IDENTIFICATION OF THE TRAINING NEEDS OF PENTECOSTAL CHURCH MUSICIANS A CASE STUDY OF PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES IN BENIN CITY

ABSTRACT

As  the  demand  in  society changes  so  is  the  demand  of church  music changing.  Since  music  is  one  of the  most integral  and  part  of church service, there is need to improve the practice of Pentecostal church music. The purpose of this study is to identify the training needs of Pentecostal musicians  in  Benin  City,  with  the  view  to  ensure  improvement  in  the performance of music in Pentecostal church. The aim of this study is to also  ascertain  area  of  training  the  Pentecostal  musicians  to  be  fit  for Pentecostal  church  music  ministry.  Hundred  (100)  musicians  including Choristers,   instrumentalist   and  music  directors  were  selected  though sampling   technique   as   respondent   from   nine   Pentecostal   churches. Questionnaires   as  the  research   instrument  for  data   ‘collection   were distributed  to the chore members, in nine the churches.   Data collected were analyzed using mean,  and  standard  deviation.   The  following  were the findings of the study.

1.   A good number of musicians in the church are to be re-trained on their performance  skills in order  to meet the  spiritual and moral needs of the church and society through music.

2.   Some respondents musicians need to enhance their level of musical literacy,  improve their  knowledge of  rudiments of music, increase

their song repertory and  improve their singing  and   instrumentation skills.

3.   Respondents seek a better and greater opportunity, to be trained  in special area of church music making as music technology, recording skill notational skills, listening skill etc.

4.   Technical skill such as acuity and motor coordination musicians is not  important to them.

5.  The  researcher  also discovered t hat the musician  in   Pentecostal churches   are   not being  trained   according  to   their   areas   of specialization.

6.    Administrative skills

If all these findings are put into consideration in oraganizing the training of Pentecostal church musicians, there will be more effective music performance.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF STUDY

The  word  ‘church’  was  derived  from  the  Greek  word  (Kyriakos) which means “of a belonging to the Lord”. The church was founded by Jesus Christ in the city of Jerusalem where he baptized his disciples in 30

AD and the Gentiles joined the church in 40 AD. The church began on the first Pentecost following the ascension. In the first ten years of its existence, the church comprised mainly Jewish Christians or Gentiles who had been proselyted into Judaism previously. The doctrine of the apostles brought the early church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities.

The issue of circumcision brought confusion Paul and Jews in the church because it was believed that circumcision is only for the Jews and not for Gentiles who are not equal but Paul insisted that circumcision is equally for the heart and not only meant for the physical. Also another conflict that came up  was the  doctrine  about the  holy  spirit  which  the Gentiles received from God in the house of Timothy but Paul made them to understand that the gift of the Holy Spirit is for everybody and not only for the Jews.

Some of the authorities died and others scattered abroad which led to the  emergence  of  some  other  Christian  denominations.  As  Christianity spread,  it  acquired  certain  members  from  well-educated  circles  of  the

Hellenistic world. Some became bishops, but not always. Pentecostal church is one of the church’s that came out from the orthodox denominations.

The term “Pentecostal” is derived from Pentecost, the Greek name for the Jewish feast of the weeks. Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. These group of Christians came out from the Orthodox Church during the 20th century.

However, Portuguese brought Christianity to Benin Empire in the 15th

century by the missionaries. Some of Benin chiefs and Obas (kings) were made Catholic priest and  up  till  date  some of  them  still  dress like  the catholic priest, until in the 20th  century that Christianity took root due to indigenous Pentecostal churches and some still practice the traditional religion. Bishop Benson Andrew Idahosa established the first Pentecostal church in Benin City in 1971 and now there are 1,018 Pentecostal churches in Benin. (Davamola, 200)

Music   has   been   a   part   of   the   world   civilization   from   time immemorial.  Primitive cave drawings, stories from the Bible and Egyptian hieroglyphics  attest  to  the  fact  that  human  beings  have  been  creating musical instruments. Evidence abounds that the early churches derived their music from existing Jewish and Byzantine religious chants. Like all music in  the  western  world  up  to  21st   century,  it  comprised  a  single  melody without  any  harmonic  support  or  accompaniment.  Later  the  single  line

melodies were developed by Pope Gregory I who established a uniform usage of chant throughout the western Catholic Church.

The Gregorian chant remains among the most spiritually moving and profound music in western culture. An idea of its pure, floating melody can be heard in the Easter hymn Victimea Paschal laudes. Many years later, composers of Renaissance polyphony used plain chant melodies as the basis for their sacred works.

However, Pentecostal took its roof after orthodox church who came out of the catholic church music. Pentecostal Christians came out of the orthodox church after the revival movement and took their musical root from the experience of the American Christian Camp meeting hymns in 1871. After the meeting Pentecostal movement started establishing their churches. Therefore the origin of the Pentecostal music is from the early orthodox church. Furthermore, the holiness –Pentecostal movement or sanctified movement appealed to the people who were not attuned to the sophisticated church music is now used to the instruments such as, electric guitars, tambourine and keyboard, the Pentecostal churches readily adopted the system and has contributed to the gospel music publications of the early 20th century. But due to musical trend, musical practices took another turn in the 21st  century. For instance, Praise and worship in Pentecostal church, Benin City can sometimes be all about call and response method, including choir presentation every worship day. And it brought uniqueness to their music

As music as a subject is introduced to the nursery, primary and secondary schools, the proper understanding of the value of the artistic and sacred is taught as Christian children are exposed to valuable music for worship.

The need for musical training in the Pentecostal Church is to have quality  musicians  that  will  perform  Christian  music  in  the  church  and society. The researcher discovered that there are so many church members who joined the music section of Pentecostal churches because they have flair for music and often they do not have good knowledge of music because they lack formal exposure to music. According to Schuler (1990:19), “the quality of a formally trained musician is directly proportional to the quality of music education in a given society”.

