From wayoflife.org/database/analyzing_adapted_ccm_songs.html In reality, this piece as performed by Lancaster Baptist is pure CCM. It has the seductive soft rock rhythm, the sensual scooping and sliding voice technique, the cameras panning and highlighting the musicians, the non-resolving cadence, the shallow, non-convicting message, and the repetition (the full song goes on much longer than this clip). In addition, the sound and feel of the song are melancholy and sentimental with the lyrics mostly referencing the helplessness of man. Sad songs have never been part of the musical vocabulary of traditional Christian music. Compare “Prayer for a Friend” with “It Is Well with My Soul.” The music affirms the greatness of God over all heartaches and difficulties. At the end of “Prayer for a Friend” you are left with the feeling that things are probably not going to turn out well for the friend. At the end of “It Is Well With My Soul” you know where all our hopes and longings will be met -- in God. We put a couple seconds of Casting Crowns rocking out at the end as a reminder that these CCM groups don’t mess around much with “soft rock.” They are all full-out rock & rollers. I asked Pastor Graham West of Tamworth Bible Baptist Church in Australia and director of Music Education Ministries to comment on this number. He has a background in writing and recording pop music and he understands the rhythm of pop music as well as anyone I know. He replied: “This is piece is loaded with Beat Anticipation. [As he explains in his video presentation The Rhythm of Rock, Beat Anticipation is a type of syncopation that falls at the end of a phrase and is unresolved; it is as much a major element of rock as the backbeat.] Eight of the 10 phrases of the piece end in Beat Anticipation. “Taken together with the other forms of syncopation we have a very common contemporary style in which the basis of the rock feel is achieved by the Beat Anticipation, and the other forms of syncopation simply take on board that rock feel because it is used within a context of the more dominating forms. “Music exhibiting this kind of highly syncopated rhythmic patterns will always promote sensual body movements. Too many studies by people on both sides of the issue have been done to deny this. The compulsion to move the body when this kind of music is played is very great. “It appears that the vocalists in this example have successfully suppressed sensual body movements, which may be due either to a keen awareness of their being inappropriate or coaching. In my opinion this is dangerous spiritually because it masks the true spiritual nature of the music. If the body tends to move sensually [to a piece of music], the answer is not to suppress the movement, but to reject the music.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 21:07:59 +0000
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