ABSTRACT
During the last decades of the twentieth century, Christian congregational music in much of the Western world and beyond underwent significant changes. In the Canadian context (where this research was conducted), the two most prominent worship styles that emerged are inadequately referred to as ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ and feature very different sung material and approaches to singing. The music of ‘contemporary’ worship consists of songs characterized by simple, popular styles of text, music and instrumentation. These ‘Praise and Worship’ choruses are accompanied by guitars, keyboard and drums and often completely replace traditional chorale-style hymns and revivalist songs accompanied by organ and piano. Hymnbooks are left in the rack in favour of the digital projection of song texts onto screens, and in many cases, choirs disappear giving way to self-sufficient, amplified, small vocal ensembles fronting the band.
