My experience with religion growing up was not very broad. I was raised as a Baptist Christian, and I have stuck with that my whole life.
In the Christian faith music is used for praise and worship. The song leader will usually stand up in front of the church and lead them in several songs or hymns. The whole congregation will sing along. This is done before the preaching occurs. I guess this is used to get you engaged before the sermon is preached. Some people in this faith believe that song is a form of talking, maybe even praying to God. In my church, we stuck to old hymns. The instrumentation was very simple. The instruments were as following: The grand piano, a couple guitars, a violin, a bass, a small organ, and a few brass players. No one is really in charge of the instruments, so there is sort of a strange assortment of them. There are not and rules to how you should perform in my experience. Sitting in my church literally drives me crazy, because we believe that it does not matter whether your good or not, because you are performing to praise God. I do agree with this concept. I also believe God gave certain people talent, so that the bad performers would not have to perform. Hahahaha:) It drives me insane to have to listen to trumpets out of tune, or the singers singing just a hair flat, etc. Thanks to Dr. Couch I now notice these things quite easily.
In my experience, Christianity somewhat influences what I find aesthetically pleasing in music. It makes the other acoustic music I have heard sound pleasing. Rock and Roll or Hardcore music is a completely different genre and sound. When I first heard music other than praise and worship I did not find it pleasing. Now that I have grown older and am experiencing more music outside of church I find it very satisfying. I love all different genres of music. I do not necessarily find them all to be my favorites but they do not sound unpleasing to me. Growing up in a strong Christian church that was full of so many people that just loved music, is the reason that I made such a connection to it. I learned at an early age that singing a praise song, if truly song from the heart, is like an experience you have never felt before. Imagine playing your favorite piece. You feel such a rush of emotions while playing it if you are truly throwing yourself into the song. Imagine singing a love song to your signigicant other. Imagine singing it with so much meaning behind every word that your emotions are stirred. I always felt such a connection to God when I would sing. I believe this happens because of the praise my religion sees in the link between Music and Religion.
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I found your blog very interesting! I am Episcopalian, and in my church we are "good" as you call it, although often times it seems more "restrained" and "confined" than anything. I enjoy churches that encourage free expression. The only point of contention that I have with this blog is the assertion that God made good singers so that bad ones did not have to perform (even though you were half-joking), because if the use of music is a vehicle in which to praise and worship God--than saying a bad singer should not perform is tantamount to saying that a bad singer should not be able to communicate with God. In the context of singing being a vehicle, it would not matter your natural talent simply your attempt. As you can probably tell, I am a bad singer. :) I am not the person you want sitting behind--or within any proximity to--you for that matter. I did enjoy your blog though and am glad that you enjoy your craft so much!
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