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There is a great deal of suspicion of emotional manipulation. Sometimes I think that suspicion is justified. A friend told me a story about a church where the keyboard was hooked up to an electric shock machine, and just at the right moment the keyboard player would hit the button and people in the front row would be brought to their knees by the ‘electrifying’ power of the sermon.

But sometimes I wonder whether we are oversensitive to the power of music on our emotions, as if being moved emotionally by a song is less ‘worthy’ of us than to be moved intellectually by a sermon.

Consider the tension felt by the great father of the faith, Augustine. His conversion story was marked by an emotional musical encounter:

“I wept at your [God’s] hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of your sweetly singing church. Those voices flowed into my ears, and the truth was poured out in my heart, whence a feeling of piety surged up and my tears ran down. And these things were good for me.”¹

Yet at the same time, the Platonism which Augustine’s culture had subscribed to made him suspicious of such animal attraction merely based on music:

“the gratification of my flesh – to which I ought not to surrender my mind to be enervated – frequently leads my astray ... when it happens to me that the song moves me more than the thing which is sung, I confess that I have sinned blamefully and then prefer not to hear the singer.²

For similar reasons, another thinker, Athanasius, decided that it would be better not to sing at all. For him it was important that the Psalms were recited not ‘from a desire for pleasing sound’, but as a more spiritual ‘manifestation of harmony among the thoughts of the soul’.³ Augustine, to his credit, didn’t go that far. But he did look down on the role of music, saying it merely enabled a ‘weaker soul’ to ‘be elevated to an attitude of devotion’.⁴

But I don’t think it is an admission of weakness in our soul to recognise that we are embodied: our thoughts and actions are influenced by what we eat, whether we have slept enough recently, and whether our brain chemicals are balanced. To recognise that music can have a non-rational effect on our souls is simply to recognise that we are human. Rather than be afraid of any emotional effect, we should seek out music which draws us closer to God and honours Jesus. Provided there is no deception, and the emotional power of the music is anchored in the truth, and we aren’t trying to substitute for the Spirit’s work in changing hearts, I can’t see the danger. If ‘manipulation’ means simply helping me to feel the weight of Jesus’ glory then please, go ahead: some days I could do with a bit of musical manipulation.

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Okay, work with me here on this analogy. I recently got my bath fixed which is great news for everybody. I'm reminded that there's an art to running a bath - not too hot, not too cold. The temptation when you realise that the bath is going to be too cold is to slam on the hot water, but of course that just makes the opposite problem. Getting the optimal temperature requires small adjustments, not over-reactions.

By analogy, it seems that improving worship music is an exercise in balance. Usually when something goes wrong in church, it's not that people have set out trying to be destructive. It's usually that we were trying to improve in another area, and just got things out of balance. Perhaps we wanted to bring in new songs to keep our repertoire from being stale, but brought in too many too quickly and now people can't sing along. Perhaps we wanted to raise the quality of our music to the Glory of God. But instead we put too heavy a load on our already busy musicians. It's all about balance. 

But so often when we realise something is wrong, we express it in terms of absolute criticisms, not relative criticisms.

Karl Barth, one of my favourite German theologians, writes about this in relation to the subjective/objective question in worship. He describes how people responded to the overly subjective wishy washy hymns which started dominating in some protestant circles in the 17th century. They criticised 'I-hymns' as being overly subjective, and insisted on 'we-hymns' or 'he-hymns'. They made absolute their criticism. But as Barth writes 'it is obvious from the presence of the I-Psalms in the Bible...[that this] can only be a relative and not an absolute criticism. It cannot try to eliminate or suppress altogether either the I-hymns or the I-piety' (Church Dogmatics, IV.63.I p755). You can't eliminate 'I' from our worship, because the wonder of the gospel is that what God did he did for me.

I think there are many areas of contemporary thinking about church life that need us to be more relative and less absolute - in many areas it's a question of balance, not blanket statements.

So the challenge (for me) is to try to approach disagreements about how to do church music as if we're running a bath. If I think that a church service is getting too cold, before turning off the tap completely I need to ask whether the way I intend on going is going to get too hot if we're not careful. This helps too when taking criticism - normally when someone raises a criticism they are not just being nasty - there is so longing or desire behind their complaint. If they hate contemporary music, then what is it about hymns that they love - perhaps I can learn to share their love as well, and we can run a more balanced bath?

