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Seminar 11:
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You may have heard the politically very incorrect story of the visitor to a dictatorship, watching a tennis coach with his pupils. ON and ON the instructor went until the visitor could stand it no more and asked: "Why aren't they on the court?" "Because" replied the instructor, eyebrows raised: "they are learning to be tennis instructors." So let's jump through a sketchy overview of the right-brain justification for music in spirituality now: and have done with it. Yes, God has perfect pitch. The birds sing, the spheres ring, and at the Creation the morning clouds sang together. Yes, He made His special people musical too, and were all Jews to disappear tomorrow, 60% of the world's orchestras would go with them. Their escape from Egypt accomplished, Moses and Israel sang. David had his praises sung, and when Hezekiah restored the temple, he simultaneously re-instated its musicians. Jesus sang at a farewell meal. The angels also sing and play, and when ensembles on earth seek to join them in liturgy, then, given all the above, just sincerity is NOT enough. There's some background. On the night though, it will be FOREGROUND. What works to connect music to some of our highest inter-actions with our Creator, Redeemer and Primary Spiritual Guide? And what fits what occasion? We'll immerse ourselves in the musics of a liturgical year and some of its additional, wonderful and odd-ball events: of repentance, sorrow, thanksgiving, expectation, joy and exaltation.
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