The Rough Guide to Contemporary Christian Music
puts his tongue firmly in cheek The Christian worship song is an interesting genre which had developed in its own way over the past few decades. The music scene has changed to suit the tastes (and attention span) of its audience. This development is also reflected in the wealth of 80’s–90’s worship songs which can be found in such compilations as the Spring Harvest songbooks or the Hymns and Songs of Fellowship books. Gone are the days when a hymn was written with a beautifully constructed melody that could entice the whole congregation into tremendous worship or deep reflection throughout all five or six verses. In the following Rough Guide, I am not knocking the enormous importance of modern songs in worship — as they are often of great spiritual and emotional encouragement — but I am generalising several points of interest which stand out on closer (musical) inspection.Six things you need to write modern worship songs:
The Christian worship song is an interesting genre which had developed in its own way over the past few decades. The music scene has changed to suit the tastes (and attention span) of its audience. This development is also reflected in the wealth of 80’s–90’s worship songs which can be found in such compilations as the Spring Harvest songbooks or the Hymns and Songs of Fellowship books. Gone are the days when a hymn was written with a beautifully constructed melody that could entice the whole congregation into tremendous worship or deep reflection throughout all five or six verses.
In the following Rough Guide, I am not knocking the enormous importance of modern songs in worship — as they are often of great spiritual and emotional encouragement — but I am generalising several points of interest which stand out on closer (musical) inspection.
Six things you need to write modern worship songs:
1) An Acoustic Guitar
Due to its portability and popularity, the guitar has appeared in many forms over the past few hundred years. It could be described as the main instrument in Christian music after the human voice and the pipe organ.
2) Three or four chords to repeat
With the necessity of mass-market worship songs, composers churn out hundreds of songs a year (although few are memorable). With worship songs, the lyrics are of most importance, with Bible quotations appearing often. To concentrate the ‘worshipper’ on the lyrics or song theme, the other components are treated with less importance. Through the use of the guitar, this has resulted in patterns of ‘easy’ guitar chords emerging in contemporary Christian music.
For example:
In G major: G C D (God, Christ, Domine Deo?)
In C major: C F G (Christ, Father, Ghost?)
Once you have selected your three or four chords you must repeat them. (No prizes if you name the song!)
Intro: G Am7 G D
Verse: G C G D G x4
Chorus: G Am7 G D x4
3) A theme or lyric to repeat
As faith is important in Christianity, the lyric “I believe” crops up regularly — as in the song “I believe in Jesus”, appearing about 12 times. However, this does not compare with the song ‘I believe’ by Andy Thornton and Doug Gay. This is a song which has five verses and features the above lyric 85 times! This memorable chorus goes:
“I believe.. I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe.”
4) A melody or rhythm to repeat
In addition to the above example of ‘I believe’, the most economic Christian melody (?!) Is that of ‘It’s Rising Up’, in which the verse has the notes E A B B and for the chorus the melody is purely E B E B E. Gripping huh?
5) A woolly jumper!
A must for all members of the flock …
6) An OHP with slides and pens! — For that great worship sesh!
Now you have the know how — go write a worship song! (It’s not really that easy!) I do believe, however, that we should worship God, who gave us music to start with — do so and enjoy it!