Reading List - October 2010

 

1) Don Sailers' book on music and spirituality. Written with his daughter Emily Saliers, from the Indigo girls.  Don and Emily discuss family memories of how music shaped their spirituality.  Highly recommended reading!

2) Don Saliers' discussion of how music and theology impact each other.  Not a long book, but good concepts to have in mind when considering music for worship.

3) I don't agree with everything in this book. He acts like he appreciates all forms of music worship, but there is a definite slant toward classical music and traditional worship music.  What it does do well is a bring up the issue of pastoral musicianship; how church musicians should be trained and how clergy can help.

Reading list - June 2010

I made up my mind recently that there was no magical degree I could get that would give me all of the knowledge I'm looking for about pastoral musicianship.  I then recalled my major professor from my choral conducting degree.  We were talking to one of the other graduate students in my cohort who mentioned leaving a very highly-paid church job (we're talking AMAZING) in a city in Oklahoma.  He left to do his masters degree, and he said it was a decision whether to stay and get paid well or further himself.  To this, our professor said, "BLANK, you can buy a lot of books with that kind of money!"

So no I've just decided to create my own reading lists on the topics I find interesting in the field.  Here's what I'm reading now and what I've read in the recent past.