Friday, June 26, 2009

Talkin' Bout ....Pop Music (Friday Five)

OVer at RGBP we read
The sad news of Michael Jackson's untimely death has me thinking about music and its effects on us - individually, as cultures, as generations. Let's think about the soundtracks of our lives...
1) What sort of music did you listen to as a child - this would likely have been determined or influenced by your parents? Or perhaps your family wasn't musical...was the news the background? the radio? Singing around the piano? A variety of things. My father put many many vinyl albums onto cassette. But for years he refused to buy the albums on cassette, preferring to buy the record and then copy it. We had a spectrum that included Olivia Newton John, Jim Croce, Cat Stevens, Carpenters, Kingston Trio, Glenn Yarbough, ABBA. ANd then the bass section of the church choir was known to practice at our place as Christmas or Easter drew near (although this is more in my late teens)

2) Going ahead to teenage years, is there a song that says "high school" (or whatever it might've been called where you lived) to you? In grade 10 we had the "famine songs" (I always liked Britain's Do They Know It's Christmas and Canada's Tears are NOt enough far more than We Are the World). My high school years also carry the memory of pop/disco/dance music mixed with a dose of metal (my grade 9 class was sharply divided between in his point--especially on the question of Duran Duran). A listening to '80s rock always brings me back to those days--through the rose coloured lenses of memory of course.

3) What is your favorite music for a lift on a down day? (hint: go to www.pandora.com and type in a performer/composer...see what you come up with!) SOmething with a Celtic lilt or a country beat most often these days. Mind you I am still wondering how Jon BOn Jovi shows up on CMT or why country artists are covering pop/soft rock songs of my teen years.

4) Who is your favorite performer of all time? Honestly? I really don't have one. Mind you the total lack of concert attendance might account for that.... There are artists I like most of what they have done but no real favourite

5) What is your favorite style of music for worship? A mixture. Not fond of praise choruses. Not fond of a lot of classic hymnody. But some classic hymns I love (out of curiosity, what exactly makes a classic??) and certainly a lot of newer hymnody and worship music I love. And of course in part it depends where I am at on that particular day whether a piece speaks to me. In the interest of full disclosure I will note that choosing music for worship often forces me to use pieces I don't like, but of course worship planning isn't all about what I like/need/want is it?

2 comments:

  1. I think we were the same "grade" in school!

    and love your thoughts on worship planning. :)

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  2. Music is a form of art that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. It is normally expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture). Senna Gammour

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