Music and Religion

I have attended many different religious settings where each place of worship had a different type of music. I believe that to one extreme, music goes hand in hand with spiritual worship. Music and religion have one thing in common, they are intangible. Music connects people through emotion and senses.

I will tell you some of my personal experiences with music and religion. I have always been playing at a big community church down the street from my house called Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian. I was in the youth choir during my younger years, as well as the instrumental ensemble they offered. I shared music with brass instruments and wind instruments, as well as other string instruments. We, of course, would play for the Easter and Christmas services, usually receiving some sort of reward when we were done. Being a musician myself, I think it is safe to say that my emotions are stronger when I am the one playing my instrument than just being the one listening to the music. This past Christmas service, we had a new music director. He cut the instrumentalists and there was not a lot of music during the service. Standing in the pew singing along with others was great, but it affected me in a different way.
When I am not playing in church, I am usually not there. I attend a service at the Charleston Tibetan Society. There is a long-time practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism who leads the worship. We sit on little throw pillows on the floor. He starts by leading us all in a meditation chant. This is an incredible experience and there are no instruments producing the music. It is all sung by the human voice. People express themselves and use their vocal chords to do so. In this sort of religious setting, I feel like music symbolizes unity within a religion between the gods and the people. Singing a meditation in unison is expressing the belief in that specific worship place.

On the other extreme, I believe that there is music written out there that does not however belong in the church. This does not mean it is less spiritual to the person who wrote it. It is just more personal.

As far as connecting world music to world religion, I have to state that music is like an expression of the soul. And if you really believe in something such as a higher power, then it is all in your right to meaningfully express to that higher being through music and through your soul.

That is my sermon for today.