In this course the student learns various song forms most prevalent throughout history. They learn the essentials to form and function. By first learning from and imitating the rules of music, the student can then best ‘break the rules’ in logical, inventive, and God-glorifying ways.
Writing with set parameters feels limiting, and it is. However, forcing ourselves into guidelines can actually be very freeing. It inserts into our arsenal ways of creating that aren’t natural to us, and along the way we pick up skills we would have overlooked had we not taken the journey.
Everything in life is made up of individuality in combination. For example, if we bring wood and metal together, we make a chair; if we string notes together we get rhythm and melody. Every human being must recognize the simplicity of their unique expression as it lives in combination with everything else. This course teaches us about music, but more deeply, the human experience.
Form is all over the Bible. There’s forms laid out for prayers, worship, liturgy, prose, poetry, story, history, narrative, romance, sci-fi, and anything else one can think of in all things Fiction and Non-Fiction. Because Jesus made all of life, his ‘shape’ can be seen and uncovered everywhere. Therefore, a study of form and function is ultimately a way in which we learn more about Jesus.
Everything has a form. It’s absolute. When all is said and done, it comes down to whether the form we’ve embraced in life is “good or poor.” Learning the shape of music is the same as learning the shape of all things. Our study teaches us to be thoughtful about the “why” of what we see in front of us every day, and it teaches us to insert gospel truths into already existing patterns that are restrictive to God’s abundant life.
Forms are birthed out of hearts. What’s in our hearts makes culture and therefore context. Context is therefore a reflection of the forms we worship internally. To learn to compose and create in form, is really a study in worldview and the heart.
God hides the unique shape of his nature in everyone. Like a puzzle, when we put everyone together, we begin to see his proverbial 'form' or likeness more fully. Assembling together, and composing in forms, proves to be an intercultural approach to composition.
Being able to quickly identify the big ideas, beliefs, and ideologies hidden in structures, opens up to the composer a world of exploration philosophically, musically, and theologically.
In exploring forms, we're formed. We learn God’s best practices for existence as humans when we encounter both the life-giving and life-limiting forms available to us.
