thank you you know as a child one of the
things I love the most about the
Methodist Church that my family and I
attended was it had a buffet
no seriously at buffet but not a buffet
of food items like pastas or salads or
desserts but a musical buffet of
traditional hymns and anthems and
spirituals and gospel music among a host
of other culturally specific practices
it was wonderful
in fact the musical options that we had
at our church satisfied our curiosities
and our appetites and everyone trust me
was musically fulfilled even my
grandmother who preferred anthems and
and hymns to my father’s love for the
male singing quartet sound and even to
my own curiosities and passions for
gospel music do you know what you almost
had to be there to to to witness it to
see it but can I bring it to you I
[Applause]
didn’t mean to say but you look like you
could use a buffet right about now would
you please help me welcome there some
few members of my ASU gospel choir
[Applause]
so the first thing was there was a
Evelyn Roberts version and Evelyn
Roberts interpreted the the melodies and
the the rhythms in the most purest form
I mean she was a classical trained
organist and so you dare not deviate
from the printed page right it was
wonderful and so she took this wonderful
hymn and she would play it in duple
meter do you mind doing this with me so
you can keep the meter one two keep
going I’m gonna play and so it sounded
something like this
[Music]
yeah I mean not bad but then there was
also Olly reddish Olly reddish came to
our Methodist Church from the Baptist
tradition and she brought with her this
gospel feel and so she transformed the
same song from this duple meter into
this triple meter like 1 2 3 do you mind
helping again okay you’re naturals
not only did it feel differently
differently but it also sounded
[Applause]
what
and then finally there was going to land
Bagley who had this walking bass line
and the rhythmic text sounded like this
what oh what oh joy Dave Vaughn you
so you probably can’t imagine why I love
the music at our church so much I found
it so fascinating but it wasn’t just my
church it was also my school music
program where Janice Doherty our high
school choir director chose a variety of
repertoire as one way to assure
comprehensiveness in our music
instruction I mean by the time I
graduate from high school at this depth
of musical experiences from Western art
music to pop music to musical theater
it’s a barber shop just to name a few
and it was just wonderful
in fact I loved it I absolutely loved it
in fact I loved it so much that I
decided to go off to college to study
music education so I could share with
others this wonderful imaginative
socially and educated musical making
experience but to my dismay music study
at the collegiate level was a departure
from what I had experienced previously
in fact when I got there there was no
buffet in fact my music was missing I
was excluded why because in many places
some music is just not considered worse
so you see many institutions had this
splitting process where they have put
these wonderful symbolic boundaries of
closure around what gets to be counted
and then excluding everything else that
doesn’t get to be counted it was an
interesting process in fact even when I
was an undergraduate student it didn’t
feel right now as a 40 year old
ouch it still doesn’t feel right and so
just think for a moment about one of
your own favorite musical genres and if
I call the name out would you make some
noise if I say yours yeah yeah so like
blues or classical music country dance
electronica yeah
R&B rap rock and roll or maybe some form
of of world music now now think for just
a moment think for a moment about what
life would be like if you were unable to
engage with that music in some
meaningful or some critical way what
would it feel like to have your music
excluded in fact despite some new
universities putting into the program
their curriculums in the int also into
their degree requirements those
wonderful and very musical experiences
in some places a premium price is still
placed on selected voices that count the
most like Beethoven and Bach and Brahms
while putting a discounted price on
other marginal voices that count for
less like Gwyn Bagley from my church me
Jason Thompson but there is a good side
to being excluded and it’s this that
often the people that we have to exclude
that we exclude tomorrow or yesterday
are the same people that we have to then
include back in today
that the same people that have same
voices that we separate yesterday are
the same voices that we have to
integrate back into our programs today
in fact the same people that we count
out are often the same ones that we have
to count back on to help tell the worlds
and the nations
evolving story that’s good news and
that’s why I call it the gospel the
gospel of musical inclusion not gospel
necessarily in terms of a music genre
