What do harmony exercises have to do with God? Palestrina-style counterpoint, checking for parallel fifths in a string quartet exercise, trying to imagine what a lieder piano accompaniment sounds like as you sit in an exam room: do these have anything to do with the gospel?
Some of my favourite verses from the Bible:
All things have been created through [Jesus] and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Everything holds together in Jesus. Everything finds its ultimate purpose in Him. Everything in creation exists for Him, and in some way points us back to Him, the Creator. So here is the encouragement:
Even harmonising a chorale at the piano or writing a counter-subject for a fugue have the potential to help us to see God’s plans in Jesus.
As I reflected on harmony exercises and what God has revealed in the Bible, and how the two might relate, one particular relationship came to the fore: the church. Harmony and counterpoint can point us to God’s plan for us, the church. Whilst there are other possible angles (and I will mention a second more briefly), this relationship is the chief focus here.
Approaching harmony exercises
What is it that we are doing in a harmony exercise? Each type of exercise has its own flavour of course (variations on a ground bass in some sense requires more ‘creativity’ than completing a piece by Palestrina, for example), but there are some similar themes. Firstly, we are learning to understand and become familiar with particular composers and their styles, acquiring both the ‘rules’ ('no parallel fifths' being an obvious example), but also an ‘instinct’ (for example, whilst completing a lied piano accompaniment, thinking about when Schubert might have changed the accompaniment pattern and how). Secondly, we are putting that knowledge to work to complete fragments or create a whole piece.
In doing so, we are having to think both horizontally and vertically, combining harmony and counterpoint – voice-leading, chord spacing, individual chords, as well as horizontal ‘flow’ in terms of rhythmic ideas, especially in string quartets and lieder. None of these aspects can be thought of in isolation – they are all related.
As an example, imagine a Schubert vocal line which contains the potential for a flat 9 – 8 suspension. In such a situation, before making that decision, you might be thinking:
- What are the options for the vertical harmony?
- What is the direction of the vocal line (and piano lines)?
- What is the text? Does it call for something ‘special’, that also fits within the style and its ‘rules’?
Let's explore now the way all these aspects combine simultaneously in a harmony exercise, and how that illuminates the dynamics of what you could call the harmony, counterpoint, and voice leading of our shared Christian life.
Harmony exercises and God’s design for the church
Here is the summary:
The ways in which a completed exercise creates a unified whole, which is nevertheless made up of voices whose individual patterns matter and must relate to each other in right ways, point us to God’s plan for the church: a unified body made up of many individual parts, created anew in Christ to relate to each other according to Jesus’ own pattern.
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes the church as a body: Christ’s body. He focuses both on its unity, but also on its individual members, who are gloriously different from each other: ‘There are many parts, but one body’ (v20). As believers in Jesus, we are both different from and united to each other. And because we’re united, it really matters how we relate to each other. We will consider this more below, but for now just note verse 26:
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.
In writing harmony exercises, we aim for a pleasing unified whole (which is what would be heard when the music was performed); but within that, the voice-leading of individual parts and lines matter (no marks for a disjunct line for the sake of particular harmonies). God’s design for the church is a beautiful ‘harmony’ of inherently different people coming together for a unified purpose; at the same time, the individual story lines within that are also beautiful. Each person’s story intertwines with others’ stories, yet can also be heard solo in some sense – God has designed the voice-leading of our individual lives with beauty and in His deep wisdom.
If we are tempted to overemphasise the unity of the church in a way that starts to flatten our differences and the unique make-up and gifting of individuals (pretending we’re all 'hands', to use Paul’s image), God shows us that He cares about our individuality: He is the master of voice-leading. If we are tempted to overemphasise our own story with God, He shows us that our story only really makes sense, and is best heard, in the unified music of all His people: He cares about harmony.
He also cares about counterpoint. He cares how the individual lines come together to make the whole. There is a wonderful complexity and variety in music and the various styles to which we apply ourselves in harmony exercises, and there is likewise incredible variety and complexity in Jesus’ body, the church. And yet, there are also ways, or ‘rules’, that mean the body works healthily and as intended. The rules of counterpoint that we learn really matter if we are going to write something that sounds like it was created by Palestrina or Haydn. And God’s rules of counterpoint, His ‘family rules’ for how we relate to each other, really matter if we are going to be a community that looks and sounds like it is created by God, like it is Jesus’ body. The absolute ground rule is what Paul goes on to expound in the very next chapter of 1 Corinthians: love. Love each other with Jesus-shaped love: patient, kind, seeking others’ good and not our own, keeping no record of wrongs, not giving up on each other, and so on.
In the way we would want our teachers to look at or hear our work and think ‘Yes, that’s the sound of Palestrina’, anyone who knows what Jesus is like should see and hear the church and think, ‘Yes, that’s the sound of Jesus’.
A further angle: imitation
Before we conclude, let's briefly consider a secondary way in which harmony exercises can lift our eyes to God and His ways: we are ultimately given the example of Jesus and called to follow Him, but we are also called to learn from and imitate others who follow Him.
There is a certain discipline involved in looking to imitate others. It is humbling, not just in the sense of, ‘It turns out it’s quite hard to write a fugue like Bach…’, but also in the sense that, in aiming to be faithful in this harmony exercise to another’s style and preferences, we have to resist the temptation just to stamp our own creative voice on our work. Yet it is also invigorating and inspiring to learn from others: their approaches to harmony and counterpoint can inform our own work, whether in free composition, performance of all sorts of styles, or musicology, history, and analysis.
Paul writes to the Philippian church:
Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.
As we learn from other composers with diligence, we can let this encourage us to look for other Christians that we might learn from, both past and present.
So what?
What do we do with all this? Well, my prayer is that as you read and consider these things, you might be more excited both about harmony exercises and about Jesus! When you next sit down to do a harmony exercise, why not pray as you begin that God would help you in this? I’ve written a prayer below which you could use, drawing on some of the ideas that this article has explored:
A liturgy for those writing harmony exercises[1]
O Lord, in whom all things hold together,
Everything springs from you –
Beauty
Wisdom
Knowledge
Sound
Hearing
Music
Harmony.
As I apply myself to these exercises,
May they point me back to you.
As I wrestle to create order and beauty,
May I wonder afresh at your creative energy and expression.
As I weave counterpoint and strive to hear voices flowing together,
Let me rejoice that you have made me part of Christ’s body
And ponder how I might serve and celebrate its other members,
My brothers and sisters.
And when I’m struggling, whether through the difficulty of the task,
Or when I find it simply tedious,
Refresh me with creative insights, small steps of progress,
And the encouragement that you are with me and at work in me in every situation,
Not only to help me improve my skills, but also to shape my heart by perseverance and diligence,
So that I might serve you and others humbly and well.
Would the ways that I live, speak, think, and love
Resonate with yours,
And so sing out in richness and clarity
To join the textured polyphonic praise of all creation.
Amen.
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[1] This prayer is inspired by liturgies from Douglas McKelvey's Every Moment Holy (2017, Rabbit Room Press, Nashville), in particular with some ideas from ‘A liturgy for students and scholars’ (pp 38-40)
