I got to thinking more about our venture into 16-channel sound last week when a pastor said he wanted to return his Gloria3 because it did not sound like his Gloria1. Interesting. We added the more complex sounds of 16-channel MIDI to round out the sound of Gloria, but this was such a different experience for him that he wasn't sure he liked it.
Naturally, we could offer his money back, but I wrote him and suggested he drop the orchestral volume down to at least 60% to bring out more melody. He did so and immediately responded that he would keep his Gloria. It made me realize what we are up against as far as music in the church today.
Years ago, when I was growing up, for music, all we had was an organ in our church. In more recent years the contemporary church has moved on to where a piano, guitar, and drums are the musical instruments of choice. Why is this? My thinking, and I have voiced this in other articles, is that we are comfortable with the music we grew up with. As far as I am concerned, worship is a matter of personal preference, as long as it is respectful to God. Various cultures use different kinds of worship instruments. I'll bet you find few organs in Africa, for instance! So here in America we have the camp that believes you are not worshiping correctly if you have drums in your worship music, while in some parts of the world, tha'ts all they have.
The idea we wanted to put forward to our brothers and sisters in Christ in America, was that many in the the modern generation of folks, from about age 50 down to infants, think of organ music as funereal. Those of us who have been around a little longer may feel organ music is soothing to the soul, and drums in worship are a jarring experience. This is a natural evolution (excuse the pun) of tastes in society, and I don't think God judges the music as much as he loves the worship from our hearts.
So we wanted Gloria3 to me as versatile as possible, and in making it so, we forgot that many people can become confused when they have too many choices. Gloria can be used "right out of the box" if you like simple 6-channel sound of organ, piano, and maybe percussion. But 16-channel full orchestration can be a bit daunting unless you understand how to adjust Gloria3. Today, only the Celebration (English) version of Gloria3 has 16-channel music. But most people do not understand that it also has 6-channel simple versions of the music as well. You have a choice. What we are suggesting, is toning down the orchestral background of the hymns and bring out the melody (takes only a few minutes to set Gloria3 up for this) as you ease your congregation into singing with orchestral backup. After a while, you will find that using the full orchestra is an exhilarating experience. It is a matter of getting used to a full music sound once again in the church.
As we move forward, it would be interesting if you had any comments on this to share with us. we're always looking for ways to make your worship experience better.
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