like my own love for gospel music not
gospel in terms of a religious doctrine
or Dogma but gospel in terms of the
truth
yeah the gospel truth the ugly bitter
truth and guess what here’s the true for
you like it or not that every person
regardless of their social background
deserves an equal chance to tell the
story to tell their story and had that
story count well I’ve got a good story
for you about the ASU gospel choir yeah
yeah it’s an interesting choir because
it’s housed within the Herberger
Institute and one of the initiatives is
this projecting all voices which says
that everybody should have an equal
chance to tell their story and had that
story count and boy did it count
in fact even though at one point a
gospel car like this wouldn’t count for
degree requirements this is a university
sanction credit-bearing university
ensemble that’s really popular and by
popular I mean that it just continued to
grow from 12 members to 55 to 84 to now
so you know I’m thinking about the
boundless theme and I kept thinking
tonight that I want to change our name
from the Arizona State University choir
to help me with this to see what you
think – the so shocking show-stopping
devastating history-making
electrifying and also gratifying
not to mention satisfying ASU gospel
choir yeah I’m gonna make that fit on a
pencil it’s gonna work so I’m excited
about that I’m excited because these
students come from all over the
University and they take gospel choir
for multiple reasons some because they
want to affirm their religious faith
some because they really just love
singing together in this unique style
some just love the social aspects of
singing together in community and for
some of them rocking back and forth and
clapping on beats 2 and 4 with that you
try to do is a form of recreation it’s
wonderful and guess what I value all of
those varying ways and those different
ways to be musical speaking of value
Amanda Williams said it best that that
ultimately what we value is reflected in
what each of us chooses to pay attention
to to care for and to sustain we’re
doing that with the gospel choir in the
Herberger Institute but I’m curious
about what you value in your own life
what you choose to pay attention to what
you choose to care for or what you
choose to sustain here’s the last bit of
gospel truth about being included being
included as never it never requires you
to have a rite of passage in fact it
really is your right to passage thank you
things I love the most about the
Methodist Church that my family and I
attended was it had a buffet
no seriously at buffet but not a buffet
of food items like pastas or salads or
desserts but a musical buffet of
traditional hymns and anthems and
spirituals and gospel music among a host
of other culturally specific practices
it was wonderful
in fact the musical options that we had
at our church satisfied our curiosities
and our appetites and everyone trust me
was musically fulfilled even my
grandmother who preferred anthems and
and hymns to my father’s love for the
male singing quartet sound and even to
my own curiosities and passions for
gospel music do you know what you almost
had to be there to to to witness it to
see it but can I bring it to you I
[Applause]
didn’t mean to say but you look like you
could use a buffet right about now would
you please help me welcome there some
few members of my ASU gospel choir
[Applause]
so the first thing was there was a
Evelyn Roberts version and Evelyn
Roberts interpreted the the melodies and
the the rhythms in the most purest form
I mean she was a classical trained
organist and so you dare not deviate
from the printed page right it was
wonderful and so she took this wonderful
hymn and she would play it in duple
meter do you mind doing this with me so
you can keep the meter one two keep
going I’m gonna play and so it sounded
something like this
[Music]
yeah I mean not bad but then there was
also Olly reddish Olly reddish came to
our Methodist Church from the Baptist
tradition and she brought with her this
gospel feel and so she transformed the
same song from this duple meter into
this triple meter like 1 2 3 do you mind
helping again okay you’re naturals
not only did it feel differently
differently but it also sounded
[Applause]
what
and then finally there was going to land
Bagley who had this walking bass line
and the rhythmic text sounded like this
what oh what oh joy Dave Vaughn you
so you probably can’t imagine why I love
the music at our church so much I found
it so fascinating but it wasn’t just my
church it was also my school music
program where Janice Doherty our high
school choir director chose a variety of
repertoire as one way to assure
comprehensiveness in our music
instruction I mean by the time I
graduate from high school at this depth
of musical experiences from Western art
music to pop music to musical theater
it’s a barber shop just to name a few
and it was just wonderful
