a particular musical content in worship, it is clear that logos has long genre can be attributed to echos, an expanded dominated discussions of church music and its understanding of logos as linguistic and musical practice. content, rather than just words, may begin to This is not to say, however, that musical account for the extramusical meaning genre plays no role in church music debates. attributed to those genres by practitioners and Taking the worship wars as a recent example, critics alike. Continuing with the example of the appropriateness of popular music as a CWM, early critiques of popular music’s usage congregational music genre has been critiqued in worship viewed the bass-driven and at least as often as the lyrics of Contemporary syncopated rock genres as evidence of the Worship Music. The music of CWM relies on a devil’s work, due to their ability to entice young set of sounds associated with “secular” or people toward licentious and disreputable commercial genres, from the rock-band–style activities. 61 For these critics, the musical instrumentation of contemporary praise bands to the vocal markers of personal authenticity 60 Monique Ingalls has written about the con- heard in performances by worship celebrities. nections between sung participation and contemporary While scholars have extensively documented worship music as representative of an understanding of the discomfort and disagreement surrounding “authentic worship,” and the connections between this idea and authenticity gestures within popular music; see the use of these genres in worship, their “Awesome in This Place: Sound, Space, and Identity in analyses do not center the production of the Contemporary North American Evangelical Worship” (Ph. D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008), chaps. 4–5. 57 On Wesley, see Graham, With One Heart and One 61 For the histories of these positions, see Anna E. Voice, 5. Nekola, “Between This World and the Next: The 58 Joyce L. Irwin, Neither Voice nor Heart Alone: Musical ‘Worship Wars’ and Evangelical Ideology in German Lutheran Theology of Music in the Age of the Baroque the United States, 1960–2005” (Ph. D. diss., University (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 3. of Wisconsin–Madison, 2009), chap. 3; and Jay R. 59 Kathryn L. Nichols, “Music and Musicians in Howard and John M. Streck, Apostles of Rock: The the Service of the Church,” in The Complete Library of Splintered World of Contemporary (Lexing- Christian Worship, ed. Robert E. Webber (Nashville, TN: ton: University Press of Kentucky, 2004). For the racial StarSong, 1994), 95. implications of this argument, see John Haines, “The

