Whether rightly or wrongly, most participants in modern civilization would think that a chorale hymn played at a ball park would be out of place just as much as Dixieland music would be in a church. I can't imagine anyone seriously suggesting that the spiritual Were you There? is a flippant love song or that the St. Louis Blues is a hymn to the Almighty. Borodin's Second Symphony in B Minor is an exciting work, but it is hard to imagine anyone considering it a spiritual work on a par with the celebrated Heilige Dankgesang movement of Beethoven's A Minor Quartet. Not only the lyrics, but the hymn-like strains and ecstatic guitar solos in Eric Clapton's In the Presence of the Lord make this song sound devout in a way that the Rolling Stones' song Satisfaction never could. Jonathan Harvey, a contemporary British composer who has written much music of overt, if eclectic, spirituality insists, at the beginning of his thoughtful book Music as Spirit, that there is a clear difference between music that is spiritual and music that is not. Listening to the examples on the book's accompanying CD makes the point quite clearly. It is also significant that a composer testifies to feeling the difference as clearly as he does.

There is, however, much blurring of distinctions in music between "religious" and "secular." So firm is the convention of the chorale-hymn as a musical expression of religiosity that any chorale-like passage in any work will be heard as "religious," even if the composer has no religious intentions. Both Brahms in the slow movement of the D Minor Piano Concerto and Bartok in the slow movement of the Third Piano Concerto went so far as to use the qualifying term religiosus in specifying the style of performance, although neither were believers in God. In spite of this unbelief, both movements sound reverent and a listener who happens to be a believer will likely find his or her religious impulses mirrored in this music. Likewise, the convention of the hymn-chorale is used in some secular songs to give them a religious veneer. Bob Dylan's Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands is, musically, a stately hymn. The lyrics, however, direct the devotion to a beloved lady who is deified. The deified lady, however, shows traits of reverence with her "prayers like rhymes," her "silver cross" and her "voice like chimes." Precisely the same rock-hymn style is used in Dylan's later song Every Grain of Sand, where the lyrics make it an explicitly religious song.

The blurring of distinctions in musical styles also goes the other way. The Passion Chorale enshrined in Lutheran worship and immortalized for many non-Lutherans by J.S. Bach is among the most stirring of hymns, especially in its appearances in Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The hymn's association with the suffering of Christ is so strong that it is hard to imagine anyone not hearing it as a religious piece of music. However, this hymn-tune began life as a tavern song with, presumably, very different words. Many secular tunes were used for thematic material in Renaissance mass settings. The "Battle" Mass by Francisco Guerrero has nothing militaristic about it in its ecclesiastical garb, but its head motif comes from a militant war song. Another war song, L'Homme Armée, was the most popular of secular songs used in Renaissance masses. In England, only the love song Western Wind was so used, but it was used three times. The effect of this use of secular material in its time would have been a bit like going to mass today and recognizing a Beatles' song when the choir breaks into the Gloria. J.S. Bach did not hesitate to use material written for secular cantatas in his sacred works. Even the sublime Gratia Agimus Tibi chorus from the B Minor Mass was originally a chorus that thanked God for the annual city hall elections in Leipzig. The British contemporary composer Howard Goodall admits that his setting of the Magnificat is inspired not only by the stately music of Charles Stanford, but the lilt of Stevie Wonder as well.

One inevitable question is whether or not some music is considered devout or religious because of convention, or because there are qualities intrinsic to the music that make it sound that way. There is no question that the chorale-hymn is conventionally "religious" in Western music. This convention is not eternal, however. There were no hymns of that type for well over a millennium after the founding of the Christian Church. For centuries, the convention for religious music was Gregorian chant. Many seemed to think that it was the only style of music that conveyed religious sensibilities. When polyphonic textures were introduced as counter-melodies to the plainsong, many complained that the music had been corrupted by secular styles. A few centuries later, however, it was thought that only music in the style of Palestrina was sufficiently holy for use in Church. These conventions are not necessarily arbitrary. There may not be an intrinsic necessity for religious or religious-sounding music to take the forms that it does, but the conventions are not totally arbitrary. Neither Swing nor Strauss waltzes have shown any signs that they might become established as conventions of religious expression in music. The appropriateness of Mozart's Mass music for church has been debated since the music was first written, although there is no argument over the quality of the music itself.

