Start Talking!
An article to National Church Music Australia by Ralph Morton
Way back in my past, I spent some time as an organist in a Jewish temple in Los Angeles. At one Friday evening service the rabbi brought in an expert on education who happened to be Jewish. The expert described some contemporary trends in modern secular education and then compared it with the Temple School which trained (mostly) Jewish boys on Saturday mornings for their bar mitzvah.
Such education was very conservative and had been conducted in much the same way for centuries. It consisted basically of teaching the boy to read sections of the Sabbath service and the Torah in Hebrew. If the boy was very bright he might learn to read and write Hebrew fairly fluently, and be able to say and chant virtually all of the service. But that was too much for many boys and often the student might learn just a little Hebrew and say just a few sections of the service. In such case the method used was basically repetitive rote learning as a teacher said a phrase and the boy repeated it!
Towards the end of his presentation the expert said “you might think that I am about to criticise Hebrew education and suggest that it should be updated and modernised. But I am not. There are important values in this kind of education. We have always been “out-of-step” in some ways with the rest of the world. Let's leave it the way it is”.
I often think of this statement when I am thinking about publicity and advertising. As Church musicians we do a lot of this. Whether we are giving information concerning special services, concerts, choral festivals, organ recitals, or simply looking for new members for the choir or another organist or a cantor, we are involved in advertising and publicity. In this wonderful world of high technology, we need to use every means at our disposal. So it is important to advertise with news releases to newspapers and radio stations, with e-mail and websites, with well designed brochures and flyers, with bright looking posters at church and the shopping centre, with creatively worded information in church bulletins and so on.
One of our RSCM activities in Queensland this year is being advertised on Facebook. (If you don’t know what this means ask your son or daughter!). The secular world shouts very loudly, and we need to shout as loudly and effectively as it does simply to be heard.
But let’s also use methods which appear “out-of-step” with the “switched on wireless world” we live in - just like the Jewish education I spoke about. We forget that all of this advertising informs but does not commit. Informing people of the concert is the first step (and absolutely imperative). But people generally don’t come to a concert unless somehow you commit them to come. And commitment is generally achieved (at least as far as choral and church music events are concerned) by good old fashioned “asking”.
Despite our insatiable desire for technology, we still crave warmth, friendship personal interaction and conversation. We are always more likely to join a choir or attend a concert if some-one asks us, than seeing a thousand items in print or on a website. From my time in Los Angeles I remember reading a survey that asked new members of a large range of churches and denominations why they first came to the church they later joined. A whole range of possible options were suggested – great sermons, ease of transport, better music, nice architecture, likeable priest, good Bible studies, liturgical services etc, etc. But an astounding 90+% said they first came because some-one asked them!
So for your next organ or choir recital or service of lessons and carols, or special Easter Service, make sure you do the “you beaut” wonderful high tech advertising, but also make sure you are asking people to come, and so are your choristers.
Which brings me to a certain problem!
RSCM Qld hosts the annual RSCM Summer School from 3-11 January next year. The organising committee is planning a splendid event – actually a handful of concurrent summer schools rather than a single one, with all the events and ethos of the traditional one and much more. It will be called International Festival of Sacred Music (54th RSCM annual Summer School) to reflect both its honouring of the RSCM Summer School traditions as well as travelling in some new directions. If you are reading this article you already know about it. There was information in the last CMA, and those at the Dunedin Summer School in January received a brochure.
But have you started talking about it to your choir? Do the other organists in your church know about it? And how about your clergy and your cantors? What about the young people in your church who might come to the youth course, or begin a life time of service as church organist as the result of attendance at a Summer School? Will someone in your state take a few minutes at your church’s synod or other governing body to talk about church music and the RSCM? Sure there is more information still to come, but people often need to hear about things several times and at several levels. The detailed information will be released soon.
And what about those who are outside the immediate orbit of RSCM and church music – the people who are in a sense “fellow travellers” with the church. They sing sacred music in your community choir, or teach at least some sacred music in music courses at secondary school (you can’t talk about a lot of the history of music without talking about sacred music!), or conduct it in the school choir, or sing it there. They may not be church musicians or even Christian yet, but perhaps they are halfway there. Why not invite them to a sacred music festival?
So what’s the problem I alluded to? The Queensland Committee can’t talk to all of these people face to face. We have to rely on you. Start talking!
Ralph Morton
Chair Queensland RSCM Branch |