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Really interesting article this month from Eternity magazine on Hillsong's lyric vetting process. I remember being quite surprised talking to Hillsong songwriters about how hands on their pastors are in the songwriting process.

Senior associate pastor Robert Fergusson writes:

“It’s a huge act of trust and submission, for someone who writes international award winning songs to submit their songs to us … it’s a great act of humility. I’m constantly honouring people like Darlene Zschech and Reuben Morgan who are happy to do this.”

It's a reminder to us here at Garage Hymnal (who are by no means international award winning songwriters!) to make sure we're humbly seeking feedback from godly people on our lyrics (thanks to Mark Peterson, Rob Smith, Philip Percival, Bart VandenHengel, Cedric Tang, Dave Parker and others who have offered suggestions on our last few albums). [update: I very carelessly left Peter Rodgers of this list, many apologies!]

http://www.biblesociety.org.au/news/inside-hillsong-music-120202-1 

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The more I read about the history of Christian theology - and particularly thinking about our theologising about worship music - the more I notice a disappointingly human flaw. We too often do our thinking about God with our head over the shoulder, checking out someone else and trying to avoid what we see as their errors: for Augustine it was seductive paganism, for Luther it was highfalutin papistry, and for Wesley and Zschech it was suburban Anglicanism. A response to other ideas is necessary. But a theology forged largely as a reaction against something will have great weaknesses - knocking down someone else's sandcastle doesn't leave you with anything better, just a pile of sand. How sad to see ourselves as on a trajectory towards or away from someone else - our goal is to be more like Christ.

First, reactive theology quickly loses touch with the truth that worship is God’s idea, not a human invention. The Old Testament repeatedly reminds Israel that worshipping God means engaging with him ‘on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible’ (Peterson, Engaging with God, 20). Now, creativity is allowed – even encouraged – within those terms. But reactive theologies take human ideas as the starting point – the opposition’s practices set the agenda, and determine which questions are asked.

This means the relative importance of many practical questions (like whether to use instruments) is exaggerated. God is particular about many things, but not the style of music. Theologies which take the practices of other groups as their starting point will routinely get stuck answering the wrong questions: defining acceptable worship by style, rather than whether it helps believers engage with God and edify each other. 

Second, reactive theologies often force a wedge between two right answers. Reacting against the idea that worship is simply music, some assert that music has little to do with worship. They assume that the idea of worship as a ‘total-life orientation’ is an innovation of the New Testament writers, and one which supersedes the Old Testament devotional practices without a trace. This is inaccurate on both counts. When God taught the Israelites on Mt Sinai how he was to be worshipped, his instructions covered both ritual and lifestyle. And while the New Testament radically transforms worship to centre upon Christ, and places added stress on corporate edification in church meetings, worship music is still worship.

A theology of music in worship needs to be broad enough to see music as part of worship, without equating it with worship.

Third, reactive theology routinely overcorrects the opponent’s flaws. An illustrative example is Zschech’s insistence that worship music is addressed to God. This is an accurate correction to some reformed theologies which so emphasise the teaching role of music that God seems a distant third party. But to bolster her argument she makes the inaccurate assertion that Israel’s singing was exclusively ‘to the Lord’ and ‘they never sang to each other’, implying that we should not sing to each other (Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 189). Actually the Old Testament is full of people praising God by ‘noticing’ how great he is, and singing about it to their fellow Israelites – even to their enemies! Paul instructs Christians both to ‘sing and make music in your heart to the Lord’ as well as ‘speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs’. As with everything in church life we need to be aware of both the ‘vertical dimension’ (by which God ministers to us and we respond), and the ‘horizontal dimension’ (as we minister to each other). We are not to understand the horizontal and vertical aspects of church life separately, but rather ‘Paul’s teaching encourages us to view the same activities from both points of view’ (Engaging with God, 221). 

No matter what tradition we come from, we all need to form our own sense of what the Bible says about worship, and we need to work out what kind of place music will have in it. The better approaches, however, will be prepared to evaluate their own inherited tradition in light of scripture, accept what is good in other practices, and marshal whatever musical resources their culture can offer to realise a full biblical vision of music in Christian worship.

