Classical Reform is the term used to denote the original, must MUCH more liberal form of Reform when it was developed in the 1800s (and often tried to emulate Christianity). I can’t remember all the details here (I could look them up if you like), but the Reform movement shifted a great deal in the 1950s, after the Holocaust - the movement was founded in Germany and was made up primarily of German Jews who just LOVED Germany, and all of their pro-German stuff didn’t sit well with American Reformim anymore.
Huh.
I go to the big original Vineyard in Anaheim, CA. They’ve make quite a buck (well, the technically non-affiliated record company has) off worship albums. I love going there. The band is strictly top notch. They’ll have a 9 piece band many times: 2 acoustic guitars, electric lead guitar, bass guitar, synth, grand piano, drums, bongos, sax/woodwinds.
Getting into one of the service-playing bands is quite a feat. Some of those people are musician-for-hire as a fulltime job. All of them are semi-pro at least in the sense that they have been playing for many years and have been on some albums. Some of them have music degrees.
The point to me is that they are very good. They never mess up, they sound tight, they’re well mixed, they can stretch out a jam if they feel like (and they like to sometimes after the closing song), and they can write good re-arrangements, including hymns that lose the dirge-i-ness. This all is good because I don’t get distracted by bad music. I don’t hear the drums being cheesy electronic pads from 15 years ago, the singers hit all the notes and in good tone, the piano is filling in very tastefully.
I’ve been there so long that many times when I attend another church I have to literally take a deep breath and chant in my head, “Just deal with it”. The music is perfunctory and I don’t believe the passion of the musicians. The whole thing seems to be happening only because “this is the time when tradition says we’re supposed to sing.” It seems that they picked the musicians by seeing who could learn the chords and be on time. They then sing for about 15 minutes, which is just enough time to change your mood from driving in, and then they stop. Urrgghh.