The church needs to train singers that will perform during service. Some of these musicians come on stage to sing having adequate of skills about singing. Yet singing is probably the oldest human musical activity. In most cultures, the singer has a specially defined position. More so, early societies evolved several means to relieve the monotony of one person’s singing. A principal device is called antiphony, which involved two groups that sang in alternation of a leader who sang and was answered by a group of singers.   Principle may be seen as the origin of responsorial singing,

which continues till date. However, a singer in the church is expected to learn some  of  these singing  skills during worship  in  order to meet  the spiritual and moral needs of the church.

Music performers to some degree determine aspects of music they play. Issues of tempo, phrasing and dynamics; and in some types of music, pitches and instrumentation are subjected to a performer’s discretion. Therefore, it is expedient for a Pentecostal church musician to  enhance his/her level of literacy in music when it comes to singing, instrumentation and theory of music. More so, the standard of music in Pentecostal church can  improved  across  to  his/her  listeners  through  the  means  of  his/her musical skills a performer.

There is need for professionalism in Pentecostal church. Church musician should be able to define which aspect of church music he/she wants to specialize in. This is because it is not certain/clear today just what church music is? What sacred music is? And what art music equally is? For some, church music is hymn singing.  For others it is the folk group and for some others, what matters is a sweet and sentimental vocal or instrumental church  music  performance.  But  church  music  is  both  instrumental  and vocal.   It embraces a multitude of forms and  encompasses a variety of musical styles.   Therefore, when an aspect of music is defined, it will help the individual achieve his or her goal. According to Otugo (2001:159):

This   opportunity   to   train   formally   eludes   untrained   musician. Untrained musician does not learn the fundamentals of both African and  western  music  when  he  is  not  trained  in  the  instrumental activities with harmony and melody, instrumental like piano and recorder. Also he is not exposed to creative response activities, music history, music literature and music readings.

General knowledge of music should be one of the musical experience for church musicians whereby the individual would be exposed to a series of responsiveness to musical training and ability to perform the music and identify his or her specific areas in which to specialize. In this area of general knowledge the learner need enough attention from their music directors. This will help the musicians to be guided by their experiences in their   general   musical   performance.   There   should   be   motivation   for musicians in the area of the music training process and also in the attitudes of music directors towards learning.

1.2     STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

There is need for church music training because technology is now taking over in the area of music in Pentecostal churches. Also the trend of music changes from time to time, therefore, it makes styles of music performance in Pentecostal churches look obsolete. It is observable that most of Pentecostal musicians are not proving their worth in the church.

They are not active and productive as they are expected to be. Moreover, some of these Pentecostal musicians seem to be in the same category; there are no noticeable difference in their area of specialization everyone of them wants to sing and at the same time they wants to play instrument. This attitude affects their performance during church service.

Also there is need for Pentecostal musician to improve on their performance skills such as; singing, rhythmic progression in composition, lyrics and pattern of composition. Information gathered from some choir members of the church visited proved that they need training to enhance their musical knowledge, while some said that the since they are talented, there is no need for training in music.

Moreso, in some of these churches music training is not stressed for the musicians. Music is seen as one of the activities in church that must be carried out by the choir members and instrumentalists. But the focus of this study is to identify the training needs of Pentecostal church musicians so as to enhance the quality of church music when they perform.

1.3     PURPOSE OF STUDY

The main purpose of this study is to identify the training needs of

Pentecostal church musicians specifically, the objective are to

1) Examine   the   musical   backgrounds   of   the   Pentecostal   church musicians

2) Identify the musical training needs of Pentecostal church musicians.

3) Identify music technologically-related training needs of Pentecostal church musicians.

4) Identify professional training needs of Pentecostal church musicians.

5) Identify   religious-musical   training   needs   of   Pentecostal   church musicians.

6) Identify    problems    militating    against    the    effective    musical performance of Pentecostal churches musicians;

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

It is assumed that by the end of this work, the study would be able to identify the training needs and significance of music training in Pentecostal churches such that:

   It will stimulate a better understanding among the readers why a

Pentecostal church musician should be well-trained;

      Also, they would be able to understand what church music is all about.

      They would be able to understand the technologically related training need in Pentecostal church

      This study will provide resource materials as introductory reference materials for reference persons genuinely interested in this field

      To be able to produce quality church musicians that can serve the church.

      To  be  able  to  find  solution  to  the  problems  militating  against effective performance in the church.

1.5     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research focuses on Pentecostal church musicians because it is from them that quality information about the training needs of Pentecostal churches can be derived because of their high musical involvement during worship.

Although music has been in existence in Pentecostal churches and it plays a very major role, but this study focuses on identifying the training needs of the Pentecostal church musicians so that they can perform more professionally in the church.  There are three main Pentecostal church with one thousand two hundred and fifty (1,018) Pentecostal churches in Benin. The  Pentecostal  churches  in  these  categories  are:  Redeemed  Christian Church of God and their branches, Church of God Mission and their branches,  Living Faith (AKA) Winners Chapel and  their branches.  This study will cover nine branches of the three Pentecostal churches in Benin City.   Musician in the nine branches will be interviewed on their way or mode of worship and questionnaires would be given to them to respond to. Then areas in which they think they need more training will be identified.

1.6     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study seeks to answer the following questions:

1) What are the musical background of the Pentecostal musicians?

2) What are musical training needs for Pentecostal church musicians?

3) What  are  the  music  technological  training  needs  of  Pentecostal church musicians?

4) What  are  the  professional  training  needs  of  Pentecostal  church musicians.

5) What are the religions-musical training needs of Pentecostal church musicians?

6) What are the problems of Pentecostal church musicians?

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