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 39 content, or logos, of this sung music necessarily that has preoccupied music scholars within carried these demonic associations, marking it several subfields. Historically, music theorists as both inappropriate and dangerous for have pinpointed the content of music within congregational worship. Again, it is important the musical score, identifying complex to note that it is not “the music itself” that harmonic patterns, formal structures, and poses a threat, but its vocal performance, as it rhythmic intricacies without hearing a single is the act of congregational voicing that has the sound. Beyond the notational surface, much potential to catalyze such dire consequences. ink has been spilled in the service of Similarly, popular music’s entanglements with documenting the semantic capabilities of capitalism are recognized as an integral part of music: its symbolic and semiotic properties, its the music’s content, whether celebrated as descriptive qualities, its metaphorical meaning. allowing the Word of God to enter the secular Countless parallels between musical structure sphere or reviled for allowing the contamin- and linguistic grammar further stress the ability ation of the sacred. This extramusical as- of music to exhibit language-like properties of sociation of commercialism, like the fear of carrying content, and musical hermeneutics sex, drugs, and rock and roll, is ever-present continues to be a dominant analytical paradigm within congregational performances of CWM, within musicology. In addition, sung music (as leading to logistical concerns over whose music explored above) carries words (literally, logos), is being sung and how it is being paid for.62 adding yet another dimension for under- Through this broader understanding of logos standing music as content. However, no matter beyond words, scholars can better account for how abstract one’s analysis of a musical surface the multifaceted role of musical genres and may be, music necessarily carries a sonic aspect music’s connotations and denotations within that cannot be reducible to “content.” Echos vocal performance as logos, and consider the therefore rears its head, impossible to ignore in effect of musical genre on the efficacy of performance no matter the musical “content.” congregational singing in a new way. Logos is The juxtaposition of musical “content” and thus redefined as an important site of the “in- sonic aspects of performance has theological between” character of the voice through per- implications as well, as articulated by William formance, signifying meaning beyond words Flynn: and music alone. Theologically speaking, one could contend that Expanding logos to include musical content music is both more than and less than the also makes space for the placement of “music” Word. Music is less than the Word, in that the within the voice. Indeed, music could be logos of God incarnate as Jesus Christ is identified as purely logos, or content, a position witnessed to in the words of scripture . . . music may be more than the Word, in that scripture must be proclaimed, that is, it must be Emergence of Jesus Rock: On Taming the ‘African effectively delivered.63 Beat,’” Black Music Research Journal 31/2 (2011). 62 Nekola argues for the essential role of commercialism within American ; see “Between This World and the Next”; and “Negotiating the Tensions of U.S. Worship Music in the 63 William T. Flynn, “Liturgical Music as Liturgy,” Marketplace,” in The Oxford Handbook of Music and World in Liturgy and Music: Lifetime Learning, ed. Robin A. Christianities, ed. Suzel Ana Reily and Jonathan M. Leaver and Joyce Ann Zimmerman (Collegeville, MN: Dueck (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). Liturgical Press, 1998), 253.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 40 While he does not specifically state the type of gathering. Through their physical vocal partici- music he is referring to, it is safe to assume that pation, individuals participate in the creation of Flynn’s primary concern here is with vocal a communal sound while simultaneously music. He conflates music and sound within veiling their own sonic contributions. But con- the voice: music is only understood through gregations are not professional choirs, so some the sonic ineffability that results from its “bodies” are more aurally present than others. performance. But music is not reducible to How do these aural assertions of presence echos either; by being “more than the Word,” affect the way congregants understand their vocal music must also carry some content, role within a community, or within the body of whether logos in its traditionally understood Christ writ large? The attention to the sound– definition or a broader understanding of source crossing may be able to productively musical content. Within the voice, music illuminate how issues of power are negotiated therefore sits at the intersection of logos and aurally within congregational singing, especially echos, without being reducible to one or the when some voices (and bodies) dominate over other. 64 Understanding music’s overlapping others. In addition, an investigation into com- logos- and echos-functions therefore offers a new munal sound and source also leads to questions lens for examining the historical and regarding the efficacy of participatory com- contemporary disputes over musical genre in munities. If congregational sung efficacy is congregational sung practices by creating space judged by the “quantity” of voices rather than for genre-based musical characteristics within their “quality,” are there any standards to the sound of the congregational voice. And it is which quality must be held? What are the only through the event of voicing, through the stakes of participation if individual participants’ participation of communal voices, that this voices are so hidden that communal sound is dual role of music comes to the fore. not produced? Or, in other words, if a healthy congregation is a singing congregation, is a Active Voicing to Acts of Voicing congregation unhealthy if their singing doesn’t make a sound? These questions also lead to the Recognizing congregational singing as an active role of silence in sung liturgy, and how the communal practice centered in the voice opens voice participates in—and even creates— up new possibilities for the analysis of sound in silence within worship contexts. While answers worship. Congregational sound is fundamen- to these questions may be contextually depen- tally shaped by the multiplicity of sources from dent, probing the categories of sound and which congregational singing emits—both the source opens up new ways to approach vocal literal bodies of congregants and the imagined performance and spiritual efficacy within wor- community of fellowship beyond a single ship contexts.

64 The recognition of the irreducibility of music Congregational sound is inextricable from and words and the importance of context in vocal performance resonates with Emma Dillon’s theori- content, especially when the sound produced is zation of “supermusicality”; see The Sense of Sound: musical. The expansion of logos to include Musical Meaning in France, 1260–1330 (Oxford: Oxford musical content can therefore shed light on University Press, 2012). For a recent discussion of Dillon and Augustine, see Eidsheim, Sensing Sound: disputes within historical and contemporary Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice, 125–26.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 41 practices, especially the role of sound (and even bodies) in the production of the Word. In addition, this expansion can help address current repertoires like music from Taizé or global song that use foreign languages that may be incomprehensible to singers. This begs the question: Is “theologically appropriate” lyrical content a prerequisite for congregational per- formance, even when the lyrical content itself is incomprehensible? This question is par- ticularly intriguing considering that work by Caroline Bithell suggests that at least within nonreligious contexts, singers of foreign languages focus more on the experiential feeling of the words than their meaning, often actively resisting comprehension of lyrical content in the process.65 Is the presence of logos even necessary, then, or can musical content or a song’s original context serve the same purpose as words? Considering logos as content rather than just “words” opens up new avenues for investigating how musical genre functions within congregational singing, or even how musical characteristics like form, harmony, and melody directly affect communal vocal practice. Expanding logos also makes space for the metaphorical associations of voice to meet the material through perfor- mance; cultural and contextual meaning can circulate within logos, allowing logos to signify, to symbolize, to act.

65 Bithell names this the “politics of unintel- ligibility”; see A Different Voice, a Different Song, 152–55.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018) 42