by Jacob Lute
Introduction: The Communal Bond of Music
Most of us would readily admit that music plays a significant role in our personal lives; after all, we spend countless hours listening to music in our cars or through our earbuds. But how often do we consider the role it plays in our social and community lives?
I was raised in Southern Ohio where my family had a special affinity for college football, especially when The Ohio State University was on the field. On game days, I always found it interesting how everyone in the house would sing “Hang On, Sloopy” together with great enthusiasm and without any social inhibitions. While my experience is limited having only lived in Tennessee a few years, “Rocky Top” may instigate a similarly boisterous response among University of Tennessee fans. What social benefit comes from these outbreaks of corporate song?
Perhaps singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” would be a more broadly applicable example. When we hear this song, we are transported to the seventh inning stretch of a baseball game during which thousands of fans stand and sing together, engaging in a baseball tradition passed down since 1934. Weekly participation in congregational worship may desensitize Christians to the strangeness of mass groups of people acting in one accord and singing together in our modern world, but we must acknowledge that it is increasingly strange given the individualizing impulse of our age of AirPods and personally curated soundscapes.
Most of us would quickly acknowledge the profound impact and importance of music to our personal lives. We each have unique musical tastes and listening practices that shape our personal identity. However, our shared experience with “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” suggests that music shapes not only our personal identity but also our corporate, or communal, identity. The relationship between music and civic engagement is displayed through the significant influence thatmusic can exert on our sense of identity, community, and place.
Music is a powerful tool within human societies by which the intellectual, emotional, and moral lives of community members are positively impacted and shaped. Within ethnomusicology, a field fundamentally concerned with music in society, participation in the musical life of a community is said to be “often itself the primary context in which a community reproduces and transforms itself.”[1] In other words, a strong relationship exists between the musical activity and traditions of a community and the success of that community in maintaining its values and culture across successive generations. Music acts as a cultural leaven that works into the minds and hearts of participants, forming a sensitivity to the people and perspectives affiliated with a given community.
National Songs
On a national level, “The Star-Spangled Banner” provides a lingering example of this concept of cultural leaven as it relates to our sense of citizenship and patriotism within the United States. Patriotic songs have historically played a prominent role in the music curriculum of our public education system and have been used to instill a sense of citizenship and patriotism in students from a young age.[2] When I was in elementary school, each morning began with an assembly during which students would sing the national anthem and recite “The Pledge of Allegiance.”
During middle and high school, “The Pledge of Allegiance” was led each morning through the loudspeaker before classes began, and the national anthem was performed before school sporting events. A district-wide Veterans Day assembly highlighted this embedded patriotic disposition each year through musical performances of “My Country ’Tis Of Thee,” “God Bless The U.S.A.,” and “Armed Forces Salute” to honor veterans in various branches of the U.S. Military. Perhaps your childhood experiences were like my own.
Sadly, this patriotic musical practice is quickly fading in popularity. One journalist identified this trend in a 2016 article entitled, “As patriotic songs lose familiarity in public schools, do they still hold value?”[3] She interviewed fourth-grade students and discovered that, while they know “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” they did not know any of the other patriotic songs I have mentioned thus far. I wonder whether the increasingly polarized national and political landscape is partly a consequence of failing to transmit a particular musical-cultural understanding about civics and shared American ideals.
While few of us still start each morning with the patriotic rituals of our school years, “The Star-Spangled Banner” remains a vestige of that early musical practice that continues to inform our sense of place and belonging as citizens and residents of the United States. Standing, removing our caps, placing our hand over our hearts, and quietly singing along in response to the music is not a spontaneous or organic behavior. Rather, it is a corporate behavior taught and expected of members of the civic community. Whether we sing or assume the expected posture, we all participate in the performance through this ritual action, moving beyond the role of passive listeners and, thereby, appropriating the performance and its patriotic sentiment as our own.
Religious Songs
On a more localized level, the concept of music as cultural leaven in the hearts and minds of participants is similarly exemplified in the regular singing of specific songs at specific times. For instance, in chapel each morning at Welch College, the congregation opens its time together before God’s Word with singing “The Doxology.” The role of this historic hymn in community formation at Welch College begins during the first chapel service experienced by the incoming freshman. When new students first arrive on campus, the practice of standing as the organist introduces the first notes of “The Doxology” is unknown and uncomfortable. As students, faculty, and staff jointly stand in preparation to sing, new students may feel as though they missed some instruction as they uneasily observe and imitate those around them.
But before long standing and singing “The Doxology” from memory becomes an assumed response, unquestioned and valued as an integral part of chapel services. An intimate familiarity with and appreciation for “The Doxology” becomes part of the cultural inheritance shared by all Welch College alumni. Participation informs the corporate, or communal, identity of Welch students and, for the rest of their lives, the tune of “Old 100th” will remind them of the education received and commitments made during this season of Christian preparation.
Conclusions
As demonstrated through its role in the formation of communal identity on a Christian college, the sustaining of political unity within a nation, and the promotion of camaraderie within athletics, the effect of music expands beyond our personal lives into the realm of communal and civic life. I submit that music must continue to play such a public role, especially amid the societal fragmentation characteristic of our technological age. While we often approach music through the personalized lens of music preference, we must acknowledge the formative effect of music within the broader communities we inhabit.
This knowledge should lead us to engage in and embrace the longstanding human tradition of beautifying our environment and unifying our communities through inherited music practices that transcend personal taste. To do otherwise and minimize our inherited musical traditions in deference to individualized musical taste would inevitably diminish the very bonds that hold our communities together. In contrast, as we lean into our musical and cultural inheritances and zealously share them with the next generation, we create a context for lively and sustainable communities that effectively communicate and actuate shared cultural and theological values.
About the author: Jacob Lute is an Associate Pastor of Music and Discipleship in Pleasant View, Tennessee. He has an MA in Theology and Ministry from Welch College and is finishing an MM in Music Education from the University of Florida. Jacob spends his leisure time making music, reading, and spending time outdoors with his wife, Whitney.
[1] Carole Pegg, Philip V. Bohlman, Helen Myers, and Martin Stokes, “Ethnomusicology,” Grove Music Online (January 2001), https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.52178.
[2] For a historical construction of the social aims of music education throughout the nineteenth century, see Deanna Yerichuk, “‘Socialized music’: Historical formations of community music through social rationales,” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 13, no. 1 (March 2014): 126–54, http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Yerichuk13_1.pdf.
[3] Judith Kogan, “As patriotic songs lose familiarity in public schools, do they still hold value?” NPR, July 3, 2016, https://www.npr.org/2016/07/03/484563018/as-patriotic-songs-lose-familiarity-in-public-schools-do-they-still-hold-value.
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