CREDIT: ISTOCK (EXXORIAN)
Joining a church choir is an experience worth trying in one's life.

My parents immigrated to Canada before I was born. They were among the waves of Dutch folks who boarded ships and planes from Holland in the mid to later 20th century.

It was important to them to worship God in the way they had been brought up. So they did what very many immigrants to Canada have been doing. Those immigrants either joined an existing church community or they started one. My parents helped start one.

You might already know this, but much the same as Muslim immigrants to Canada do today in establishing Islamic places of worship, Christian immigrants have had a long history of bringing their religious traditions along with them and planting them in the soil of this country. Wherever the British went, they brought the Church of England. Germans brought their Lutheran Churches. The Scottish brought Presbyterian ways. People from France and Italy brought the Catholic Church. Families from Lebanon carried with them the Maronite Church.

It’s not that those churches remained available only to those people of the countries from which they came. They rapidly evolved to serve the people of their new environment. You can pick this up by visiting the websites of any of the afore-mentioned churches. This is a bit of an insider comment, but Presbyterian church leaders today like to note that the last name Lee has become more popular in the Presbyterian Church in Canada than the name MacDonald.

Anyway, part of what these churches brought with them is the church choir. This is the main thing I want to talk about here.

A church choir is typically a group of amateur singers led by a director. The director may be paid or may be a volunteer. He or she is often a musician, usually a pianist or organist. That is important.

It’s important because the director will teach the choir members their singing parts. This is where terms like soprano, tenor, alto, and bass come in. Those terms identify whether you will be singing the main melody or some other supportive series of music notes. If you are a “bass”, for example, your notes will be in the low range. Each singer receives a part that matches (if all goes well) their vocal range.

As for the music pieces themselves, they are drawn from the collections of music that the whole church uses. These are called hymns and they are gathered and published in what are called hymnbooks. The music style itself is something that sounds “classical” to most ears. Frequently today the hymns are projected on screens for the whole church to sing.

The lyrics of these hymns are centred on the praise of God, and many of them speak about some aspect of the life of Jesus Christ, or they turn one’s attention to living as a Christian in today’s world. With respect to this last item, they encourage the singer and listener to turn from sin and to embrace a new agenda for life which was most clearly taught and modelled by Christ.

Now, growing up, I did not like choirs. I wrote them off as boring. I wasn’t alone and no doubt would not be today. Compared to the carefully finessed productions of Drake, the pounding music of AC/DC and the pornographic video by Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”, choir music is boring.

Or is it?

Roger Scruton, in a short video talk called, “The Tyranny of Pop Music” (available on YouTube), laments the influence of much of popular music – most of it consisting of banal lyrics and factory produced segments edited and repackaged for the consumer.

Last summer I went on a short road trip with my wife. We spent one night in a small hotel in Yarmouth, N.S. In the morning we went to the dining area for breakfast. I am not by any stretch knowledgeable about opera. But I do know enough to realize that the music coming from the speaker in a corner of the room was Italian opera.

It caught me off guard and seemed a refreshing change from the dance pop music and sugary love songs that are typically on offer as “background for your dining pleasure.” Ok, my wife did not particularly like it, but the rest of the patrons in the restaurant seemed to be no worse for the experience.

I wonder if it is pop music that isn’t, in the end, the really boring stuff. That would explain why we can’t get enough of it, devouring one pop artist one year and another the next.

And I wonder if what might be helpful for many is an openness to spend a bit of time with the more classical forms of music. We may discover that they contain much that is surprising, enduring, and worthwhile.

So, I would say, join a church choir. They usually take anyone willing to learn their part. If you do join one you may discover that making music is far more exciting than consuming it via your smart phone. You might be surprised to find that singing in a choir is a terrific way to experience community.

Likely you will find yourself thinking about God, and being open to his presence as you learn some of the hymns that were written so that you would have exactly that experience. Almost for sure you will have new experiences of musical harmony and tempo that will awaken awe or wonder.

I’ve learned to sing, and to play on guitar, many songs both in and out of church. All of that has been great. But maybe, growing up, I should not have condemned choir music in the process.

For those with ears to hear and a willing voice to sing, the choir can be a doorway – a portal into a world of beauty, God, faith and community we should not live without.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.