Don't miss the point

I have a friend who writes great hymns.  Fortunately, they end up in the hands of a lot of people.  Unfortunately, some of those people are, well let’s just say very picky.

He tells me that as soon as a new hymn gets distributed, he starts getting emails from well-meaning people who want to pick it apart.  There is a short list of little things they look for;  probably, parallel fifths is at the top of the list.

Can I just say something?  I don’t care very much whether he writes parallel fifths or not.  I don’t care too much if he breaks other music rules that are widely accepted.  And yes, I don’t even care if he breaks the rules I talk about on this blog.

Actually, the thing that matters is whether his music does what it is supposed to do. 

What is our music supposed to do? That depends.  Some music is supposed to uplift, some is supposed to communicate a message, some is designed to cause reflection, some is designed to reflect the majesty of God or some other truth.

The common denominator is this:  all music is designed to impact listeners. 

When you write music, you need to know what impact you want the music to have and then write it in a way to create that impact.  When you perform music written by others, you need to know what impact the music is designed to have and then make that happen.

When considering whether music is written or performed well, you can start and pretty much end with whether the music is successful in achieving the desired impact.  Everything else is absolutely unimportant in comparison.

You might think that what I am saying is widely accepted among musicians, but I can assure you that it is not.  I judge some competitions, and very often a certain dilemma comes up.  One student performs a technically complicated piece of music flawlessly from a technical standpoint.  Another student performs a less challenging song but plays it in a way that produces a strong impact on the listener.

You can probably guess who gets better scores with me.  And every time it happens, I can expect to hear from someone that I got it wrong (usually through the grapevine).  Many cannot understand why I would elevate listener impact over technique.

I think that we that are musically educated often fall into the trap of focusing on the minutia of the music at the expense of the overall impact.   And that is a big mistake.  Play flawlessly all you want, but if your music is not making an impact on the listeners, it is a waste of time.

To know if you are accomplishing what you need to do, I encourage you to pay attention to your listeners.  Be very attentive to how they react to your music and listen to how they compliment you.  If their compliments are always about technique, you have a big problem.  On the other hand, if they talk about how your music makes them FEEL, you are probably on the right path.