Dangers of reactionism

This narrow banding [of emergent church] often reduce emerging church to aesthetical styles, and pathological axiomatics, of locations and practices. There can be a regular mantra of ‘we have no programs, we are organic, missional, and are participatory’, whilst doing very little that is missional, and beyond therapy spaces for disillusioned Christians... Jason @ Deep Church

One of the issues I have felt with at least some people claiming to be emergent church is the expressed reactionism against something, someone, some style, or tradition. It seems to be Christians reacting against other Christians rather than getting out there and living a life worthy of the Gospel. In other words, words and no authenticity in living counterculturally, living incarnational lives, bring Christ to the world.

The dangers of the latest technology is it becomes a substitute for proficiency and authenticity. Having doesn't mean you can use it well or profitably. I was reading my weekly subscription LICC - Connecting With Culture - Collectors Cornered and was slightly convicted. Nigel Hopper wrote:-

I for one have to confess that I probably already own more CDs than I’ll ever have time to listen to, and have books on my shelves that I’ll never get around to reading, despite my best intentions. ... Has the acquisition of things, and the status that their ownership brings, become more important to us than any actual pleasure they impart?

We have the stuff but it gives no innocent joy or pleasure. Last week I got an email and followup phone call and popped over to friends. I had a little moment of Christmas. a few pieces of smoked salmon and a slice and a half of rich chocolate cake. Nigel notes "There’s nothing wrong, of course, in indulging our passions and enthusiasms. " The problem comes when we indulge and they lose their "innocence and humility". They become obsessive, guilt ridden and objects of pride.

Its not about change, rebelling against something, changing practices or method. It seems more and more about enjoying being with God in every situation every aspect of life. As I continue to try to clean up and get rid of things, its not about the having as such but the pleasure or joy or simple usage that comes form them. In having the cello its about becoming better so I can enjoy playing more and more. In the words of Nodame Cantabile character Kuroki "if we can perform well, we feel happy. If we can perform even better, won't we perhaps be able to enjoy it better as well? To aim higher is perhaps to enjoy music purely [as music]."

I need to get practicing!

Musicianship - insights from Nodame Cantabile

This is the cover of my very first book of cello exercises by Feuillard. I think I must have been 12 years old when I was working from it.

The last few weeks I've been around a chapel service each day (played 5 of those days) and also in services around a variety of places.

Euge started me thinking about these questions. What exactly is musicianship? and How does it play into public corporate worship?

I think the Japanese drama Nodame Cantabile has had much to help me refine my thinking. See my earlier posts (here) or use the Label Cloud on the right. Chiaki, the archetypical technician, has the skills and technique and the rigor to pursue the composer's intent mostly at all costs. Nodame, the freespirited interpreter, who plays how she feels and plays too freely so that she re-composes while playing from what she remembers hearing. Schubert sounds like Chopin! BUT Nodame has phenomenal technique! She can make a piano sing and still be messy.

There are two levels to musicianship in my mind, however neither are technical because you have to have physical technique before you can play competently. Musicianship is firstly studied craftsmanship - we need to understand in someway the musical context and construction of the piece or pieces we're working with. The harmonic construction and options available if improvising or changing chord structures. A "G" chord is not "G" chord on a guitar there are many different versions and inversions. We need read the dynamics and relative dynamics asked for in the getting louder and getting softer. This is Chiaki.

Musicianship also needs a soul or spirit. Metronome, drum machine or musical boxes are all mechanical in feeling, even with swing. Composers did not and do not mark everything performers need to know. There is breathing and phrasing. There is slowing down and speeding up. There are grace notes, for guitarists hammer-on and pull-offs. I read Bradley Lehman assert that "The reproduction and manipulation of other people's work is not expertise. It's consumerism." Certainly its not musicianship. In the days when I conducted a choir I talked a lot about milking a melody. Musicianship is to be able to take a melodic line and squeeze every ounce of emotional value from it and still stay in time! The chanteuse, the cantabile voice does that. This is Nodame!

Musicianship in public corporate worship goes a step further because it involves accompanying and conducting a congregation. There need to be musical cues to support singers, telling them when to come in and keep them in tune. Musicians have to support and give confidence to those singing. Often if one verse of a song goes badly the congregation loses confidence and sings halfheartedly. Carlin keeps reminding me of the importance of transcendence in worship and this brings in the relationship between texture/dynamics and the content and meanings of words. Sad, fearful, or repentant words tend to be quieter but more intense, happier, praiseful or confessional words louder and perhaps in major keys with very few thirds.

