We do these songs every week, and others from the wider reaches of the gospel genre. Like Jerry we have learned from many styles as we have soaked up the work of those who have gone before us. I think right now I have about 3,000 gospel tune files (MIDI, MP3, CD cuts, and so forth), on my hard drive. When I cam casting about for a new song or two for the week, I love to bring up the same song done as many different ways as I can, before I even start to learn the text. But it will not come out, when I do the piece, "like them." And I would not want it to. That was THEIR work... now I must begin my own.

Jerry's group, The Gospel Messengers, must know this, too, for you hear the truth in their singing, not an imitation of some earlier recorded truth. And as knowlegable as Jerry is about many of the details, ultimately these details do not define the event of singing or hearing gospel music. If you look for them to do that, you will miss the boat.

In our case, what seems to happen, no matter how we first heard a song and learned it, is that the spirit of truth brings it into a rendition that is true for us, that day, with that group of people. It's different every time we do it... what we do is just soak up ALL the ways these songs have been done, often listening to multiple versions from multiple styles and eras. And then we let them happen however they happen in worship, with just a brief rehearsal.

The source being what it is, and the object being what it is, make the interpreter less important then the event of sharing them with one another. I think the stylistic details are good to look at, because we can then apply them to songs we may know in one style, and put them in another style. (For example, I have a slow, wailing, spirituals-sounding version of "I went down to the river to pray" that I have never heard done that way, and that would not bring Alison Krauss to mind at all, tho it is her version that made me fall in love with the piece first.) And the words to describe the details come in handy when you rehearse a group to do them.

But before that can happen authentically, you have to have soaked up enough of others' good work, and run it through your own internal stylerizer, for it to come out sounding less than pretentious.... you have to relax and let the song be the song, and let the techniques go compeletly, or you are not letting them be part of the spirit they are meant to touch.

Many of you know and experience what I am talking about. I guess I am saying, if you do not experience it that way, I would say you aren't ready to perform these yet... that you WILL be able to do them that way, if you let the songs do thjeir work, and that it is worth the wait for the experience you will have and share with others.


Wish I had time to say more.... we have learned a lot from leading weekly worship with this material. But this week I am making a mixed-styles Advent songbook, and I gotta have it ready by Saturday night! *G* I just finished the people's wordbook, but I have not even started the players' arrangements!

~Susan