Another country heard from

I haven't posted in in this blog for quite a while, but I was recently thinking about something that really only fits here.

I went to a small, church-related liberal arts college. Although I was a music education student, most of my classmates were church music students. Part of the church music curriculum was a class called Church Music Administration, for which one requirement was an extended essay to be entitled something like "My Philosophy of Church Music." I will resist the sort of judgment about my 21-year old, naive self, and what he might have written at the time. That would be too easy, and would likely amuse no one. However, I have recently started thinking about what I might write if I were given such an assignment now.

Henry Pfeiffer Chapel at
Pfeiffer College

First I must start with the value of music in our society. We live in a task-based society. At every level of education, professional achievement, and even recreation, very often people are evaluated--and evaluate themselves--on accomplishment rather than wisdom or experience. I do not wish to suggest this is bad, or that there are no cases where this is appropriate, but merely that this should be part of a spectrum. 

It is my belief that a person who is well rounded in experience and education might live a fuller, richer life. It is true that there have always been people who hadn't the time to think of such things because actually providing food and shelter for themselves and their families was so difficult. I know that this situation still exists in our society. What I find objectionable is that this sense of desperation pervades all levels of our society now. At every professional, education, and socio-economic level there seems to be a visceral need to accomplish ever more, gain ever more, amass ever more; rather than to enjoy life, to enjoy relationships, to enjoy the world, to enjoy beauty. Even in recreation and holiday, there is often a sense of failure if every moment is not filled with excitement or accomplishment, if one does not return from a vacation needing another vacation. To some, there is shame in resting.

I intend to write about the need for beauty in our lives, and because it is my field of specialty, beauty in music.  I shall start with a story I have shared before. I had a spiritual counseling session many years ago at a retreat, and I of course began with lots of intellect-based blather--always my natural defense when there is a fear I might actually feel something. But when we began talking about music, the fellow I was working with said I changed completely. My face, my tone of voice, my manner--everything. He told me of the St. Francis quote, "God, you are beauty." In effect, this spiritual counselor gave me permission to acknowledge beauty as my connection to the Divine. I would like to think everyone has a passion that creates that sort of change in visage, voice, and demeanor. I hope that passion is about beauty. 

I think it would be difficult to find someone who does not enjoy music--although such people exist--but I think it would be very easy to find people who know little outside the musics they are familiar with. And there are many who are suspicious of what they don't know. I think it is the job of any serious musician to offer beauty, solace, balm, if you will, in the form of music the audience knows, but also to offer new experience in exposure to music the audience doesn't yet know. I think this is true of the performing musician in the concert hall and the church musician in the choir loft. 

Another view of the
Henry Pfeiffer Chapel,
home of the Pfeiffer College
music programs

To come back to my original intent, which is to elaborate on my own vision of church music, I will repeat that music is a way to connect to the Divine. Everyone experiences music in his or her own way, whether it is inspiration because of the beauty of what one is hearing, or perhaps a tear because of memories a particular piece of music brings to mind, or excitement over hearing something totally new. The experience will be different each time. 

The experience of making music also builds community. A sense of belonging, of being able to contribute in some way. A feeling of family. To this day, my closest friends are those with whom I made music many years ago. There is a great beauty in the shared intent of a choir singing music intended to praise our God. There is also the value of shared experience in learning new music, in overcoming challenges, in expanding skills.

As a music education student, I gave a tremendous amount of attention to the question of using what we call sacred music in public schools, and I concluded that understanding the culture and worldview that influenced the composer is of great value. In the public schools, learning about other times and other cultures alongside the experience of beautiful music is a very worthy goal. In church music, it is the same.  

In summary, I approach church music from many different angles--as a practicing musician of skill and taste, of course, but also as an educator, a historian, a social scientist. I am not a theologian, but I will discuss for hours what we think "Et incarnatus est" meant to Bach and Mozart and Stravinsky and Bill & Gloria Gaither. As a church musician it would not be my job to preach the Word. It would be my job to show people new and exciting ways to understand it.

I'm not a grammar Nazi. Really, I'm not!

