July 9, 2023 – Music as a Spiritual Practice

First Parish invites the community to join us for our lay-led summer services on Sundays at 10 am.

Join us for Music as a Spiritual Practice with Colin Warwick.

We think of hearing primarily in terms of language, but hearing evolved at least 500 million years before language. Primitive “ears” (tympanic organs) evolved to hear environmental sounds, not speech. Music is deeply connected to environmental sound via the so-called “Chord of Nature.” Thus, our brain’s “wiring” for music is much more ancient than that for the spoken word.

In our Sunday Services, music is not merely entertainment or a diversion, but an emotional and spiritual practice. As Leonard Bernstein says, “Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” To understand exactly how, we will “look under the hood” at resonance, harmonics, the Chord of Nature, Just Temperament, and the resolution of dissonance to consonance. In addition, I’ll discuss how music and words complement each other in singing.

In-person or online.