Robert Gass, author of the book Chanting, notes that although most chants are a cappella, such as the voices of monks singing a Gregorian chant, others are accompanied by drums, rattles, flutes, whistles, bells, tambourines, harps, or other indigenous instruments.
Says Gass, "Chants can serve many purposes, from telling stories such as the mythic tale of Lord Rama and Sita in the great Indian epic Ramayana to casting out disease in the healing chants of the Siberian shaman, and to inducing trance in the Haitian voodoo. Chant can also be used to quiet the mind, open the heart, uplift the spirit, and mourn the dead."
While there are many meanings, Gass prefers to define chant as the worship and celebration of the sacred through melodically simple vocalization.
"Chant is singing our prayers. Chant is vocal meditation. Chant is the breath made audible in tone. Chant is discovering spirit in sound," Gass enthuses.
In the book Chant Made Simple by Robert Fowells, the chant is described as the oldest Christian tradition. The earliest recorded chant dates back to the ninth century.
It seemed the chant was doomed to oblivion because rarely did the Catholic Church feature chants because they were in Latin. Fowells also observed that Protestant churches veered away from chants because of their Catholic association.
"And so, like the shafts of sun that break through the anguish of night, lauds began the gentle subversion, the revolution of spirit that led many to pray without words," the ministry proposes.
Arnel de Castro Aquino is the young Jesuit behind the stirring piano pieces of the now four-series lauds. As the website explains, "(Aquino) draws from the depths of his spirit with the deftness of his hands, to make the piano speak the wordless sighing of our hearts. He takes his own songs, and those of others, and transforms them, making them sing the anthem of our souls, the unspeakable yearnings of those wordless depths."
The first in the series features songs that have "lifted us from sadness or have borne us on wings of prayer." The second takes us "to journeys of faith and healing, reminding us that there is always a time for everything." The third in the series is also called first prayers, "as we revisit the songs of our childhood’s faith, bathed in incense and memory, as we recall our first encounters with God." And the most recent leads us to a lonely place to pray, where our pain and anguish know no words, where we encounter the God of solace and comfort and love."
The lauds series, featuring Arnel de Castro Aquino, S.J. on the piano, is produced by the Jesuit Music Ministry and the Jesuit Communications Foundation. Laud and vesper collections feature your favorite Jesuit songs beautifully performed on piano, guitar, violin, and flute. Perfect for meditation and prayer, these discs and cassettes are distributed nationwide by BMG Records.
Music has played a significant role in the Jesuits’ role of evangelizing the Philippines as chronicled in various books. As the website declares, "Jesuits from the beginning realized that God is more often reached by the people through the gate of beauty than by the gate of truth and thus, the arts are truly privileged pathways and doorways to the infinite."
He refers to 1 Samuel 16:15-23 as one clear example of this. King Saul felt better after listening to David playing his harp. In 2 Kings 3:14-16, an emotionally distraught Elisha was asked to prophesy. Elisha called for a harpist, understanding that the right kind of music would calm his emotions and better enable him to deliver the word of the Lord.
Experiments confirm that when we reach a stage of relaxation, creativity is enhanced as well as the collaboration of our logical left-brain and our creative right brain. It is that same state that’s required in meditating and praying. To reach that state, proper music can help.
To each his own. A music that may soothe my frayed nerves might disturb another. If you are the type who’s positively affected by music, use it wisely as a tool this holy season to increase and enhance your spiritual life.
Fact is, some find meditative rhythm in silence, just being aware of the rhythmic breathing of air. A psychologist once told me that a person who sleeps while the TV is on or one who immediately turns on his TV or radio as soon as he enters his room, might be afraid of being alone. A lot of us are afraid of solitude, afraid of confronting the evil within us or the great good that we are being prompted to do but will entail great sacrifice.
We attempt to run away from God by making ourselves too busy or too preoccupied with the most mundane and simple things. Why? We will have to face our Creator sooner or later so we should take each day as an opportunity to be still and listen to Him. And if music inspires you to do that, then let your heart sing.