I want to share a short lesson I learned the other day. I think it’s one that can give us some insight into how we approach the changes that might result from wanting to make church more “alive.”
I frequently enjoy tuning in to The Mother Church’s broadcast of the online Wednesday testimony meetings on Wednesday afternoons. They provide such a wonderful extra uplift in the middle of the week. This past Wednesday I got a lot out of the meeting. But I noticed something that bothered me a little bit. During the third and final hymn, the organist did something unusual. He suddenly shifted the key up after the second verse.
A few years ago in college (before switching majors), I used to study music. As a result, I developed a somewhat musically sensitive ear, and I learned a lot about music theory and the terminology used to describe music theory. And what the organist did in that final hymn is not so affectionately referred to by some as the “Truck Driver’s Modulation.” In the professional world it’s considered to be a particularly sloppy technique, musically. To my ear (and the ears of a lot of musically trained people), it’s a technique that sounds overly dramatic, completely arbitrary, and always out of place. You will never see it used in classical composition; instead, you more often see it employed in Broadway musicals.
