Psalm Tap in Hindsight
Intro
This is Time's Corner, a weekly newsletter by Christian Leithart. I’m co-founder of Little Word, editor of Good Work magazine, and creator of Psalm Tap, a yearly colloquium for church musicians. By day, I teach make the most of summer break, and by night, I edit this newsletter.
I know, I know. Time’s Corner is supposed to be on break. But the best games are played in the off-season, as some coach probably said. I wanted to take some time to reflect on this year’s Psalm Tap and look at what I could have done better.
There’s no Thursday question, but I still like to hear from you. If you have ideas about Psalm Tap (or want to rant about AI or the Barbie movie), please contact me. By the way, replying to a Substack is as easy as replying to an email. Just click the reply button, type, and hit “send.”
Psalm Tap in Hindsight
This was the first year I ran Psalm Tap on my own. In the past I leaned heavily on the organizational magic of Jarrod Richey, church musician extraordinaire at Church of the Redeemer in West Monroe, Louisiana, but logistically, it was tough to organize an event that was taking place three hundred and fifty miles away. Holding the event in my own hometown made things easier, as did piggybacking on the Theopolis Ministry conference. Much thanks to my sister Emma, who donated what time she could to help, as well as my wife Tara for wrangling the kids in my absence.
All the speakers had presented at previous Psalm Taps except K. Lee Scott, a premiere hymn composer with at least three hundred published compositions. Lee guided us through many of the hymns in his hymnary and talked about great hymn-writers he had met.
The next two presentations both focused on hymns, too. Michael Owens played several tunes and invited us to describe them using only a few adjectives: “serious,” “hopeful,” “despairing,” triumphant.” Then, he pointed out features of the tune that gave it its particular flavor. Following Michael, Aaron Tripp took us through several hymns to focus on the effect of the poetry. In “Jesus Lives and So Shall I,” for example, the repetition of the final line accentuates the meaning of the entire hymn: Our hope in Christ is assured.
After lunch, Paul Buckley explored what makes chant tones more and less interesting, drawing examples from Andre Gouzes. Jenny White gave us a short demonstration of using bass drum in worship. Shara Wallick described her experiences teaching children to sing and dispensed advice and encouragement. And, finally, John Ahern argued against eclecticism, inviting us to take a hard look at our own musical environment. We have access to too much good music, he said, and that prevents us (musicians and congregations) from being very good at any of it.
The best thing about Psalm Tap, and what makes it a colloquium more than a conference, is that the presentations inevitably turn into discussions, and sometimes even collaborations. Jenny and Shara teamed up for an impromptu performance of David Erb’s “He Will Rejoice” (Zeph. 3:17) with children’s choir accompanied by bass drum.
As I’ve said, this year’s Psalm Tap was sponsored by the Theopolis Institute, and we were fortunate to have some Theopolis folks in the audience. Music has always been a big part of the Theopolitan mission, so the mixture made for some heady discussions. In addition, Wednesday night happened to be the night of Hymn Sing for both CREC churches in Birmingham, which allowed some Psalm Tap folks to discuss music theory all day and participate in music practice in the evening.
Stuff I would do differently next year:
Due to my lack of planning and resources, we weren’t able to live-stream Psalm Tap this year or even get good recordings. That’s too bad because many people who can’t attend the colloquium faithfully watch all the talks. Next year, I’ll make sure to have a recording system in place.
Every year I’ve tried to strike a balance between presentations and conversation. This year, despite allotting ninety minutes for lunch and providing food, I still felt like there wasn’t enough time for discussion. Squeezing everything into one day made it more convenient for some folks, but limited our time. Stretching it out over two days, as we’ve done in the past, allowed for more chatting, but left long empty hours that didn’t always seem like a good use of time. I’m still mulling this one over. If you have any ideas, let me know.
Third Presbyterian was a great venue, but it would be nice to let people have food and coffee during the presentations. It’s a small thing, I know, but it does save a little time and it keeps people in good spirits.
Four of the presenters used a projector, which meant that I had this ungainly setup of power cords, chairs, and music stands to get everything in the right place. I’d like to make that aspect more streamlined, as well. In fact, the whole technological/recording side of the operation needs a tune-up.
If we did have more time and attendance, it would be fun to do some breakout sessions. There could be practical sessions (how to play the triangle), academic sessions (“Did Luther actually base his hymn tunes on pub songs?”), and educational sessions (how to introduce psalm-chanting to your congregation). We should also do a round-table discussion about church music and finances. What’s a reasonable budget for a church music program? (And how do you convince your elders to go for it?)
As I said, I welcome your feedback and ideas.
Links
I don’t have strong opinions on AI (or, as I like to call it, “Manufactured Fake Intelligence”), but perhaps you do. Here are some articles I’ve collected for you to ponder as you blow, rage, and crack your cheeks.
Baldur Bjarnason argues that chat-based LLMs use the same con-man techniques as psychics. Bjarnason has also argued that the intelligence we perceive in these chat-machines is actually our own, a point that Susannah Black Roberts has made before (with a somewhat darker outlook). This is what I call humans’ “Steve the pencil” instinct.
Where does the intelligence of MFI come from? It’s manufactured, of course, by armies of human beings in countries like India and Kenya. These workers comb through the internet and label text in ways that a machine can understand. (You can actually pay them to do this with Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service. As their tagline used to state, it’s “artificial artificial intelligence.”) I’m reminded of someone’s observation that Facebook’s attempts to chart the range of human emotion actually causes us to limit our emotions: we lower ourselves to the level of machines and then say, “Wow! The machines are just like us!” If you want to know just how far we’ve descended, read this description of the unfortunate souls who regulated Facebook’s newsfeed circa 2014. If you want to have a pleasant rest of your day, don’t read it. (I mean that. The article is very explicit and very disturbing.)
Will this manufactured intelligence make our lives easier? In thousands of ways, I’m sure, mostly related to our digital lives. In other ways, MFI is going to make our digital lives excruciatingly boring. The attention economy that powers the internet is going to be created by and for robots, and will become a inhuman and unpleasant place to be.
Upcoming
The looming event in my life is the start of the school year. I’ve been happy with the summer, overall, yet knowing that, soon, eight-plus hours of my day will be spoken for makes me feel a bit desperate. One does get used to getting paid to do whatever one wants.
The third issue of Good Work is scheduled to be mailed out in September, so you have plenty of time to sign up. Encourage your friends to do the same.
Up To
Reading: The Dorean Principle, by Conley Owens. Essentially, the thesis of this book is that ministers shouldn’t charge for their ministry. An inarguable point, perhaps, but Owens extends “ministry” to include anything that contributes to the education or edification of Christians or to evangelism of any kind. This includes Christian publishers, musicians, parachurch organizations, conferences, etc. Owens believes ministry should always be supported voluntarily, without being subject to obligation of any kind. He bases his argument on Paul’s letters, which means he has to perform a few contortions to explain Paul’s frequent requests for financial support. To be honest, I didn’t completely follow all the ins and outs of Owens’s explanation. I need to reexamine it, though, since his thesis, if true, directly impacts much of the work I am or hope to be involved in.
Watching: Barbie. It starts out fun and silly, and if it didn’t try to be anything more, it would be fine. But it does try, and suddenly we’re asked to evaluate the movie as philosophical and social commentary. At that level, it’s a muddled mess.
About
I’m Christian Leithart, a writer and teacher living in Birmingham, Alabama. I’m not active on social media, but you can read my blog here. Use the button below to share this issue of Time’s Corner, if you so desire. Thanks much for reading.