If I only gibber once in a while, and then only under duress, does that mean I'm not qualified to be a drafter of worship ditties?

I was really hoping to write first-person worship on the side to pay for seminary. It looked so easy, I had no idea there was such a litany of qualifications.

Oh no, you don’t have to fall in every one of these categories. In fact there are others I could have listed as well: Are you a feminist? Are you the spouse of a feminist? Are you a lesbian? Are you an ASBO? Do you experience suicidal ideation? Do you have Tourette’s Syndrome. These are just some of the concerns which preoccupy the emergent church and Ooze readers.

And I think the trick is not to think of these things as qualifications; think of them as special gifts the Holy Spirit gave to the church.

I sometimes wonder if emerging "Christianity" is not the same as alleged Christians suffering from Tourettes.

Look it up in a medical encyclopedia or dictionary. You'll see what I mean.

I made a puny acronym - ACTS. A regular parody on the common fundagelical prayer wheel.

Sorry . . . Tourettes, again.

I am very close to concluding that emergents are nothing more than evangelicals with ADD/ADHD.

dissidens,

I have been reading your posts about my "primers", and it's sobering to read someone calling something I wrote as painful as a root canal. I've had one, and those are awful.

It seems that I have a lot to learn about your viewpoint of music writing. I'd love to read how you do it.

Also, i'd love to read what you think a community of folks attempting to be inclusive and encouraging should do to accomplish that.

And by the way, I haven't been clinically diagnosed, but I suspect that I suffer from ADHD. I can't speak for anyone else, though.

Todd

Yes indeed. Root canals certainly are awful, but the one thing that keeps them from being totally awful is that one is healthier when they are done.

My system for writing music is pretty traditional; I can understand how it wouldn’t interest you or the readers of The Ooze. My system also leaves out some important steps like get paper, get pen, take a break, randomly pick a phrase, set timer, get more paper…I’m still working out the kinks.

Basically, my viewpoint on writing music is that nothing of value comes from off the top of my head. And certainly no worship comes off the top of my head. In fact no music I ever liked came of the top of anybody’s head. Mozart wrote a piece of chamber music I really like while he was playing skittles, but anyone can clearly see that he troubled to think about it. Beside, Mozart had skills.

Beethoven abused a lot of paper to write his music, and Brahms threw away more than he kept. That suggests to me that some pretty tense thinking and some self-respect was involved.

I understand all these composers labored under some constraints you emergents don’t, but then their work strikes me as worth listening to.

Sorry about the ADHD.

Dissidens (if that is your *real* name),

The thing you may not have seen was that I went in assuming that the readers of those primers actually NEEDED the primers.

It definitely wasn't written for people who are skilled craftsman. My goal was to bring out expression from people that may be trapped in a type of thinking that is preventing them from trying something because it's uncomfortable.

I like immediacy and modeling a strand of expression that isn't bogged down with criticism at the offset. If the people that tried what I was suggesting never went past this method, that would be a problem.

Thank you for sharing a bit about how you write. If you have something you've worked on, I'd love to listen to it.

The reason I asked about your process was precisely because I *am* interested. Since you don't know me, I could understand how you might have thought I was being sarcastic.

Also, I wanted to mention that I wrote those primers for people that I assumed had no *frame of reference* for art criticism or craftmanship. Personally, I find it frustrating to see so much expression passed off as "good art". In an insular community like the "emergent church", there doesn't seem to be much teaching around critical thinking as it pertains to the arts, and I hope to be someone who would help bridge the gap of understanding.

I have a question about a statement you made: "nothing of value comes from off the top of my head". Have you watched highly-skilled improvisational theatre troupes work off of crowd suggestions? In your opinion, is that an art form, or something that *dilutes* the art form of theatre?

In my experience, criticism tends to paralyze me when I'm attempting to create something. Improvisation comes first and criticism helps me glean what is worth salvaging. I feel that both skills are required in order to put out excellent work.

I spent my formative years playing classical piano, and Brahms is definitely my favorite composer. What is your favorite piece of his?

As you shrewdly guessed, my real name is not dissidens; dissidens is a Latin word which means “sitting apart”. I had a previous internet presence and dissidens is how I was known. One of my acquaintances from those days suggested a blog, and several other acquaintances from those days came together to produce Remonstrans. I carried over my nick for two reasons: it provided some continuity for those who knew me, and for those who didn’t know me, the nick was more descriptive than my name, which really is not that important—fine though I think it is.

(And believe me, it was obvious that your help for songwriters was intended for people who knew nothing. That really was not the mysterious part.)

As for your larger point about the lack of a “frame of reference for art criticism or craftsmanship” and the insularity of the emergent church, I can’t be of much help. Your gang (and by your gang I mean Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, Tony Jones, the collection of socially disaffected people who follow them, contributors to The Ooze, and dabblers in post-modernism and alt-worship) will have to reinvent the wheel for yourselves. I’ve resolved to be as amused as I can be from a distance.

I have seen attempts made to understand this “conversation” [e.g., D. A. Carson] and I have seen them dismissed with some pretty rickety evasions and ad hominems. So long as emergents remain dismissive of criticism and contemptuous of reason, I feel I’m excused from jury duty.

Have I watched highly-skilled improvisational theater? Not highly-skilled, no. I have seen some rather good musical improvisation. I know more about music than I do theater, and since we were talking about music, let me get back to that. Improvisation is a real skill. Bach could improvise well, Mozart could. Brahms did it very well.

I know that critical to improvisation is a knowledge of form, alternative harmonies, modulation, cadences, etc., so that when you appear to equate improvisation and “off-the-top-of-the-head”, I think you are trying to steal a base. Maybe you were hoping I didn’t notice that “people who know nothing” and “improvisation” go together like fish and bicycles.

Since we are sharing experiences, my experience is that what comes “off the top of the head” is shapeless, incoherent, ugly and meaningless: valuable only insofar is it suggests a possibility. It is not until knowledge and criticism are brought to bear that it is worth anything at all.

My fave Brahms? That’s hard to narrow down. I love the Requiem and the Double Concerto; but I suspect that as a player my most intimate knowledge would be of the violin sonatas, the Hungarian Dances, and the piano trios. I also enjoy for the piano: the Paganini variations and the Ballades.