AJ

(Something like this post originally appeared as a section of my article in Case Magazine, 'Theologising about Music in Worship: A brief history from Augustine to Zschech', Case 23 (2010), 10-15. http://www.case.edu.au/index.php/case_magazine/case_23_music_and_theology/)

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Some very interesting suggestions have been raised in recent blogs (and comments on this blog). In this post I'd like to address the suggestion that we keep the word 'worship' in the technical sense of 'bowing down as a gesture of respect', roughly equivalent to the Greek προσκυνέω (proskuneo) and the Hebrew הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה (hishtachawa). My contention is that this is too small a view of worship.

Unfortunately, this post is going to have to get a little bit technical. But I believe that words are important, because we think in words, and God speaks in words. If you get words wrong sometimes it doesn't matter - but sometimes you can get God wrong. Also I should add that the 'small worship people' include many of my dearest friends, whom I love, and who are earnestly trying to teach more clearly what the Bible says. This, I think, is awesome, and a conversation worth contributing to.

I really do wish that the biblical idea of worship were as simple as is sometimes implied: wouldn't it be nice if we had three equivalent words, in three different languages, with three discreet ideas behind them. But, unfortunately, the 'small worship' camp has a couple of hurdles I think need to be addressed before I can sign on to their solution.

First, the English word 'worship' already covers too big a field. A quick scan in my Oxford English Dictionary shows the word carries huge freight: respect, honour, reverence, actions showing veneration, appropriate rites, ceremonies, bowing down, honouring. That's even before we include more modern meanings ('take part in religious ceremony', 'sing a song').

Second, the way language works means that, while you can expand the connotations of a word, it is almost impossible to take them away by force. Try as you might, you are simply not going to get people to think of 'worship' as anything less than 'important stuff to do with God'. Tell them that stacking chairs, praising Jesus, or changing nappies is 'not worship', and they'll just think that you think that stacking chairs, praising Jesus, and changing nappies are too 'everyday' to show our respect, honour, or allegiance to Jesus.

Third, I really don't think the Bible does keep these ideas as separate as the small worship people sometimes suggest. So far as I can see, nobody has offered anything as thorough as David Peterson's Biblical Theology of worship in Engaging with God. In Chapter 2 he surveys the usage of all the terminology, revealing a great deal of overlapping usage in the terms:

• - proskuneo terminology suggests bowing, but often in a context of cultic practice where the intention is to serve (p.70)
• - bowing down and serving often appear as a phrase ("Do not bow down and serve those naughty idols" is a common Deuteronomistic catch-phrase)
• - the sebomai (reverence) word group can be used to refer to specific cultic acts
• - all three main terms (bowing down, serving, reverencing) are applied both to specific acts and also to a general life of obedience and respect.
• Fourth, latreuo simply doesn't mean 'Service'. It only ever refers to service in a cultic context, and it absolutely includes things like fasting and prayer (Acts 26:7) and sacrifices (Heb 9:9). It is distinct from other types of service (διακονέω, δουλεύω, θεραπεύω). We simply don't have a word like this in English, and in some contexts 'worship' is going to get at what the writer is talking about better than 'service'. 
• Finally, if we run with the small definition of worship, worship does NOT include offering sacrifices, praying, fasting, declaring God's praises, or expressing reverence (for these are most commonly described using other words). In fact, all that is left is literally bowing down. Which makes me wonder why Matthew had to specify in Matthew 4:9 that the disciples 'fell down' before they worshipped him. (Or maybe Matthew had a big picture of worship?)
• I do hear the concerns of those who want to think clearly and rightly about worship. I really do appreciate what they're getting at. But for linguistic and pastoral reasons I still side with David Peterson, Bob Kauflin and Don Carson on this one. Let's give people a big picture of worship.

 

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Does Romans 12:1 talk about worship as all of life?

In his blog post at the briefing, Philip Percival has been looking at the traditional understanding of worship as 'all of life'. Philip is a dear friend and mentor of mine, and over the years I have enjoyed very much kicking these issues around with him.

In his post, Philip questioned whether our lives are really offered as 'worship' in Romans 12:1, preferring the translation:

offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your reasonable service.

