The Bible and Music

I enjoyed producing a composition for the final project in this class. Once I overcame the obstacle of self-consciousness concerning my musical ability, I enjoyed experimenting with different bible verses and songs. The task of selecting a song to use as the background for a setting of biblical text was challenging. I struggled to determine whether certain genres would be more or less conducive to merging with passages from Scripture. For some reason, my mind kept coming back to “Imagine” by John Lennon. “Imagine” is widely popular and the tune is recognizable to most. Furthermore, I found that the meter of the song was easy to follow and replicate. The song had been stuck in my head for several weeks so I decided to experiment with a passage from Romans.

Romans 10:13-15 is one of my favorite Bible passages. It presents “the great commission”, or the call to bring others to Christ in a beautiful. My favorite verse from the passage is verse 15, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”. I knew that I wanted to emphasize this verse in my composition. While tweaking and revising the composition was challenging, I enjoyed the experience of manipulating the text and incorporating my personality into the work. I was nervous about recording my composition as I know that my voice is far from perfect. I made slight alterations to the composition with each new recording before I finally settled on a recording that brought me pride. It would have been wonderful to have been able to play “Imagine” on the piano and sing my composition but alas, the instrumental version of the song sufficed.