NOTEworthy October 11

I’ll Make Music – Karl Jenkins

Lord and Master
I’ll sing a song to you
On the ten-string lyre I’ll make music

Lord and Master
Let your thoughts fall like rain
And just like showers on new grass

We’ll play for you with harps and trumpets,
We’ll sing some psalms in praise of you
We’ll play for you with harps and trumpets,
We’ll sing some psalms in praise of you

Lord and Master
Let your words descend like dew
And just like droplets on tender leaves

We’ll play for you with harps and trumpets
We’ll sing some psalms in praise of you
We’ll play for you with harps and trumpets,
We’ll sing some psalms in praise of you

I’ll make music
I shall make new music
I shall make music, music for you

Combined texts from Deuteronomy 32:2, Psalm 144:9 & 1 Chronicles 13:8

I have to admit that this week, I did not choose this particular motet because of any theological point it would help me to convey. I chose this song because I find it absolutely enchanting.

This enchantment led to a number of play-throughs of the piece, even whilst considering other songs to write about, and an hours long dive into the life and works of Karl Jenkins.

I’ll give you the abbreviated version of my afternoon:

The composer of this piece, Karl Jenkins, has led a very interesting life, which I think deeply forms the style of music that he creates. His father was a church organist and choir-master, which led him to pursue classical music education in college.

Karl Jenkins is a self-described “musical tourist.” In his early career, he was a professional saxophonist and jazz composer, playing in Graham Collier’s Group and co-founding the jazz-rock fusion band Nucleus. He later joined the prog rock band Soft Machine, which won numerous awards and played venues such as The Proms and Carnegie Hall. He also worked as a studio musician, and wrote advertising music. His work, Palladio, originally written for a De Beers Diamonds commercial in 1994, won industry awards and is now one of those songs that you know you’ve heard before, but you just can’t place it.

Now, he is a predominantly classical composer, and one of the most-performed living composers in the world.

Beyond the fascination I felt at Jenkins’s meandering musical pathway, I also found a quote from him that really convicted me. In an interview with Church Times he says:

“I have to write something every day. Waiting around for inspiration is a bit of a myth, really. If you wait for that, nothing ever happens.”

Though we may pray and wait for God’s thoughts to “fall like rain” or for His words to “descend like dew,” there is music to be made in the meantime. Waiting for perfection, whether it be a perfect time, perfect opportunity, or perfect inspiration, tends to just look like waiting.

But we are called to fish. To sow. To reap. And to make music.

He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. Ecclesiastes 11:4-6

Andy Eaton
Director of Music
First Presbyterian Church

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