‘… the voice of prayer is never silent, / nor dies the strain of praise away.’ So Christians have sung in the beautiful evening hymn picturing the sun’s rise and set over ‘each continent and island.’ But now, alarmingly it has died away – the praise – and not only from churches. Choirs, chorales, soloists, gigs – every voice raised in song has been silenced. Valiant attempts to keep melody alive by living-room Zoom have failed to synchronise and satisfy. A new concept, ‘droplets’, is employed in efforts to keep us fearful, tuneless, barely audible, mumbling behind a mask.
Some of us are luckier in our locations than others. On a warm and sunny Easter Sunday, shut out of church, I was off early walking (allowed) on trodden paths alongside vast barley fields, where everywhere the Earth’s message was: ‘Now the green blade riseth’. Beside a stream lined with newly leaved oaks I checked that not even a dog-walker was about, sang the triumphant Easter hymns to the blackbirds, and walked on.
Why does it matter, this singing? The human urge to sing is arguably more deeply embedded even than communication in the speaking voice alone. So the concept of cosmic harmony can appear quite naturally in religious thought as praise, with the ‘radiant orbs’ – ‘for ever singing as they shine, / the hand that made us is divine.’ In some religious traditions silence is the ideal, and musical expression in song proscribed as inimical to true worship. It takes a Hildegard of Bingen to power a way through that particular prejudice, letting the pure voice rise high in praise, and a female voice at that. At its worst, repression of singing can leave all pretence of rationality behind, as depicted heart-rendingly in the film ‘Timbuktu’.
Less extreme, but still disturbing, is the suspicion with which some of my fellow Scots have traditionally regarded music, vocal and instrumental. I encountered this as a student, sharing a flat with a graduate student from the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, who believed there was too much danger of self-love in solo singing, even in church, and an organist on the ‘kist o’ whistles’ could easily be ‘worshipping the instrument’.
In contrast, Sir Billy Connolly, whose first career, following a shipyard apprenticeship, was as a respected folksinger, hilariously recalls his primary teacher’s efforts with ‘musical appreciation’ – ‘You Connolly, appreciate!’ – and her less than appreciated persistence with the ‘step we gaily’ progress to Marie’s Wedding. Scottishness has influenced Christian hymnography too – though I find it difficult to sing John Bell’s ‘Will you come and follow me?’ to the romantic wooing tune of Kelvingrove.
When people say they ‘can’t sing’, they are usually expressing fear. They have been shamed and told to shut up. I’ve always tried with people who ‘can’t sing’ or are ‘tone deaf’ to prove them wrong. Most admit they do quite well in the shower, aided by the steamy atmosphere. Any early years teacher will agree that you don’t get a class to sing tunefully together till around 7 years, and the ‘ear’ develops at different stages with different children.
My case for ‘everyone singing’ is simple: singing is good for every aspect of a person. Almost everyone can sing in some way. Singing is known to aid sufferers from stammering and aphasia. Singing needs controlled breathing, and almost everyone benefits from such exercises.
So much for the act of singing, what of the song? Milton is right of course that ‘God doth not need / either man’s work or his own gifts’. And that obviously would include our musical praise. Thoughtful Christians with their respect for ‘concord of sweet sounds’ have always been aware of this fine line. The excesses of the Book of Revelation are just that: extravaganzas of Holy holy holy, which give choral voice to the saints’ love for God but are not ‘necessary’. The evidence for those who spread the gospel of Jesus, however, is that evangelism has been most effective worldwide where the words and music of praise have been adapted to accord with local musical traditions. To hear the Tamil congregation raise the roof in New Delhi’s Cathedral of the Holy Spirit is unforgettable.
Back home in Suffolk I walked into the beautiful church of St Peter and Paul in Clare on the Sunday morning after the imposing locked gates were finally opened. The vicar was bustling about arranging a ‘plague church’ with some ladies, and obviously too busy to greet a visitor. I asked one of the ladies about the service and she said yes there was one, but would I please move back beyond some invisible line. ‘Will we get to sing?’ I asked, knowing the answer, which I got, and left. Closing the big wooden door I stood in the porch and sang Bunyan’s great hymn. Finding a coffee at last at a stall in the Country Park, I was still humming ‘to be a pilgrim’ and was joined by the tea lady and a man on a chair. ‘We sang that in assembly,’ said the lady. The man said he’d been to church, at the nearby Clare Priory, with his wife. ‘Did you sing there?’ ‘No, it was depressing, we were all told to sit on our own. Sing ‘Amazing Grace?’ So I did, as my coffee cooled.
In my current study of the medieval South Indian protest movement of the ‘bhakti saints’ in their opposition to restrictive Brahminism, one voice speaks particularly to our songless situation – that of Basavanna. Standing for equality, social justice, the status of women – ideas that were just as important to him in the 12th century AD as to those who think they invented them yesterday, this poet gets as close as is possible to the singing voice of worship. He and his fellow poets in their bhakti (devotion) were one with the philosophers in believing that singing opened the heart to God. Without pretending to know ‘anything like time-beats and metre, nor the arithmetic of strings and drums, I don’t know the count of iamb or dactyl’, Basavanna sings to his ‘only one God, my Lord of the meeting rivers.’ As A.K. Ramanujan says: ‘It is not even he that sings: the Lord sings through him.’
I hope Cantilena will soon be singing once more, though the future for our hundreds of choirs is not bright. What a moment it will be, however, if we can end our concert with Finzi’s irrepressible soaring up the scale in ‘My spirit sang all day’. Unless we raise our voices now, for our music and our whole culture, the kairos might pass. Till then, with Basavanna: ‘I’ll sing as I love’.
Alison McRobb is a former Chair of SOF, devoted to sound education in theology, particularly in Christian and Hindu traditions. Extras include choral singing, piano playing and painting. She is also the invaluable proof reader of Sofia.