In my high school choir, like most, we do a lot of Christian music, especially for our annual Winter concert. I’d like to argue that us atheists shouldn’t have to sing this stuff, or listen to it, at a public school. But the truth is that people like hearing Christmas songs, and if we really didn’t do any songs that mentioned God, there’d be much less music for us to choose from. Besides, we also do a lot of Hannukah songs, and quite a few songs that have nothing to do with any religion (especially for our concerts which happen later in the year), which kind of balances it out, I suppose. So I’m not that bothered by it. And I’m not trying to start a debate. If you do want to debate the issue of religious songs in public schools, please post a link here to the (probably GD) thread.
Anyway, I am curious if there are any songs out there (that would be feasible for a high school choir) from other religions, that I could try to convince our choral director to consider. Do Muslims have any traditional songs they sing on certain holidays? Buddhists? Satanists? Strange religions I’ve never heard of? Does anyone know?
There are a few exceptions, but the problem is that other religious music is, by and large, either monophonous or chromatic. Christian choral music was derived from Jewish choral music, and ever more complex harmonies were added in conjunction with the development of musical notation — a development spearheaded by Christian monasteries. It was difficult enough to pass down simple melodies from generation to generation, but passing down harmonies was especially difficult. (Consider the famous gossip game; melody is subject to the same sort of morphing.) Once they had a satisfactory musical notation, they began to develop the beautiful harmonies you hear today, because now they could write them down and pass them on. You can find Muslim choral music of a sort, such as that sung by the Mandailing, but I’m not sure you’d be satisfied with it, and it is rather incomplete without its drums and dance. The only Indian “choral” music I’m aware of is from the northwest coast, but again, I don’t think it’s really what you’re looking for. It is polyphonous, but would likely sound “weird” to you.
How about Western music settings of the texts of other religions? There must be some. My knowledge of this is admittedly very limited. The only ones I know of are by Gustav Holst, the composer of The Planets. He wrote Hymns from the Rig Veda and Hymn to Dionysius. However, those particular works may be beyond the capability of a high school ensemble.
Most neopagan Winter Solstice or Yule songs are simply Christian songs with the lyrics uncomfortably mangled and contorted into PC drivel. Or they’re droning chants of two lines which are sung off-key by drunken revelers, usually in a minor key - which is somewhat diminished by the end.
(Oops, did I say that out loud?)
The one thing I truly, madly, deeply miss about Christianity is the beautiful music.
Are you a good choir? Really good? Try some madrigal stuff. While often Christian in origin, hardly anyone in your audience will be able to tell. The main words in madrigals are “La” and “Laaaa”, but there are some really fun interweaving melodies* happening, and it sounds like holiday music without mentioning JC.
*watsit called when there’s two or more distinct melodies and not a melody and a harmony? Is that just polyphony? I thought it had a sexier name, but I forget… [/hijack]
Counterpoint is polyphony. ‘Polyphony’ just means multiple threads sounding at once. It includes counterpoint, but also includes other tonal and non-tonal systems.
Yeah I know. The only reason I separate the two is because counterpoint tends to imply some sort of systemized approach to polyphony. That is, in my experience polyphony is “usually” used to describe pre-baroque music, and counterpoint is used to describe music from the baroque on. But this may have just been a quirk of where I studied.