I've been thinking about this verse recently, and unlike Philip I actually think a type of worship is on view here.
Sorry to get technical for a second, but let's have a closer look at those squiggly greek words in Rom 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a thusian sosan (θυσίαν ζῶσαν) holy and pleasing to God—-this is your logiken latreian (λογικὴν λατρείαν). (mangled NIV2011 translation)

This verse begins a section of doctrine (chapters 12 and 13), within Paul's alternating structure of confirming doctrine then defending it in light of Israelite objections (Gibson&Nichols, 2011). Paul has just been defending his gospel against the charge that God has failed, because his promises to Israel have failed to come about. He now turns to show how we should live in light of that mercy in chapters 12 and 13.

The first thing that gets me in the mood for thinking about our lives as worship is the Old Testamenty worshipppy language: thusian is something offered as a sacrifice, here used in a figurative way (according to my Greek dictionary(BDAG)).

The second thing that gets me there is the use of 'service' language: latreian. This technical term is used almost exclusively in the sense of religious or temple based service in the Greek Old Testament (Ex 12:25, 13:5, Josh 22:27, 1Chr 28:13) and New Testament (John 16:2, Rom 9:4, Heb 9:1, Heb 9:6) and in inter-testemental literature (1Mac 1:43, 2:19, 2:22 and 3Mac 4:14). (Admittedly, the Hebrew word underlying most of these ('avoda, עֲבוֹדָה) is used more broadly.)

Now what does logiken mean here? I remember being hugely confused when I compared the different translations: "reasonable" (KJV), "true" (TNIV), "spiritual"(TNIV, ESV, Holman), or "true and proper" (NIV11). What gives? Can't these translators get it worked out?

The problem is that all these translations are good: they capture part of what the phrase means, but lose something else (translations always do this to some extent, which is why we build our view of God based on the whole bible and not individual words). Logikos overlaps with 'reasonable' in the sense that it's not some unthinking animal response: 'carefully thought through'.

But hold your horses ... the same word is used in 1Peter 2:2 when he says 'crave logikos milk' - by which he means not carefully thought through milk, but milk in a spiritual (or, if you like, metaphorical) sense. This is another way Greek philosophers liked to use logikos, to signal a metaphorical or spiritual sense. So I think Philip's choice of 'reasonable' is part of the picture, but misses that our lives of service are in a spiritual, or metaphorical way, an offering of worship which is pleasing to God because of Jesus.

In the context, I think Paul is saying that we should offer our lives as if it were a sacrifice - and this pleasing offering to God is in a Spiritual sense part of our well thought out worship of God.

David Peterson's excellent study on worship sits on a lot of bookshelves, but sadly I think many people have missed his big picture. Peterson concludes that in the Old and New Testaments, worship includes at least three ideas:

1.     1.    To bow the knee in adoration, expressing submission to him and grateful recognition of who he is.
2.     2.    To serve him obediently both in specific acts and generally in life.
3.     3.    To show reverence or respect for God in every aspect of life.
4. I think we need to hold on to this kind of a big picture of worship - both specific acts, and a general lifestyle of service to God.

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I am grateful to my friend and teacher Greg Anderson (an ethnomusicologist and lecturer at Moore College) for bringing to my attention this part of C.S. Lewis' 'Screwtape Letters'. In this fictional work, a senior devil gives advice to a younger devil on how to distract or destroy the Christian he has been charged with annoying. He writes about the physicality of worship:

 

One strategy, the mentor devil Screwtape suggests to the young Wormwood, is to persuade the believers that ‘bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.’ (Screwtape to Wormwood, p16)

 

We are embodied worshippers, after all.

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Is such a thing possible?

Bob Kauflin had just spoken on worshipping God with our whole mind, soul and body. He had mounted a compelling biblical case (mostly from Psalms but also from the broader biblical corpus) for the appropriateness of responding to God with our bodies - kneeling, clapping, raising hands and shouting. He had observed that in Sydney we seem to have "two types of churches" - the ones with solid biblical teaching but little emotional engagement, and the ones with overwhelming emotional engagement but little knowledge about who we are engaging with. (And he had humerously pointed out that many people go to one type of church in the morning and one type of church at night.) And then he invited us to worship through music with him, feeling free to respond with our whole bodies (within some judiciously discerned biblical limits, of course). He didn't say it was wrong not to raise your hands. And he was careful to say we should be sensitive to our own culture. But he challenged us on whether fear of what other people might think was inadvertently communicating that what we're singing about is unimportant and unmoving.

