A main topic of discussion when talking about the Reformation and its musical outcomes is the idea of paraphrasing to fit certain settings of music. Paraphrasing is a great tool to use to convey general meanings and themes, especially when it comes to more tricky topics such as Biblical references. Almost every piece of writing… Continue reading Pros and Cons of Paraphrasing

It comes to me as strange the idea of paraphrasing being bad. It’s the student’s dream, you can use your own words, cut out everything you don’t feel the need to share, and can really help any research paper. But after today’s classes I can see that we lose something through paraphrase. While many hymns… Continue reading Lost Meaning Through Lost Words

The concept of if the Bible has a single meaning was intriguing to me, because I think that the Bible’s meaning is relative to the reader, and also its correlation to music has a relationship with each reader, but the relationship is always unique to the one who is experiencing it. We talked about how… Continue reading Does the Bible have a single meaning?

I was fascinated by the mention in class (on 8/31) that there was musical notion sprinkled within the Bible.  This idea certainly makes sense considering the Psalms in particular are best understood in a musical context, but when we are left in the present day to just read words on a page, the seemingly obvious… Continue reading Music Notation in the Bible

For many believers in more orthodox churches, chanting is something that they may dread about service. They have to listen to annoying voices of fellow parishioners or the off-key singing of their priest. This distaste towards chanting does not reflect on the real, true purpose of chanting. Chanting is important to the skill of memorization.… Continue reading The Purpose of Chanting

While reading chapter 3, there were some things that stood out to me. I thought it was interesting to learn about Christianity stemming from Judaism. I am a Christian and I always find it fun and interesting to learn about the history of Christianity and also other religions. Learning about the different religions and how… Continue reading Chanting in The Church

While reading through Chapter 2, and discussing it in class, there were a few things that caught my attention. One of them being, the way that people illustrated the Bible through different symbols and writing. I thought that it was interesting to see how the symbols and writing changed from century to century. This goes… Continue reading The Impact of Chanting

In class we examined if chanting was music. We read verses in the book of Psalms in different pitches and tones. We listened to some chants in class that were somewhat musical. Listening to chants in class, it made me think about this question more deeply. I don’t think all chanting is musical. To me,… Continue reading Chanting

I found it interesting that many of the Psalms can easily fit into many different meters. The “common meter” seemed to work especially well and could be used for any of the Psalms in the textbook. This just demonstrates how the Bay Psalm Book was very expertly translated for the purpose of singing and setting… Continue reading Meters and the Psalms

Today in class the question was posed, “Is chanting music?”. This question proceeded to go unanswered and we moved on in the lecture. But, I would like to revisit this topic because it is an important question. Obviously, we did some demonstrative chants as a class and listened to gregorian chants both of which were… Continue reading Is Chanting Music?