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I went to see Art Garfunkel at the Philharmonic Pops concert last Friday night. My company was the major sponsor for the event, so we got some free tickets (thanks guys!).

Anywho, Garfunkel is a legend and I enjoy the work of Simon and Garfunkel, so I was glad to get to go. His voice is wearing from age and at first I was a little concerned that he would be struggling through the whole concert, but overall, I was actually impressed. The bit of airey-ness in his tone couldn’t mask the fact that he has an unnaturally smooth high range and an impeccable ability to tell stories through his songs. Plus, he had some great musicians with him including a fabulous guitar player, Larry Saltzman. It was worth the trip just to hear the acoustic and electric guitar treatments Saltzman was able to bring out.

On the negative side, the whole first half of the concert was the Philharmonic playing three lengthy arrangements of musical theatre tunes. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed that the selections were not any more varied. It was like listening to the same medley over and over. I have to disagree with the cheery review given by the Oklahoman about this concert. I was very glad when the first half was over.

I like this song, and I really like this video. Catchy tune and very creative and deceptively simple visuals.

Last Sunday, I was waiting for our worship service to start and hanging out with all of the musicians who were playing and singing with me that day. We got into a very spirited conversation about the definition of music. Someone asked me what my definition of music is, and I didn’t have a good answer. But, I’ve been thinking about it and here’s what I’ve come up with:

“Music is a type of art that is primarily experienced through the sense of hearing.”

Essentially, I think that music is simply a subset of a larger category of “art.” The distinguishing characteristic of music is that it is aural in nature. This means that I believe it is possible for anything that is aural to be a part of music — instruments, spoken word, recordings of sounds from the physical world. Anything that you can hear can be music, but that doesn’t mean everything you hear is music. What makes the distinction? Well, it has to be art before it can be music.

Of course, this definition raises a deeper question — “what is art?” So, I had to think about that one for a while and here’s what I came up with:

“Art is any physical expression that is assigned meta-physical meaning by those who observe it.”

If you read the words of a legal contract, the meaning of that contract is likely confined to the meaning of the words themselves. However, if you read a poem, often you may find meaning in that poem that goes beyond the meaning of each individual word. That is meta-physical meaning — and I believe it is a requirement for a physical expression to be considered art.

However, I believe it is subjective. So, if I find meta-physical meaning in something, I can consider it art, even if no one else does. Well, then, isn’t the definition worthless? Not at all, because it is in the sharing of our interpretations with others that we, over time, come to concensus about what is generally considered to be art. There no absolutes of “this is art and this is absolutely not,” but there are general practices and standards which give us the ability to categorize, interpret and discuss art effectively.

That is what people mean when they say something is “more of an art than a science.” That is, they mean it’s not black and white, on or off — rather, there are many, many shades of gray.

We went to see “The Fantasticks” again last weekend, this time at the OKC Repertory Theatre company.  The company was pretty good, and of course the material itself is phenomenal. I was again marveled at the depth of insight contained in this script.

If you’ve never heard of The Fantasticks, it is the longest running musical theatre production of all time. I believe it has run for something like 42 years in New York. When you see it, you can understand why because its story is a metaphor about innocence versus experience that is timeless, ageless and universal.

Here are the lyrics to the production’s opening and closing song, “Try to Remember” (emphasis mine). Consider these and you’ll see what I mean:

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

(Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow)

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

(Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow)

Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,
Without a hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,
The fire of September that made us mellow.
Deep in December, our hearts should remember
And follow.

The capo often gets some flack amongst higher-end musicians and I think it’s about time someone came to its defense. The anti-capo argument often goes a little something like this:

“Why do you need a capo? Why not just learn to play in all of the keys?”

Makes sense, right? Well, only if you believe the capo’s sole job is transposition. What many who make this argument fail to appreciate, I think, is that use of the capo is often just as much about voicing and tone as it is about changing keys.

I am not a very good acoustic guitar player, but I can play in all of the keys. That’s because I know how to play bar chords which make it pretty simple to hammer out major and minor triads on pretty much any pitch. So, why use a capo? Because I am compelled by voicing.