in fact I loved it I absolutely loved it
in fact I loved it so much that I
decided to go off to college to study
music education so I could share with
others this wonderful imaginative
socially and educated musical making
experience but to my dismay music study
at the collegiate level was a departure
from what I had experienced previously
in fact when I got there there was no
buffet in fact my music was missing I
was excluded why because in many places
some music is just not considered worse
so you see many institutions had this
splitting process where they have put
these wonderful symbolic boundaries of
closure around what gets to be counted
and then excluding everything else that
doesn’t get to be counted it was an
interesting process in fact even when I
was an undergraduate student it didn’t
feel right now as a 40 year old
ouch it still doesn’t feel right and so
just think for a moment about one of
your own favorite musical genres and if
I call the name out would you make some
noise if I say yours yeah yeah so like
blues or classical music country dance
electronica yeah
R&B rap rock and roll or maybe some form
of of world music now now think for just
a moment think for a moment about what
life would be like if you were unable to
engage with that music in some
meaningful or some critical way what
would it feel like to have your music
excluded in fact despite some new
universities putting into the program
their curriculums in the int also into
their degree requirements those
wonderful and very musical experiences
in some places a premium price is still
placed on selected voices that count the
most like Beethoven and Bach and Brahms
while putting a discounted price on
other marginal voices that count for
less like Gwyn Bagley from my church me
Jason Thompson but there is a good side
to being excluded and it’s this that
often the people that we have to exclude
that we exclude tomorrow or yesterday
are the same people that we have to then
include back in today
that the same people that have same
voices that we separate yesterday are
the same voices that we have to
integrate back into our programs today
in fact the same people that we count
out are often the same ones that we have
to count back on to help tell the worlds
and the nations
evolving story that’s good news and
that’s why I call it the gospel the
gospel of musical inclusion not gospel
necessarily in terms of a music genre
like my own love for gospel music not
gospel in terms of a religious doctrine
or Dogma but gospel in terms of the
truth
yeah the gospel truth the ugly bitter
truth and guess what here’s the true for
you like it or not that every person
regardless of their social background
deserves an equal chance to tell the
story to tell their story and had that
story count well I’ve got a good story
for you about the ASU gospel choir yeah
yeah it’s an interesting choir because
it’s housed within the Herberger
Institute and one of the initiatives is
this projecting all voices which says
that everybody should have an equal
chance to tell their story and had that
story count and boy did it count
in fact even though at one point a
gospel car like this wouldn’t count for
degree requirements this is a university
sanction credit-bearing university
ensemble that’s really popular and by
popular I mean that it just continued to
grow from 12 members to 55 to 84 to now
so you know I’m thinking about the
boundless theme and I kept thinking
tonight that I want to change our name
from the Arizona State University choir
to help me with this to see what you
think – the so shocking show-stopping
devastating history-making
electrifying and also gratifying
not to mention satisfying ASU gospel
choir yeah I’m gonna make that fit on a
pencil it’s gonna work so I’m excited
about that I’m excited because these
students come from all over the
University and they take gospel choir
for multiple reasons some because they
want to affirm their religious faith
some because they really just love
singing together in this unique style
some just love the social aspects of
singing together in community and for
some of them rocking back and forth and
clapping on beats 2 and 4 with that you
try to do is a form of recreation it’s
wonderful and guess what I value all of
those varying ways and those different
ways to be musical speaking of value
Amanda Williams said it best that that
ultimately what we value is reflected in
what each of us chooses to pay attention
to to care for and to sustain we’re
doing that with the gospel choir in the
Herberger Institute but I’m curious
about what you value in your own life
what you choose to pay attention to what
you choose to care for or what you
choose to sustain here’s the last bit of
gospel truth about being included being
included as never it never requires you
to have a rite of passage in fact it
really is your right to passage thank you
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