And then something happened - the City Recital Hall, full of conservative Anglicans and Presbyterians, erupted in some of the most profoundly passionate singing I've ever witnessed. Not everyone raised their hands, or applauded the news that there is 'no guilt in life, no fear in death', but the view from stage was unlike any Twist conference I've experienced before.

What makes Bob's teaching at Twist Conference remarkable is that Twist Conference is the main music ministry conference in Sydney for Sydney Anglicans - who typically have been afraid of being too expressive, for fear of 'emotional manipulation' or 'distraction from the Word'. Bob, the pastor for worship development at Sovereign Grace, speaks from a unique position into the Sydney scene - he's more reformed than most of us, and his biblical theology is heavily influenced by our own David Peterson (whose book Engaging With God, Bob mentioned several times this week, saying it 'changed his life'). He even cited Calvin's commentary on 2Corinthians in support of using physical postures to aid true spiritual engagement.

I wonder if this is the start of a new culture in Sydney - where people no longer have to go to two different churches - one in the morning, one at night - to engage with God in mind, soul and body?

To check out Bob's thoughts on physical expressiveness in worship you can check out his blog topic here: http://www.worshipmatters.com/category/worship-in-the-church/physical-expressiveness-worship-in-the-church/.

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We had the privilege of welcoming Bob Kauflin to Moore College this week, to give a lecture on pastoring through music.

Bob identified five biblical jobs of the pastor. The pastor of a congregation has the responsibility to ensure those things happen, but will usually delegate this responsibility to other people who serve in the church. Bob spoke to each of these points on how music can pastor people in these five ways.

1) Pastoring people through song involves feeding them.
Gordon Fee said 'show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology'. To feed through music we need to ensure that there a balanced theological diet in our songs. How well do I know the theological content of our music? If my children only had our songs to learn about God, how well would they know him after 20 years?

2) Pastoring people through song involved leading them.
Our leadership happens through planning before, leading during, and teaching on the role of worship and music. We can plan carefully to ensure theological weight and balance, we need to balance expectantly  because God wants to bless his people. Songs are not a filler - think expectantly, that God might actually want to show himself more clearly to someone as you sing a song. "Edwards says this, Piper says that, Bible says this." It is important that we expect God to move in people's hearts as we sing. We should do this humbly - it's not our musicianship, planning or preparation, it's God's Spirit which does an eternal work in people's hearts. We should do this purposefully - so people know what people should focus on. Otherwise it's like listening to your ipod on shuffle.
We lead during the meetings - why are we reading this song, this scripture, what should we be thinking about. It is so helpful to be given direction as we move on to something. How should we respond?
We can lead people to feel at liberty to respond to what we've just sung. There is overflow after songs - it is surprising that when we finish singing a song nobody wants to shout or clap or do anything. It can help when we give you permission to smile after a song, say 'wasn't that great, wasn't that true?'. The pastor or the delegated leader is responsible for what takes place in the meeting.

3) Pastoring people through song involves caring for people.
A pastor should have a good handle on where people live, what temptations and battles they face, and have an idea of how to connect where they're at to the Gospel of Christ. God can use songs as a means for helping people to see how God's work in Christ helps them with their problems. We need to communicate things in a way that helps them to realise that what they are singing is life changing. The devil could sing a song about God being one - but we serve our people best by helping them to mean it. Many of our problems come from our deficient in inaccurate understanding of what the gospel accomplishes. We cannot sing too much about teh gospel, about Christ, about the glory of Christ. We need to explain what it accomplishes - our reconciliation to God (Rom 5:10). Someone might not feel like they've been adopted, but that doesn't change where you stand with God - you've been adopted into the family of God.

Bob demonstrated what he meant - "aware that people are struggling with condemnation, I might lead them in this song". He then launched in 'Before the Throne', interspersed with questions and challenges to us: "what does Jesus do for you?". Our goal is not simply emotion for its own sake. It is not songs that change us, but they point us to the truths which do. He demonstrated how sometimes hymn lyrics are more poetic than helpful, and so he might change them to leave them with something they'll benefit from. "This could help someone change during their struggle with sin." If you don't write songs, at least pick good ones. He then spent some time thinking through the words of In Christ Alone - if we're just thinking 'that's a great old standard people know', that's all we'll get. He also demonstrated how you could lead people by speaking between verses - so before the final verse of In Christ Alone he said 'this is the effect of all that we've just sung'.

