The Problem with the Christian Music Industry

Michael Gungor is a singer-songwriter from Grammy-nominated group Gungor.

I’ve taken a lot of time off from this project, but this blog post by Michael Gungor compelled me to return to the keyboard.

In it, Gungor highlights some of what he terms problems within Contemporary Christian Music. While these are couched in theological terms, the piece touches on some interesting ethnomusicological ideas.

Atheists Ain’t Got No Songs

Here’s another example of atheist music, and one of my particular favourites because of its tongue-in-cheek self-referential humour.

What is ethnomusicology?

An excellent book of ethnomusicology case studies, Worlds of Music.

It occurs to me that most people are unfamiliar with ethnomusicology, which is the discipline in which my project is based; so I’m going to devote this post to a brief explanation of the field, and a bit about how and why I came to love it.

I’ve been performing classical music since an early age. Starting with piano lessons at age seven and oboe at twelve, I was well-versed in the culture of classical Western music (known as musicology) by the time I entered high school.

But I was always fascinated with ‘the other’.

Atheist Bands: Quiet Company

While I’m on this little journey through atheism and music, I thought it would be good to highlight some of the genuinely awesome atheist bands out there.

One of my all-time favourites is Quiet Company, partly because their journey is so compelling.

The Comfort of Four-Part Harmonies: Secular Hymns

Growing up, I went to a church that was fairly conservative (musically speaking). There was an organist or a pianist, and the whole congregation sang four-part hymns out of hymnals. This is one of my earliest memories of reading. Though my parents never professed to be musically gifted, my sister and I were encouraged from an early age with lessons on various instruments and myriad performing opportunities. Music was an integral part of my childhood, and thus the songs I was exposed to every Sunday shaped me.

As I grew older and studied music theory, I was educated in the structure of hymns like How Great Thou Art, Crown Him With Many Crowns, and It Is Well with My Soul. Perfect authentic, deceptive, and plagal cadences were the building-blocks of these songs that gave me so much comfort and I learned to read their code. Though I soon moved on in my studies to advanced concepts of atonality and arguing the existence of the harmonic minor, I always felt myself drawn to these lush harmonies.

They were, and are, a part of me. I instinctively feel the lead of the the notes and know where they will go, even separate from the mechanical knowledge I have. I love them, and I’ll still sing them occasionally when I’m alone in my car.

This presents an interesting dilemma as an atheist.