My amazing brother, Dr Michael Madden PhD, has written a booklet about music in Church which can be purchased at Amazon.
I won’t review it per se, as I am not qualified to comment too much. The issues revolve around what sort of music is suitable in Presbyterian churches, a church I left a long time ago. Basically his thesis is that unaccompanied psalms, which were the original musical expression of Calvinist churches, should continue to be the standard for that church and all the other music currently used in Presbyterian churches should be removed from church services but can be used elsewhere.
What I thought was interesting is that I gather his views are very much a minority in his church now and, coming from a completely different direction, I feel much the same about the Catholic church. All I can say is that more than one Madden is interested in church music but we always seem to be rowing against whichever stream we find ourselves in. I can only think our Irish heritage has something to do with that.
Some of his arguments sound very much like those of chant only Catholics, which is passing strange. What is more strange is that we had a fairly identical early formation in the church and wound up with very diverse religious ideas. Michael remains a faithful and conservative Presbyterian and I am a hopelessly liberal, vaguely postmodern Catholic. He is certain in his beliefs and I am certain that no-one should be certain about belief.
He did prompt me to have a look what other books I had on the subject of church music more broadly.
For a rather different Presbyterian viewpoint, I have John L. Bell’s The Singing Thing and The Singing Thing too, as well as his DVD, “Singing the Unsung”. Brian Wren’s Book Praying Twice is a very thoughtful read. From a Catholic perspective, Kathleen Harmon’s, The Ministry of Music and Jan Michael Joncas’s From Sacred Song to Ritual Music are very helpful.
My position is that each assembly has a culture and language, including a musical language, in which they can express their praise of God and that it will vary from time to time and place to place within any tradition. It will doubtless be influenced by what has come before, but I don’t see how the Holy Spirit is limited by situational human constraints. As usual, I am never certain about what God is – likely a verb rather than a noun for a start – but I am sure what God isn’t, and limited is one of the things God isn’t. All our discussion is, however, limited by our human thoughts and language, which are also inevitably culturally determined.
Buy Michael’s book anyway and make him famous.