Does Emotion in Music Have Meaning? Part 4

Does Emotion in Music Have Meaning?  Part 4

Although removing one’s self from the performance by singing in an inartistic manner by singing without emotion is often an attempt at humility, it is a misguided attempt at best.  If one takes the view that a Christian musician’s singing is a musical offering unto God, then one must look at the sacrificial system to see what it required of the one making the offering.  Without a lengthy explanation of the sacrificial system of the Bible, I will simply say that it required the best offering that the one presenting the offering to God could present.  I contend that a lackluster musical offering without emotion and meaning is not the best musical offering that a Christian vocalist is capable of presenting to God.  I have often told choir members and soloists that it is not the best offering that God will accept, but rather it is the best offering that the musician is capable of presenting out of a pure heart that God accepts.

One reason that I have been so careful in my writing about emotion in musicing, and ipso facto its communicated meaning, is because it may seem to the reader that I agree with the philosophical notion that the performer is everything to music and musicing.  It may also seem that I believe that a humanistic approach to musicing is proper for the Christian performer.  On the contrary, I believe that the Christian performer who is sold out to Christ believes like St. John who declared John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease”.