Music, emotions, and thinking

Data from Startrek: The Next Generation. Could he truly play music? Music requires technical ability, emotional interpretation and therefore emotional content, and yet also cognitive engagement to understand the world of the composer and composer's intent.

I've become quite fan of Nodame Cantabile because of its authenticity towards music and display of a deeper understanding of the relationship between interpretation, technique and musicianship. But I've also realized more and more that imagination as inspiration is also required. Otherwise things become mechanical reproduction. Sometimes worship sadly ends up here, lacking the spirit part of inspiration!

As a romantic at heart, somehow I don't think the experiencing of life, love, music and spirituality can truly be separated. Whether the highs or the lows of life, I never want to stop feeling them.

noticing the background

This is actress Fukada Aki who plays a music student in Nodame Cantabile のだめカンタービレ her character's name is Inoue Yuki. Strangely I have watched the series many times and it seems that her name is never used. She is a secondary character and while I saw her in many scenes it is only recently I realized she was a cellist when the orchestra was playing.

Noticing is a strange thing in human experience. Somehow when we see the familiar we don't see and it is because it is familiar we don't see. They say familiarity breeds contempt. Learning to notice things is an essential part of spiritual maturity. It seems to me that often God's activities are so subtle that we don't notice him at work. May we never become familiar rather be amazed and filled in wonder, when we notice God at work.

After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. ... Elijah heard it... 1Kings 19:12-13

all about cello

The copyright for this belongs to Chow Tze Chun though choweggtart is his or her internet identity. It's widely available on the internet and eventually when I figure how to embed youtube and google video I'll do that.

How much is learning always in a communal context against a personal individual thing? All about cello needs an audience, the animator created is for a class assignment as far as I can see but it needed a greater audience. Even this blog is meaningless without readers, the same with books and any form of media.

I think published sheet music is different because the musician seems to have a different role. (I suspect poetry to be similar.) The musician is far less passive. In the pre-recorded music era many homes depended on family members being able to sing or play a musical instrument. You can note a level of proficiency just by looking at the vocal scale of the Victorian era against that of 21st century pop music. A level of proficiency was aspired to because of the communal context and engagement.

Nodame Cantabile (see my labels list) has many messages for me probably first and foremost is to be serious and to engage with music on its own terms (including the composer's style etc) but secondly is to understand how to catch. enchant or draw the audience into your world. Even then sometimes the audience isn't willing to listen or ready to listen. We all need to speak and be heard but it's not a matter of shouting. How come we rarely hear God? How come we rarely hear each other?

Finding a voice

Jack Bruce, renowned bass player whose bands included Cream, Alexis Korner's Blues Inc., the Graham Bond Organization, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and, briefly, Manfred Mann. Why is he playing a cello? Well at 16 he won a scholarship to study cello and composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music but dropped out over differences with his teachers and perhaps also as recorded on one website, poverty.

Cream, being a trio, allowed Bruce to become an innovator in terms of the role of the bass guitar. His forceful, aggressive style has changed the whole understanding of bass playing, and it has become as much a lead instrument. In Cream it was a foil to Clapton's guitar.

"I became the lead singer in Cream by default. It wasn't until Cream that Eric encouraged me to be a singer. We always had a competition as to who didn't want to be the lead singer. I guess I sort of lost." "Cream's success has been a double-edged sword for me. I still earn a lot of money from it and it's given me financial freedom and the opportunity to play whatever I've wanted to. When I see an article about me and it says 'Jack Bruce of Cream' it kind of annoys me a little bit because I've done so many other things."

In an interview with the BBC they asked "You play bass guitar, piano, cello and acoustic guitar and you sing. Which satisfies you most as a performer?" and his reply was "Singing. It's transcendental."

Voice is so important and has become the catch word in post-colonial, post-modern, or feminist studies. Finding our voice in life is difficult and perhaps very important to me is that this has a transcendental dimension. Moreover to find your voice is to find meaning and purpose in life, but literally to find in today a good reason to go beyond today. Strangely Bruce's cello has appeared on his recordings in recent years, as opportunity and reason to play has been found.

