A nice bit of recognition

So this article came out today in the Mormon Times by Orson Scott Card, entitled "Searching for Good LDS Music". It is so great and well written and bold and he voices sentiments we've had on the subject for years. He also gives a nice little nod to Scott's album, "Mary's Lullaby" (the second in his lullaby series).

"Mormon Art" is a complex subject that intertwines and challenges questions of testimony, talent, spirituality, identity, calling, culture, and recognition. We are (well really Scott is, but I do my best to cheer him on) doing our best to effect changes from the inside, which is mostly slow and frustrating, so it is nice to be recognized for our efforts from time to time.

Here are some great excerpts (although the whole thing is good so go read it here):

I bought at least one CD from every Mormon pop singer on offer, and my kids and I listened to them as we drove home. I'm afraid we weren't a very sympathetic audience.

Most of the singers sounded as if they were talking down to Primary children. You know what I mean: that smiley, condescending tone that used to be heard, not just in Primary, but in Relief Society meetings as well. For many years, it was the oh-so-special accent of LDS women in public discourse.

(I think it ended the first time Sheri Dew spoke in general conference. It's as if LDS women heard her and thought: "Oh, now we can talk like grownups.")

That tone of voice did not translate very well to singing -- it undercut the credibility of every word they sang. We called them "smile singers" and never played the CDs again.

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Maybe the problem is simply that not every singer is a songwriter. And if the best LDS music continues to consist of new interpretations of standards, I'm fine with that.

Which is a long way around, I suppose, to calling your attention to a Shadow Mountain (i.e., Deseret Book in jeans) release called "Mary's Lullaby: Christmas Songs for Bedtime."

It's a compilation of familiar Christmas carols -- time-tested, so there are no songwriting issues. Instead, producer Scott Wiley was able to hold everyone to an excellent concept: The carols really would be performed as lullabies.

The volume stays low, the rhythms gentle, the tempos slow. The singers do nothing to show off or decorate the music. They're intimate, as if being sung to a baby held in the singer's arms.

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I had already heard many of these singers doing their own music and, sadly, dismissed them -- as performers, not just as songwriters. Why? Because they sang as if they were auditioning for American Idol -- that over-wrought, over-decorated style that conceals every scrap of originality and character in the singer's voice.

Yeah, yeah, you can sing like Whitney. So what? Who are you?

On this album, every single voice emerged with individuality. I wanted whole albums of these singers singing like this.

Simplicity. Clarity. Good music. Strong and well-chosen words. Then their sincere message could touch my heart, because they had put up no barriers to my receiving it.

It's a lesson that applies to Mormons engaged in all the arts. Testimony does not substitute for craft and skill.

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Ultimately, the responsibility for the quality of Mormon music rests with the audience -- the market, if you will. If there is no difference in sales between albums with good songs and albums whose song-writing awfulness suggests the Jonas Brothers, then nobody will learn anything -- not the songwriters, not the singers, not the arrangers, not the producers and not the publishers.

Without a discerning audience, then the artists know that anything will do -- or that nothing they try will make any difference.

So when you pay for an album like "Mary's Lullaby," you get two rewards: the album itself and the possibility of improvement in all LDS pop music.