Why men have stopped singing in church

Christian that may be true of some CCM, just as it is true of some hymns, but it is certainly not true of all CCM.

I think there is something to be said that singing in general is in decline in our culture. Christian pointed out that nowadays even at sporting events there are few who sing along with the national anthem. That’s why everyone was so enthralled when everyone sang the national anthem in unison at a recent Boston Bruins game after the Boston Marathon bombing. A few of the reasons for less singing at sporting events:

• The national anthem is often performed by a pop star who people can’t possibly sing along with because of all his/her vocal stylings. The national anthem has become a singular performance rather than a corporate participatory event.
• Stadium directors think sports fans are so stupid that they have to tell them exactly when and how to “get excited” with scoreboard prompts and loud, pumping music. If you watch any soccer game (excepting the recent World Cup games with all the vuvuzelas), you hear no rock music, just chants and singing. Somehow people in other countries can figure out when to cheer and sing on their own. Baseball games do less of this kind of thing than basketball and football games, but it’s certainly crept in. The only singing that’s left in American culture seems to be the 7th inning stretch at baseball games.

It may surprise some of you given that I am often a defender of CCM, but I would agree that these same things have negatively influenced congregational singing in many contemporary churches. Many people can’t sing the songs because they are so syncopated and led by someone who uses so many vocal stylings. And many churches think to get people excited to worship God we have to “pump up the volume” in order to “pump up the excitement.”

But think about it…most people just don’t sing anymore, anytime, anywhere. So it is understandable if sometimes people (men) are hesitant to sing in church. I agree with those who say people can be brought along and encouraged to sing. I do not agree that using hymns exclusively is the only or even the best way to do this.

http://desperatepastor.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-i-value-contemporary-wo…

People just don’t sing anymore. Singing used to be part of one’s culture. People would gather together and sing songs that represented their history and culture. Songs were used to tell stories and to teach the younger generations about things that happened in the past. Even the instruments used, were specific to that people.

But people no longer sing when they get together. They just connect an ipod to a stereo and blast the music over everything- even conversations.

I think you’re on to something. Congregations in general are not used to singing in four part harmony. That’s for the “choir”. Me, I regularly attend a Russian language Evangelical Christian-Baptist church. Those folks can and do sing parts even though their congregational hymnals don’t have music just the words.

[Shaynus]

My theory is that this is a consequence of growing musical illiteracy in general that effects congregational singing. Most hymns are meant to be sung in parts with the top line being the melody. Men are meant to sing tenor or base, while the melody is awkward to sing because even at an octave below, the melody is in an odd range. What helps me is for an organ or bass really emphasizing the bass part (as written) to help men learn how to sing bass.

I have noticed this too. Most songs are two notes too high. And most hymns need to be played in the key of C to fit the range of the male voice.

Maybe I’m just weird, but we use nothing more than a piano and hymn book, and I don’t notice men not singing at my church! I’ve never once in my life considered whether a hymn is too feminine or whether the notes are too high. I’ve never really cared - I just sing!

Am I alone here? This conversation seems really foreign to me!

It seems that group singing is rare in our culture and educational system.

Most people can’t read music.

Video projection does help singing. (heads up are better than heads down)

The piano seems to be the best instrument to lead people in following the melody.

CCM feminine? The thousands of men singing at T4G last year was intensely masculine, Frankly, I could name a lot of traditional Gospel songs that remind me of romantic walks “in the garden”.

Echoing Ron’s earlier comment…..I’ve heard this argument many times before about men singing less.

Typically, in my experience, it is an argument made by someone portraying modern styles of worship negatively.

i obviously can’t refute the personal stories and examples they bring to their argument, but I’ve yet to see actual data to suggest that the premise is even true.

I would love to see some research on this, if it does exist.

If I say men sing less and you say men sing more, and neither of us have substantive information to back up our opinions, we’ve just wasted each other’s time.

[Shaynus]

My theory is that this is a consequence of growing musical illiteracy in general that effects congregational singing. Most hymns are meant to be sung in parts with the top line being the melody. Men are meant to sing tenor or base, while the melody is awkward to sing because even at an octave below, the melody is in an odd range. What helps me is for an organ or bass really emphasizing the bass part (as written) to help men learn how to sing bass.

Parts singing encourages the worship experience, partly because of hearing the beauty of how the parts work together. I learned to sing harmony by following the alto line in the hymnbook. The generation coming up now is not exposed to that - all they see is words on a screen, and mostly what they hear is melody. I fear that parts singing is going to become obsolete, and that is sad.

Attacking the song “In the Garden” says more about the attacker than the song. Many people are deeply moved by this song and people who attempt to claim that the song is sentimental or romantic just don’t get it.

No one who says “In the Garden” shouldn’t be sung in a worship service would say it doesn’t move people deeply. Many songs move people deeply. I wouldn’t attack the song in a vacuum. I would say it’s not a helpful song to sing in a Sunday corporate worship setting, but I have it on my iPhone and enjoy the song. I hear U2’s “With or Without You” is quite moving, but then that’s no reason to sing it in church.

Defending the song “In the Garden” says more about the defender than the song. Many people are find it mawkish and people who attempt to deny that the song is sentimental or romantic just don’t get it.

The Greatest Hymn
Ever Written
Perhaps the greatest hymn ever written, judged not by the limited and unrealistic standards of professional church musicians, but by the tests of usefulness,
popularity and effectiveness in our battle to promote and encourage the Christian life at the level of the parish ministry, is C. Austin Miles’ masterpiece “In the
Garden.”Since it is almost a perfect model ofwhat you are looking for in the hymns you select for public worship, we quote the entire text.
Stanza 1 —
I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the Voice I hear
Falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
Refrain —
And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share
As we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
Stanza 2 —
He speaks, and the sound of His Voice
Is so sweet the birds Hush their singing,
And the melody
That He gives to me
Within my heart is ringing.
Refrain —
Stanza 3 —
I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go;
Through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.
Refrain —
You will notice that the personal pronouns are italicized. When the hymn is sung through with refrain after each stanza, the personal pronoun is used twenty-seven times. This is a measure of the surpassing-skill of the writer and tells us that he was a man not only of extraordinary spiritual sensitivity and insight, but
knowledgeable in the tastes and religious needs of the kind of good Christian people you will be serving.
For one thing, he never lets their attention stray from themselves, which is the subject, he knows, in which they are most-vitally interested. In the second place, he throws the switch activating the nostalgia mechanism in the first five words, “I come to the Garden… … . .”
Everybody has had a garden, or has been in a garden. “Garden” is a word associated with beauty, pleasure, peace, retreat from the world, man’s original innocence before it was spoiled by sin, etc. Then the hymn writer nails down this idyllic memory picture with the line: “While the dew is still on the roses. . :’ A lovely rose dampened by pure atmospheric moisture (who thinks of atomic fallout or belching chimneys befouling God’s good clean air at a time like this?) is a symbol-to the average man scratching out a living five days a week at a job he despises, surrounded and saturated with the ugly, the dirty, the unlovely things of life-of created perfection, of complete separation from this sordid, wicked world, of bliss beyond any happiness his earth-bound human imaginings are capable of encompassing. Indubitably, these few words alone are enough to do the job we want done. Limitations of space do not permit us to analyze it further, but use the hymn often, about every other Sunday or so.

But, Pastor Ron, none of this can be true. After all you just don’t get it by definition according to Don.

Ron that was hilarious.