Popular music has caused us to change the way we sing in church. It’s not a good change…
In music, we can accent a note that we want to stand out more than the others. This can be done by deemphasizing the note before it, adding a sharper attack to the beginning of the note, making the note louder, or by other more complicated ways that I don’t really understand. Accenting notes can be a good thing when done intentionally and tastefully, but many of us have gotten into the habit of accenting nearly every other note that we sing because that is what we hear people do on the radio. It sounds great when the pros do it because they’re trained to do it well, but the technique is difficult and makes the average person who imitates it sound very bad.
Here is how to fix it: take a deep breath and sing as smoothly, sweetly, and lyrically as you can. Don’t try to sound like the radio. Don’t make any note louder than the others, and don’t accent anything by using extra air at the beginning of a consonant. Overcompensation such as this will feel strange and sound bad at first because you will discover that the beginnings of all your notes have been out of tune; you’ve been hiding bad pitch behind those accents. But your brain will soon automatically correct these problems, and your voice will begin to sound much fuller and will edify the people around you in church more. Singing will quickly become much more enriching to your spiritual life.
Give this idea a try using This Is My Father’s World. If you pay attention, you will notice yourself slipping into the accent trap. Don’t do it!