Colour Your Music (A)

Colour Your Music (A)

Imagine a world where everything you see is black and white. Wouldn't it be a little dull? But wait, lets go further and try to make it even worse.

Now, imagine the black and white that you see has no shading. By no shading I mean that we cannot detect the darker tone parts (that are away from light) from the lighter tone parts (that are expose to more light). Suddenly, we lose all sense of dimension. Everything is reduced to 1 tone. There seems to be less liveliness. Nothing seems appealing to the sight anymore. Nothing seems real.

If you cannot imagine the above then try to imagine yourself being locked up in an asylum where the 4 walls, ceiling and floor are all bright white and your clothes are as white as the cell. Even if you were sane, you will no longer stay sane after a while.

Lets look at the other extreme. Imagine that your house is painted (inside and outside) luminous green, bright blue, purple, bright pink, yellow, blood red, brown, dark green, olive green, and then your furniture are of contrasting thematic designs and random colours. Now that will be quite a scene. How gaudy!

Alright. Let us come back to reality. Now take a good look at nature - mother nature. Let us take some time to admire God's art work. Everything is in perfect order and has its purpose and its unique colour. Notice how God blends the colours so well that no honest man can look at it and say "Yucks, Mother Nature is so ugly. The colours just don't match!" Even a blade of grass has many different tones of green. We can justly say that God is an Artist of the highest calibre and has a divinely perfect taste for beauty. He doesn't make mistakes.

Thank God that we inherited His artistic talents since we are made in His Image. Therefore, we as humans do have potential don't we? Except the fact that we do make mistakes from time to time - GOD doesn't.

So far we have discussed Visual Arts (The Optical). What about Audio Arts (The Musical)? By Audio Arts I mean Music. Music have colours too.

We must shade our music with darker and lighter tones in various colours which compliment each other (otherwise it can be pretty gaudy like the imaginary house which I discussed in the 4th paragraph).

We need to be wise in selecting our musical colours, shading and tone.

ie: Phrasing, dynamics, expression, accentuation, decoration and etc.

We also need the right "brush" and right technique to create the desired "brush strokes" in order to bring out certain descriptive effects (brush strokes can equate to touch in music - but we shall discuss touch another time)


But how exactly do we colour our music?
Do we know when, where and how to shade and colour our music so that it becomes 3 dimensional/real (as oppose to the 1 dimension scenario in paragraph 1)and thus put "life" into the music we play? Once there is "life" in the music, then we can successfully use the language of music *(please refer to my first posting) to communicate effectively -- To communicate what the music is trying to say so that it transcends the human soul and heighten the level and intensity of our worship.

As taken from the LITURGICAL CATECHESIS FOR LAITY ON THE GIRM:

1) "Putting our prayer into music not only helps to unite us in the prayer we make, it also gives a unique expression to our prayer that words alone cannot achieve."

2) "In a poetic way, the Instruction notes that the intense union between God and the Church in the celebration of the Eucharist can be described as a union between lovers whose nature is best expressed in song (GIRM 39) As we gather to hear God's word, to eat the Bread of Life and drink from the Cup of Salvation, our prayer (in song) must reflect the joy and depth of this profound mystery of faith. In doing so, we can follow the instruction of St. Paul, who told the Church to 'sing together psalms, hymns and spiritual songs' (Col 3:16) as we wait for the coming in glory of the one whose death we proclaim."

3. "GIRM 39 - one who sings prays twice."

4. "Our singing is our prayer."

So to really reflect the joy and depth of this profound mystery of faith, we ought to have the right kind of music (singing included) OR the right/appropriate way of playing them in order to achieve this effect.

Therefore, to colour your music and shade them well with various tone colour is one of the ways how we can hope to achieve this. With this understanding, we again come back to the disturbing question:

Do we know when, where and how to shade and colour our music? In other words, Do we know when, where and how to phrase our music, use the different dynamics, express, accentuate and decorate our music?

Failing to do so results in
Gaudy music = Loudness, laud, noisy, distortion, inbalances,
crowdedness, unsoothing and etc
Dull music = Mono-tone, lifeless, uncommitted, lacking in direction,
inexpressive and etc

We need to come together in our practice sessions to figure that out in each and every song we play. Those who feel that they need to upgrade their skills and enhance their musical knowledge & develope critical ear are encouraged to do so.

Let us ask God to help us on this. Let us also ask Him to show us the way in how we can learn to colour our music well. Above all, let us do this so that we can heighten the level of worship befitting for a King. What we do in our music do affect the congregation. Help us O Lord to fulfill what we as music ministers are set out to do in the first place according to the GIRM for Your Glory and Yours only. We pray for unity in our cause to provide music for Your Chruch and people. Teach us to love one another despite all our own short comings & imperfections. Help us to provide a prayerful atmosphere for our fellow parishioners. Let us Worship you in one voice, one heart and one song. Amen.