Author: kemartin1

Having grown up in the Christian church, being angry at God seemed like something that was a major “no no.” Those who have taught me what I know about Christianity basically taught that it is wrong to be upset with God. However, although it may be not the best to be angry with God, it… Continue reading Being Angry With God

The Lord’s Prayer can be found in the book of Luke and Matthew although differences between the two passages can be found. Later versions of the text has some added words that were not originally in the text. What makes the text a bit ironic is that in Matthew, it says this right before it… Continue reading The Lord’s Prayer

As one reads the story of Ruth and her eventual marriage with Boaz, it can be seen potentially as one example of romantic love in the bible. In the story, Ruth will not depart from Naomi so they travel to the land of Judah together. However, they are widowed women so they do not have… Continue reading Ruth’s “love” for Boaz

Something interesting I found from the lecture today is the idea of someone who is not religious having to set a biblical text to music. Professor McGrath proposed the idea that if you are not religious but still have to accomplish the task of setting biblical text to music, you could “pretend” or “act” like… Continue reading Acting

In our class discussion today, we talked about how horror movies would not be the same at all if the traditional 3 chord music was being played in a suspenseful scene. The music without a tonal center is what makes horror movies scary. I was intrigued by this and I was wondering what the reasoning… Continue reading Psychology & Biology

Something I have learned throughout this class so far is that songwriting, singing, and instrument playing is worth doing at all levels. I have played the guitar for 4 years but I am not a very developed instrumentalist. I have really only learned how to play in order to sing with it. But as I… Continue reading Gaining Confidence

Something interesting I found from the activity of finding children songs that were written from biblical texts that we did relates to the song This Little Light of Mine. What I found interesting about this song is that so many students chose this song to present to the class. It is a very popular and… Continue reading Biblical Children Songs

If one creates a melody, it can be easy to only imagine it in the main genre of the instrument it was created in. In class we discussed that the melody that we came up with seemed like it should be sung in a choral setting. Something that Professor McGrath pointed out to us was… Continue reading Changing Genre

As we talked about in class, different composers set the Magnificat to different rhythms and notes and languages. A specific composer that we talked about was Hubert Parry. A setting that he wrote that we very briefly talked about was how Hubert Parry set the Magnificat in Latin. This added variation to the text and… Continue reading Setting Texts to Different Languages

As we touched on in class, movies and TV shows can help people realize that Jesus was a real person. Having grown up knowing the stories of Jesus, it has been easy for me to imagine them as just that, stories. I have grown up hearing and reading the words of Jesus which has made… Continue reading Making Jesus More Human