Lectures in Musicology: Dylan Crosson, The Ohio State University

Dylan Crosson, PhD candidate in musicology at Ohio State, presents “Audible Orthodoxies: How Contemporary Worship Music Turns Evangelical Values into Musical Style.” This lecture is co-sponsored by the School of Music and The Ohio State University Libraries.

Of all the cultural products coming out of evangelicalism today, perhaps none is more easily recognized than the music known as Contemporary Worship Music (CWM). Whether through congregational use, a public concert, or an inadvertent listen in a Chic-fil-a lobby, many people have encountered—in some way—the outputs of groups such as Hillsong, Bethel, or Elevation Worship. Despite the many settings in which one may encounter this music and the broad range of musicians producing and reproducing this music, to CWM consumers and those with only a fleeting familiarity with the genre this music exhibits an explicit sonic homogeneity, but one whose contributing factors are hard to identify. Given the pervasiveness of this sentiment, it makes sense that the most common question I hear about my research concerns this homogeneity: “why does it sound like that?”

In this presentation, the speaker answers this blunt yet profound question by surveying salient musical characteristics of CWM—i.e. the sonic components that contribute to the perceived homogeneity, especially those related to musical spatialization. Because those asking about the stereotypical sound of CWM do so as a means of understanding those making the music, this presentation also tracks the evangelical values, theories of music making, and worship philosophies that perpetuate the sound of CWM. To untangle this interplay between musical object and the culture that shapes it, this presentation combines findings from fieldwork at worship conferences and concerts, surveys of self-help resources tailored toward aspiring worship leaders, and analyses of CWM music recorded in live and studio settings. Along the way, this presentation grapples with the central role of the live worship experience to the enterprise of CWM. As a result, this presentation fosters a more complete understanding of the easily recognized sound that is Contemporary Worship Music.

Dylan Crosson is a PhD candidate in Musicology at The Ohio State University. Dylan’s current research focuses on the connection between music-making and spiritual formation in Contemporary Worship Music (CWM), and how philosophies of this connection influence musical practice and aesthetic ideals within this tradition. His dissertation explores this connection by weaving together fieldwork, musical analysis, interviews, conceptual metaphor theory, and the study of material culture to better understand CWM’s musical objects, the inner machinations of the tradition itself, and the socioreligious contexts in which it operates.