Our two weekends in the studio left me with a hard drive full of recordings, a bunch of scribblings in the journal, and a humming head full of thoughts. I was also exhausted. This recording project, a disc that is half a “solo project” for Zdenek R. and half a normal release from the band Roll’s Boys, is more than I’ve done in the way of concerted musical work in a while. Here, at the end, it feels good to have it done, but in the midst it was a bear. I like this set of faces from the first (long) night of recording:
After two days of recording, I just slumped home to Praha – I could have stayed for the next day of recording and tried to ethnograph some vocal production…..but I just couldn’t. Kaput.
2007-11-4 - It just doesn’t end, and keeps wrapping around itself. The issues I’m looking into here just seem to keep coming up.
After the Cirkev Bratrska of Praha 6 morning service this Sunday, Emily and I lunched with some of the young adult crowd, just down Evropská Ulice at the Crocodile baguette shop. After I finished my soup, and found an open space, I submitted to my music-scholar-ness… and asked the crowd what they thought about the music recording that had been played at “church” during the serving of communion.
Emily and I have talked about how it jars us somehow when Filip, the youthful sound guy in the congregation, plays US contemporary christian music recordings as background music during parts of services. The congregation’s body and worship life are already interestingly multicultural; because of the English proficiency of Czech members, the number of foreign folks who have become involved in the group, and the will of the leadership, there is simultaneous translation of the Czech-language Sunday service into English. This particular situation is helped by the fact that the congregation doesn’t own it’s own meeting space; we rent and meet in the “kongressový sál” of a 1970s era hotel (the Krystal) which is equipped with headphone outlet boxes at each seat, and an isolated sound booth where the translator does their work.
In the midst of all this Czechness – and in the winter the oppressive indoor radiator heat never lets me forget where I am – it does surprise me to hear such an intensely “American” sound.
(I did some research on the song we heard this week. Turns out it’s Paul Colman, and…he’s not from the US, but in part Australian/ British. (He does live in Nashville now, though.) It was a more standard, recording studio version of the tune behind this performance:
Everyone I have asked from the congregation (I’ve been poking around a bit on this in the past month or so) says that Filip chooses the music himself, apparently governing a lot of important worshipful moments in the communal meeting life of this congregation. I wanted to know what the Czech folks thought about his choices–in part to help me decide what my personal and professional reactions are.
Around the lunch table the consensus seemed that the music was ok, if a little fast for the liturgical moment of communion … useful data for me, but on the whole a lukewarm engagement with my question.
My friend Irena got things going, responding to the admittedly-partly-present critique in my question: “It was great!” Seeking support, she interrogated each person around the table, extracting from them a judgement of like/dislike that yielded an almost unanimous “yes” vote.
In reaction to this rally, I think, a few folks chimed in to get more context from me; what did I think about it, why do I ask? I referred back to my introduction from Irena (she had introduced me as a professional musician who was writing a dissertation on Czech country) and my interest in how “Americanness” works in Czech music cultures. I said it was jarring for me to hear familiar American sounds in the middle of the Czech-language worship service–maybe because I am so intent on this sort of threshold, the identification and location that attend such decisions about musical performance.
Taking the tack of language and comprehension (a frequent mode of explanation in bluegrass as well), Dalibor and a few others on his side of the table said that they understand the English words well and didn’t find them out of place or distracting–others said that they didn’t understand the words and weren’t disturbed by the style of music…so no big deal…right?
Typing this, though, I realize the root of it: I just don’t like that sort of music. The mid-nineties-style painstakingly produced soft rock frame, the sculpted, over-earnest vocals, the performance of faith. How can this be bad? It’s NOT, I guess…but I don’t like it, I don’t resonate with it. This is complicated; I still can’t untangle my aesthetic and ethical concerns and the theological basis that I hope undergirds both.
This talk has given me pause. A specific pause in which to think about how my personal responses are affecting how I do work on Americanness in Czech musical life. In this particular case, I had a very different reaction then my Czech fellow-congregants. This isn’t bad in itself; I’m concerned that my aesthetic response of distaste (“I don’t like CCM”) gave a covert strength to my “threshold-crossing” interculturality response. (“Hey, it’s wierd that Czechs use this music in their church life.”)
I’m not the only one with actively political agendas here, though. Some ideas about genre and demographics surfaced when Emily remarked that we were all fairly young folks around the table, and that the CB congregation is much more diverse in age, and perhaps in musical taste, in their ability to worship effectively in response to different musics. “But!” folks protested, CCM is not the only genre used for background liturgical music. Although this summer and fall we have only noticed the CCM pieces, apparently Filip draws from an assortment of jazz, classical (“Mozart, etc.”) and other sounds as well. Irena, glowingly aware of her power (in parts real and perceived) in the small congregation, proudly added that she always gives Filip enthusiastic feedback after a service that included CCM–and says nothing when he uses another sort of recording.
I feel like this is the same standstill I arrive at with bluegrassers. Somehow these “American” materials and practices come to be just the right thing for many Czech situations. And it’s hard to get Czech folks to talk about how that Americanness works. I’ve begun to get some headway in teh bluegrass world on thsi subject, but I think it is harder for the Christian community here to grapple with the cultural as well as spiritual content that Anglo-U.S. Christianity brings here. Said another way: maybe they don’t want to admit that there are practices that are incorporated into the Christian body here which aren’t as independent of culture/location as people consider them to be. Hmm.
8-14-2007 I copied the words to the hymn “Nearer my God to Thee” in my journal, copying them from Fanda’s (nickname for “František”) “spěvník” (songbook). Last night we sang this one, as well as “Amazing Grace” (it’s first in the songbook; arranged with the first verse as a chorus, and with only two verses: “Twas grace” and “when we’ve been there”).
I think it was Fanda who commented – “wouldn’t it be weird if Americans knew we were here in this little town in the Sumava, singing these songs?”
It seems Zbyněk is the source of all this sacred singing – he comes to Kaspersky Hory often, with family, and plays and sings with some local guys, Frantisek, Luděk, and Adam – I think that’s right. Anyhow, these folks sing some obscure hymns that I can’t imagine anyone but a hardcore gospel bluegrass band singing. I was pressed into service for baritone lines, and even a few tenor screechers, and waqs thrilled to be singing, and actually did well – mostly because I am familiar with the harmonies of this genre and some of the songs. I have no idea why I knew how to sing through “nearer my god to thee” but somehow it worked – and was lovely.
I glanced through Fanda’s spevnik some more, and found some celtic-sounding pieces (he blazed through a few of those the other night on guitar – smokin’) as well as some classic czech-grass numbers like “Myslim na Coloradu.”
When we have been playing, though, it’s just classic bluegrass and maybe a touch of country. (Zbyněk is also very into classic US country, and of course the steel guitar – but this trip did fine on guitar, and even tremelo-ed out some credible solos on a plywood mandolin he borrowed from Ludek).