4) We protect people through the songs we sing.
We can protect people from the errors of the world by singing rich theological truth... but it's not enough just to sing them, we have to connect them. That's why people go to songs that are less deep but stir their emotions more, because they haven't connected with the deep truths. We can protect them from the vices of the world by reminding them of God's righteousness, holiness, and judgment. He mentioned Michael Morrow's song We Belong to the Day on this theme. Songs can protect people from the errors of the world - by doing all we can by presenting Christ as dazzlingly better than anything else the world has to offer.

5) We want to be a model to people when we sing.
Two things - are we engaged when we sing? As pastors are we glorifying God our father during the singing, or are we putting finishing touches on our sermon. And outside the meeting are we being Godly?

Meetings cannot provide everything our people need to follow God, but let's make sure we don't give people anything less than what they can provide. Let's pastor them through song.

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There is a school of thought in mainstream culture which calls for the recovery of true 'masculinity'. Men who are real men. Who like drinking beer, taking unnecessary risks, and fighting. (These are probably the kinds of men who beat you up in high school.)

Thankfully, these ideas only very occasionally infiltrate our church thinking. It's not hard to see that such a conception of masculinity has precisely nothing to do with a gospel community. Jesus, after all, embodied a strength which was counter cultural: he willingly suffered, and died at the hands of wicked men, instructing his followers to likewise 'turn the other cheek'. Vindication of such suffering will come when Jesus returns to put the world to rights. In the mean time, humanity, both male and female, are called to be more like Christ in his suffering - and that rules out using strength to assert our rights. 'Standing up for yourself' is not a Christian project.

Very occasionally, however, unbiblical assumptions about masculinity surface in discussions about music in church. The comment 'why are our songs so feminine?' betrays some sloppy thinking about music, and gender, which I'd like to address.

My obvious question is: What on earth is 'feminine' music?

Perhaps the ranges of the songs you sing are difficult for you to sing? If so, this is not an issue of gender but of range. We all have different comfortable ranges, and it's not as simplistic as 'boy' keys and 'girl' keys. One key will work for baritones and altos, another fits better for tenors and sopranos.

Perhaps the songleaders in your church are all women? Fair enough, it would be nice to have variety. I struggle to find men who are happy to sing up front in my church.

Perhaps, though, what you really mean is that you just don't like the style of music that you hear in most churches. That's fine, of course. But I'm bemused by the suggestion that it's a neatly gendered issue. Two things make it not so neat:

First, it's worth noting that this is not reflected in who is writing and recording the songs we currently sing in Australian churches. Of the CCLI top 10 for Australia in the last reporting period, only one of the songs was written by a woman (Shout to the Lord). The rest were written by blokes. So if anything I'd expect the ladies to be complaining about a lopsided repertoire.

But, second, and most fundamentally, I want to question where you're getting you sense of what's 'feminine' and 'masculine' in music. There is a model of masculinity being assumed here which I suspect has little solid beneath it. Is it more masculine to like rock than jazz? Even if a survey of 100 men showed that 70 of them preferred Midnight Oil to Keith Urban what would that prove? Are the other 30 somehow wrong? Unmanly? Effeminate?

The German theologian Karl Barth talks about these assumed models of masculinity and gender in Church Dogmatics (III.4). He observes that these systems (e.g. boys like blue and girls like pink) can only ever be "suppositions and assertions which rest upon impressions and personal experiences and are necessarily problematic" (III.4, p150-151). He asks "On what authority are we told that these traits are masculine and these feminine?"

Most importantly, he asks, how do we possibly make commands out of these "rather contingent, schematic, conventional, literary and half-true indicatives...? Real man and real woman would then have to let themsevels be told: Thou shalt be concerned with things.... This is quite impossible." (CD III.4, p153.)

I play piano as a man. I write songs as a man. I can't do otherwise. But it is entirely possible that there will be overlap with how a woman might play piano and write songs. That's because, while different, men and women aren't strictly speaking opposites. An opposite is totally different in every way. Gender is a variation on a theme. After all, I have more in common with a woman than with a rock. And dividing the world up into 'boy songs' and 'girl songs' seems like a very silly way of saying 'I'd like it if we played more rock and less ballads in church'. (Who knows, you might find a number of girls agreeing with you.)

AJ

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