But as I think in the context of Nodame Cantabile, Nodame (the female lead character) has a voice a cantabile style but no real purpose because she wants to play music for herself how she wants. Chiaki (the male lead) has purpose but no voice. Perhaps voice has two meanings: an ability and quality to express oneself and the opportunity, or relationship in which, to be heard. To those who struggle and feel alone I feel important that need to be able to express the situation and to be heard. No-one should cry alone though sadly it happens most of the time. (see my earlier post The Pain of God click here )

The embrace

I found an image on the internet and felt a desire to copy it. My copy is a simple sketch drawing but reminds me of one of my cello teachers who told me about caressing and embracing my cello or literally thinking more in terms of hugging it when playing.

I've already posted about the anime and drama Nodame Cantabile which has reminded me of many things I had forgotten over the years. But for me its fundamental impact was about our attitude to music and our love for its own sake and its relationship to technique. Mediocrity is unworthy of music and in fact any aspect of our lives. We need to embrace our lives.

Many years ago a cello coach on a music holiday said to me It's such a shame that someone with such musical ability is handicapped by their own technique. That comment really rocked me very hard and I went back to having cello lessons soon after.

I'm very interested that cellist Paul Tortelier in his book with David Blum noted that "when some of my students succeed in correcting poor technical habits, there is a change in their interpretation. They become aware that their interpretation has been mediocre as well as their technique." Tortelier, who was a great teacher of technique, said the proof of a good technique is that you don't have to practice long and that you can play when you become old. In fact I seem to remember him also writing that 30 minutes of good practice was equivalent to running 5 miles. I seem to be in a loop saying again that good technique and soul touching music are linked.

I remain saddened that so much in church seems mediocre 1/ lacking technique i.e. proficiency on the instrument, 2/ lacking practice i.e. absence of ensemble playing , and 3/ lacking inspiration i.e. the music fails to touch the soul. A few weeks ago, my good friend Evy was visiting and she shared frustrations about 3/ and I about 1/ and we didn't even get to 2/. As I write this blog, I have discovered the deep spiritual symbolic link that the music/cello and life have for me.

Tortelier noted that the father's hands in Rembrant's painting The Return of the Prodigal Son resemble the hands of a cellist. (see my earlier post)

"... they are not identical. The left hand is larger and more tense, while the right has a calm, almost spiritual quality. Now although I am righthanded, my left hand is in fact larger; it is in immediate contact with the strings, and is more tense and energetic ... My right hand is less developed physically because the fingers have less individual effort to make... [being the pivotal link between bow and arm] One hand is that of a workman, while the other is that of a priest."

Of course music and cello together with life and the spiritual life are symbolically linked for me and the insights are important. We need to put some work into our spiritual lives, in attitude embracing life itself, in developing technique/skill, in order that we may truly live lives to the full.

Command them to do good ... as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. 1Tim 6;18-19

Correcting corrupted images

A key moment in my formation was the realisation that an understanding of God as father is frequently shaped by childhood. My divine image was marred by earthly experience. Henri Nouwen's book The Return of the Prodigal brought my own personal exploration and study of Rembrant's painting. The father has one hand of strength and power strongly holding and other of gentleness almost consoling.

Furthermore one of my personal struggles is that sincerity is not enough, and proficiency is required. Recently Nodame Cantibile which exists as a Japanese manga, anime, and live drama has opened me to myself, bringing old experiences of making music and loving music for music's sake. I find myself in so much of it. Set in a music college it says much not just about music but it begins with music and moves off into life. Music is a metaphor for life and living. It raises old questions about conflicting loves and what is a deeper love, it asks questions such as what is important whether to play music as I like it rather than first taking music seriously for music's sake in order to bring pleasure and joy. It brings to the front the links between technique and inspiration. The Nodame story is more than a romantic love story but also one where the love of music is a key and this is paralleled in a love of life and love in life. Even then the childhood experiences hamper and limit development and opportunity until dealt with. In my experience of parents it was a father who pushed and demanded and a mother who persuaded and consoled. Yet God as divine parent is both. Nodame Cantabile reminded me of the importance of striving for technique is as important as the ability to sing i.e. the expression of the soul of music. All art has its techne and psyche sides. (technical and soul) The spiritual disciplines present one side and movements of the spirit the other.

Sometimes we need the power of God and other times we need the shelter of the wings of God. We need a transcendent relationship if we are to live in this world, but we also need to love the experiences or at least find the experiences of the love of God here in the world. We need to take life seriously (the father's left hand) to enjoy life (the father's right hand) , otherwise we're stuck in hedonism or stoicism.