Creative Lament

That would be me on the right, and for the record, I do not play...I sing and tinker with instruements in the percusssion family. The guy with the musical chops is Mark J. McAlister on the left.

Greetings All! I came across the music discussion Courtney and Kent launched on 90&9 right in the middle of recording a project, in which we were attempting to respond to what I will call the AP “Creative Lament.” The Lament is multi-directional, so I will attempt in this blog to explore a few of them. The most challenging is “breaking out of the box” without “breaking out of Apostolic norms.” Musical tastes can be a very volatile lightning rod, and yet sticking to a particular norm can also get boring. Let me attempt a coherent trajectory…

The current state (although as Courtney notes, we are improving a bit) of AP music seems to cater to a much formulized pattern, and I think I understand why. There is what appears to be a rejection of certain types of tones, tambers, styles, and voicings, so that our musical horizons are truncated. I think it is safe to say the southern gospel and traditional forms of music are the popular and “safe” offerings, and everything else is categorized as contemporary. AND even the contemporary forms take on a very “cookie cutter”, formulized formulae, in both music and packaging, that yell!, “I’m stale with not much interest, and with the exception of the nature of my individualized voice, I sound like all the other products available and my picture is in front of the cover in front of a mansion or tree or on a rock or leaning against a telephone pole….” Oh, boy…I just stepped in it, as I have branded every AP artist and at the same time put a bull’s eye on myself like Gary Larsen’s birth marked deer. I am not being arrogant or condescending…only presenting a humble opinion (and I hope you have a sense of humor and hyperbole).

The why(?) answer to the formulized pattern of music follows…and it is often unstated. It is a desire to remain in the AP norm without becoming too macrocosm friendly, which is a euphemistic term for “wordly.”…and I’m not making fun of it. What happens, correct me if I’m wrong, artists that do attempt to “break out of the box” do it with dull sensibilities. They either are too far out there musically(let’s throw in some Metallica sounding angst),or graphically (let’s make a push to look and act like the funked out new Christian super group with the tats and lip rings), so that any kind of creativity gets the big slap down and retreat is made back to “I bought this cd because I know him/her, but it will probably never get out of the shrink wrap, or it might only get one play through, because I’ve heard these songs before and the group that sang it originally does a better job - with better musicianship.” Praise God!

I think it is a reasonable desire to broaden our horizons musically, and it must be done by

1) Keep an anointing in it, as well as fresh and original offerings,

2) Have a cognizant understanding of the influence of certain types of music and the lifestyle embedded therein,(veering away from patterning yet open and tasteful with the huge library we call "music,"

3) AND understand the context in which we are presenting the material.

Sounds good in theory…can it be played out in the real world?

Ok, I'm listening.

I’m listening to Mike Farris’ “Salvation in Lights”
Just read “The Dip” by Seth Godin and I’m working my way through Mark and Proverbs