The Bible and Music

During class today, we had a guest speaker. Our guest speaker has been apart of the cantor profession for 47 years. It was truly interesting to listen to his life path and all that he has done. He has lived in many parts of the world and knew we wanted to be a cantor since age 4. I never knew the importance of the cantor until today. The cantor’s job, especially in the Jewish faith, is to keep the audience engaged while professing the faith. From listening to him talk, you could really tell that he has a passion for his job and realizes the responsibilities around it. You have to understand the faith, how to keep people listening, and music to do his job well. He presented us with pieces of music from different eras and areas in the world to see the difference in them.

I really enjoyed having this first hand look into someone who lives out “The Bible and the Music”. He was a living example of how the two come together in the real world. I think it would be interesting to attend a Jewish ceremony, one day. It was a great change of pace for class today.

Yesterday in class we talked about chanting. What is chanting? Does all chanting count as music? In class, we defined chanting as repetitive sounds or words with rhythm. We looked at a contemporary example of chanting. We looked at a cheer at the Butler Basketball game. From that we moved on to psalms which are more musical chants. We read Psalm 8 out loud. First very monotone which made it sound very boring, then we sang/talked it. When we did that, it made the psalm much more engaging. I found it very interesting how changing the rhythm, tone, and pitch can make speaking/chanting more engaging for the audience. I enjoyed learning about the drawings of different hand gestures which told people how to sing the songs. I also thought it was very interesting at the end of class when we talked about how all music influences each other. For example the piece at the end of class was Hebrew but sounded like Islamic prayers. This was because it used a scale from the Middle East. I would like to learn more about music influenced by other regions.

The discussion about chanting in its different iterations yesterday was an opportunity for me to think about very different situations in terms of their commonalities. A Catholic church service and a Butler basketball game are two events that would seemingly have very little in common, and yet chanting (of all things) is a common factor that serves similar purposes in both: to engage, to involve, and to bring together the people attending. Even more interesting than that, though, was the fact that biblical texts meant to be sung or chanted seem to have some sort of musical notation accompanying them in the original texts. Suzanne Haïk-Ventuoura’s work contextualizing musical markings from biblical texts into modern notation was absolutely fascinating to me, and to see evidence of her method’s success (the parallels in chants from Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism, as well as their similarity to a Catholic counterpart) was equally amazing to see.

I’m looking forward to the cantor’s visit during the next class. Hopefully it’ll provide further insight into chanting and its impact and importance, as well as how it’s potentially evolved from its first forms to now.

With an off day in class, I wanted to find out more about the job description of a cantor since we will have a guest speaker that takes on this role for tomorrow’s class. I was interested in the day to day routines they did and the level of practice it took to get there. In the Catholic church, I discovered that a cantor is the chief singer of the church who has responsibilities for the ecclesiastical choir and the preparation of liturgy. A cantor can also be called the precentor. An interesting piece about cantor’s that I found was how they have to be prepared and ready to start any chant on demand. After learning about chants previously in class, I respected this responsibility that they have because leading chants is not always easy. I believe various cantors bring different voices to churches worldwide and I hope to one day hear one live.

I am very excited to listen to our guest speaker, Cantor Giora Sharon. I listened to a few videos of cantors singing and it was extremely impressive to me. I never really knew what cantor’s did, however I have a deep level of interest in them after looking more into it.

In class today, we discussed chanting. As someone who does not go to church, the only chanting I am accustomed to is that which is contained in the walls of Hinkle Fieldhouse. It was interesting to learn that different religions, or even different sects from the same religion, go about chanting in different ways. Similarly, our class performed our own little chant. This brought me out of my comfort zone, however. I have never been involved in any kind of choir or theater in which I would have to perform in front of a group. Nonetheless, the exercise helped to portray how the different different religions would put their own twist on the chants.

I’m looking forward to hearing the guest speaker on Thursday. It will be interesting to hear from someone who performs these chants for a living. I am eager to hear where they find the intersection of these chants in our everyday music.

We discussed in class today the difference between speaking and chanting. Right away when asked about chanting, we  only thought of things in religious contexts, until Professor McGrath pointed out that there are also chants in other contests, such as at sports games. Then we read Psalm 8 multiple times line by line throughout the class and each time did it a little differently. Something interesting I noticed when we chanted it in the way with the variation at the end was how most people chose to go down in pitch. I suppose this is because that is what I personally am accustomed to from being a Roman Catholic and experiencing that in mass before. Catholicism is a fairly common religion so I would guess that is why people in class chose to vary the pitch in that specific way.

Today in class, Professor McGrath was talking to us about chanting. This is a process, that, at its most basic level, sounds like a small piece of a song. It is not complex in any way. Two noticeably key elements in chanting are the repetition and the rhythm used to create the catchy phrase or piece. A chant is not something that needs to be planned. It can be a spontaneous, impromptu little blurb that catches among the audience. One of the types of chanting we discussed was the antiphonal chanting. Something the class decided can make the chant less “boring” is to include a change in pitch and rhythm. This makes the flow more unexpected. A lot of Psalms in the Bible provide some sort of musical inspiration. Today, the class had to branch a little out of our comfort zones and chant a bit. As we grew more comfortable, the more we did it, the better it got. I am not a very good singer at all, so I am excited but also nervous for what’s to come in the future of the semester…

Class today, covered a wide range of topics. We covered everything from chants at a basketball game to chants in ancient times. I found it interesting that we can connect topics from vastly different times periods. Chanting is used in religious settings and is normally a simple, basic tone. It used to proclaim phrases or verses. There are ways to make anything into a chant. There are so many ancient components to these chants that I never would’ve thought about before. The ancient scrolls and symbols, all connect to making of current day rhythm.

During class, we each had to chant different phrases of a psalm. This was definitely out of my comfort zone and something I wasn’t super comfortable with. It just was something I wasn’t used to and really had never done in a group setting. I hope this isn’t something we do every class, but maybe once in awhile. I am curious to see and hear what else is going to come from this class.

The main topic of discussion in class today was chanting and the evolution of it. We first listened to an older chant that involved not a lot of sounds and it was too slow for me. Many of my peers commented on it being boring and I was in the same boat. The next activity that we participated in was singing a piece from Psalms. In the first reading, every student was asked to just simply read a verse and we reflected on it after. The next two times we were asked to chant the verse we were given and add an ending to it that gave it some form of pitch. As a listener, I thought it was smoother when we added the pitch of our choice. It was awkward at first, however I enjoyed hearing the differences in each person’s voice and how the pitch was either high or low.

Professor McGrath started talking about the human voice and how it is one of the most mysterious instruments in the world. It is an instrument that every single person is capable of playing, but we fail to take advantage of taking lessons or practicing to improve it. The human voice can come in a variety of pitches and sounds, like accents. Chanting, just like language, has evolved over time and it is very interesting to see how the same text is chanted in different ways. One thing that stuck with me from class was thinking about how no pitch is wrong. Pitches and music appeal to listeners’ ears in a number of ways, but a pitch that you thought was bad may be the perfect sound for a certain chant.

Today was a bit chilly and icy outside so our class meeting was cancelled, which was a plus because I was able to sleep in but also disappointing because we were supposed to have a guest speaker in our class today. Hopefully we are able to reschedule and see Cantor Giora Sharon in a future class because I hope to gain some new insight. It is also just exciting to have a guest speaker coming into class, especially one so early in the morning.