Ask a piano player to play a G chord and you might get any number of results. Maybe a triad. Maybe four notes in each hand. Maybe adding the “2″ and leaving out the “3″. Pianists can make a G chord sound many different ways by the way they voice the chord.

Guitarists also like to have these voicing options, but the configuration of fingers on frets is a bit limiting. Like playing twister with your fingers, there are only so many different ways you can approach the neck without hurting yourself. So, what’s a guitarist to do? Well, some venture out into alternate tunings to provide some voicing variety. Others use capos. Some even use multiple capos in various configurations. In all cases, a guitarist is not simply cheating his way into a difficult key, but rather creating new ways to sound the chords.

One specific example revolves around open voicing chords. An open voicing chord is one in which at least one string on the guitar is left “open” and not fretted. Naturally you can see how an open voicing can only work on a single pitch since trying to move up and down the fretboard while leaving one or more strings open doesn’t work too well. That is, unless you use a capo. So, if you like the sound of the open voicing G but you want to play the song in B flat, then put a capo on fret three and listen to it ring.

I believe the capo is an absolutely essential accessory for the acoustic guitar. Just like a mute provides a brass player with a whole new world of tone possibilities, the capo does the same for the guitarist. And hey, sometimes brass players might just use the mute because they are not good enough to play soft without it. In the same way, acoustic players (including me) might sometimes use a capo to cheat into a difficult key.  Even so, mutes are still viable tools for brass instruments and capos are equally significant for the guitar.

There’s an enormous amount of dialog in the church world about worship style. Most of that dialog deals with trying to choose the one worship style that is best for a particular church or a particular service. Most likely, whether your church or service is highly modern or highly classic, you have a particular style that is consistent for that service from week to week.

I don’t hear a lot of dialog about the idea of diversity within a particular service from week to week. Why is that?

Well, that’s a rhetorical question because I can think of a lot of reasons why. I mean, it’s pretty tough to change things up every week. You have to have the right musicians, the right rehearsal schedule, and all of the other resources you need to create your experience.

So, I’m not proposing that worship services should be edgy one week and cathedral the next. But here are a few thing I have found to be effective in pushing the diversity envelope.

1. Rotating leaders. From the primary worship leader to the supporting musicians, I think it’s tremendous to rotate your worship leadership from week to week. The church where I help out does this and I love it. Not only is it great for the leaders who get rest and therefore have a better chance of avoiding burnout and staying fresh, I think it’s also great for the congregation because they don’t get attached to a personality. That way if “the one” is not there on a particular week, it doesn’t seem like a substitute, it’s just the way it is. Why not?
2. Changing instrumentation. Why not vary up the instrumentation from week to week. The same musician lineup will produce about the same sound. Why not make small changes from week to week and even try something way out of the box and uncomfortable every once and a while.
3. Using different songs. Probably the simplest form of diversification is just picking different songs. If you follow #1 and use different worship leaders, this will most likely happen automatically as each leader has a bent in a different direction. It’s tough to balance the use of different songs with the congregation’s need for consistency, but it’s a balancing act that I think is well worth the effort.

I just finished leading a worship service yesterday where I played piano and led the singing. The only other musicians were an acoustic double bass, aux percussion and two other vocalists. That’s it. The sound was dramatically different from what I’m used to and it was difficult for me. It stretched me and made me a bit uncomfortable.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, trying to determine if that’s a bad thing, and I don’t think it is. I believe that God works on us when we are outside of our comfort zones in so many ways. I don’t see why worship would be any different. I pray that yesterday’s service was as much a stretch for our congregation as it was for me, and that God can somehow use this element of diversity for his glory.

Most of the time, I judge the success of worship services by how good I feel about them. I just wonder if that is the right standard to be using. If it’s not, then no matter how I feel, I can never know the true impact of a service, so I shouldn’t worry about it. I should just do the best I can, humbly, to worship God and edify a community of believers.