Nowadays people are wont to state that they speak or dress or act in a way to express their own unique personalities. Who am I to question that? I'll tell you who I am--I'm a cranky, middle-aged man with an education and too much free time!

In speaking and writing, common usage becomes popular usage, and popular expressions of yesteryear (such as "is wont to") are forgotten. Grammar is a descriptive study, not prescriptive. There is no right or wrong in grammar, no matter how stupid someone sounds. This is not, however, license for a linguistic free-for-all. While grammar may not be prescriptive, style is. One doesn't write a cover letter in the same way one would write a Facebook post. One doesn't write a notice to building residents in the same way as a letter to one's grandmother. (If people still write letters to their grandmothers.)

I won't go into style too much, because I'm really more eager to list the language errors that make me crazy:

• "No pun intended." More often than not, no pun has occurred. Wikipedia defines a pun as "...a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect." The most common form of pun is when a word could be confused with another with the same pronunciation, or a homophone. Examples include the title of the old music hall song, "She sits among the cabbages and peas," and the quote attributed to George Carlin, "Atheism is a non-prophet institution." Other forms of word play are not puns! (This is closely related to the misuse of the word "acronym") 
• Dangling participles. They're not so much annoying as amusing, because one finds them in the speech and writing of some very highly educated people. By definition, a dangling participle is a verb form (a participle) used as a modifier, where the word order or sentence structure leaves doubt about who or what is being modified. A simple example is, "Hiding beneath the table, the boy found the cat." Was the boy or the cat hiding beneath the table?  
• "It just so happens"  "So" is a pronoun, meaning it stands in for another word or phrase. "So" usually stands in for a condition or occurrence in sentences like this. In this case, if the occurrence or condition has not been mentioned previously, the correct usage would be, "It [just] happens that [condition or occurrence]," or a simple statement of the condition or occurrence. Mention of the condition or occurrence might sometimes have an element of longing to it, such as, "I really wish that [condition or occurrence]." In this case, one might say, "Well, it just so happens!"
• "They" or "their" for third person singular. Yes, I know Shakespeare did it, and I know there's no escaping it, but I avoid it like the plague. Politically and socially I am a feminist, but linguistically I long for the old days, when people were OK with the use of "he" when the sex of the person discussed was unknown.  (This also brings up the use of "sex" or "gender"--they're not synonyms, people!  Use your dictionaries!)
• Misuse of commas. I wrote once about appositives, but apparently I wasn't very convincing, because people are still making errors, e.g., "Blogger, Taminophile to speak at the United Nations"
• Rule no. 1: If the second word or phrase, known as the appositive, is necessary for the sentence to have meaning, you don't need commas. If the sentence stands alone without it just fine, you do.  
• Rule no. 2: I can not stress this enough-- Regardless of whether you heed Rule no. 1, if you use a comma before the second word or phrase, use a comma after it.

Consider the headline mentioned above: "Blogger, Taminophile to speak at the United Nations".  "Taminophile" modifies "blogger", and is necessary for the meaning of the sentence to be clear: "Blogger to speak at the United Nations!" does not carry the same meaning. If the meaning is not completely clear without the second word, then you don't need commas.  The correct headline would be, "Blogger Taminophile to speak at the United Nations".

However, in the sentence, "Taminophile, local blogger, to speak at the United Nations" the sentence would make complete sense if either "Taminophile" or "local blogger" were removed:  "Local blogger to speak at the United Nations" makes sense. If the meaning is clear without the second word, then you do need commas.  

There are other, more simple errors like using quotes or upper-case letters for emphasis, the obvious "there/they're/their" and "to/too", and other such mistakes. But I've already made my point. I don't expect the world to be a better place if you take my linguistic advice, but it might be a less harsh for sensitive types like me.

Addendum:
Forever.  A totally superfluous adverb in most cases.  "His life was changed forever."  As opposed to changed temporarily? The very nature of the verb "to change" implies some permanence unless a modifier contradicts that. Unless you're singing Handel choruses, you could easily live your life without using "forever" and not see a noticeable difference. You could give it up forever.