I’m having to change my mind about something at the moment, which is always uncomfortable, but I’m encouraged that at least I’m not as stuck in the mud as I often think I appear.
I wrote an article last year moaning that many of today’s songwriters write songs more for an audience than a congregation. Their songs sound good on CD, YouTube or MP3, but are often difficult to sing by congregations and even more difficult to play by musicians. Even I get intimidated by some songs that take up three or more pages of sheet music, and have so much syncopation that it’s difficult to tell what are notes and what are bits of squashed daddy long-legs.
Old-school
I’m old-school in the way I look at songs musically. If it looks simple on the page and has an easy tune to pick up without being simplistic, then I’ll give it a go and it’ll usually be picked up by the congregation. I don’t listen to MP3s or CDs of the latest Christian songs, partly because I don’t listen to much music anyway, but also because I’m wary that a CD can ‘sell’ a song to you by making it sound easier to sing than it actually is.