Now we need to backtrack. So far, I have rather sloppily equated religion with Christianity and implied that spirituality is Christian. However, anyone who knows very much about both Buddhism and Christianity knows that they are not the same religion, even though there is much room for sharing wisdom between the traditions. Laying aside the differences of musical systems in different cultures, it is apparent that music appropriate for religious expression one of these religious traditions is not necessarily appropriate for the other. Moreover, there is the tendency to equate term "religious" with "spiritual," as if religion and spirituality were the same thing. They are not. At least not necessarily. For some, spirituality is the means used to follow conscientiously a religious tradition, but there are many people who pursue "spiritual paths" without any reference to a God to whom one can relate personally. This distinction between religion and spirituality shows itself in the Romantic tendency for some composers, musicians, and listeners to treat music (and sometimes all of the fine arts) as a substitute religion. When that is the case, for all the spiritual longing expressed in the music, there is no worship.

Spirituality is a term that usually refers to attempts on the part of human beings to transcend our finite human condition. A spiritual path, then, tends to involve struggling with our embodied state and the involvement in time that is inescapable for a physical substance. We can see elements of this generic spirituality in the great World Religions, the philosophical traditions as well as modern movements such as New Age (whatever that really means). This definition is highly debatable, especially for Christianity. However, it is an understanding of spirituality that effects most of us, regardless of our intellectual convictions or religious affiliations. Paradoxically, it is natural for humans to be dissatisfied with our natural state. In generic spirituality, the emphasis is one achieving a higher level of consciousness.

The most favored practice for pursuing this goal is meditation. Therefore, it follows that slow, quiet music will facilitate meditation more than harsh, raucous music. Hence, the meditative music is more conducive to fostering spirituality. The relationship between music and time and timelessness is a complex topic in itself. For this essay, it suffices to note that slow, soft music, preferably with much repetition, seems to transcend the temporal character inherent both in music and the human condition as a whole. The religious eclectic Jonathan Harvey, himself a regular practitioner of meditative exercises, has composed much music that derives from this experience and intends to foster it as well. His work Bhakti for chamber ensemble is an example. One movement is so ascetic that it consists primarily of one note slowly repeated a few times. John Tavener and Arvo Pärt, both committed Christians, have written much music where the slow unfolding of a few musical ideas is intended to raise both mind and heart to a higher level of awareness of Divinity.

While humans, including Christians, try to get beyond humanity, the Gospel proclamation is that God entered into humanity to live and die as a human being. The implication of this claim is that perhaps it is not so bad to be a human being as we thought. If being a human is good enough for God, then perhaps it should be good enough for us. Moreover, the story of Jesus' suffering and death followed by his Resurrection is filled with human pathos. It stands to reason that music associated with Christianity would not be confined to rising above normal human emotions. In the sufferings of Jesus, God shares in our own sufferings. Musical expression of this story will necessarily take us to the heart of the human emotions involved. The Resurrection, however, does indicate that Christian spirituality, too, raises us above our "natural" humanity. The human emotion of joy is expressed, of course, as a response to the salvation God has worked in us. The Christmas season is ushered in to the tune of joyful carols and Easter is the occasion for even more ecstatic joy. As pointed out in my essay Music and Emotions, music both takes us through the emotions and beyond them. In music connected explicitly with the Christian Story, the music will express very human emotions but, because of the nature of music itself, as well as the nature of the Story, it will raise the level of our humanity.

When we look at the uses of music in daily life, we see that generally, music is indeed used to turn our lives up a notch or two. Some works of music turns up more notches than others. Although it is hard to nail down hard and fast proofs of this, the intuitions with which I began this essay suggest that we experience these differences, although they differ with different people. Schubert enhanced many parties by playing waltzes by the hour and he enhanced other evenings at a much deeper level by playing his piano sonatas. If we have a wedding, we feel the need of an organ in church and a polka band or rock ensemble at the reception afterwards. We turn to music to give our joys and sorrows and erotic longing a depth that they do not have except when the sound of musical pitch and rhythm multiplies the dimensions of these experiences. If we become interested in spiritual paths, then we turn to music to turn this quest up several more notches.

These reflections lead me to the suggestion that, in varying degrees, music has an inner dynamism in the direction of spirituality. This applies to music written for secular venues such as the concert hall as well as music written specifically for worship. This quality accounts for why composers who are not believers can compose music with much religious insight. Indeed, many composers who are not believers gain a far deeper grasp of this spiritual dynamism in music than some highly devout people. All the piety in the world is just not enough to make one's music an effective vehicle of religious expression. This dynamism also accounts for the blurring of distinctions in some so-called religious and so-called secular music. The Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber is a celebrated example of what I mean. Originally, the work was the slow movement of Barber's String Quartet. Arturo Toscanini encouraged Barber to arrange the movement for full string orchestra to give it a wider audience. In this guise, the work became very well-known. The intense tranquility of the music with its rising phrases lends itself to a meditative frame of mind, but a meditation with much passion to it. When I heard a string quartet play the movement as communion music in church, it seemed right at home. Arrange the music again for voices, put it to the words of the Agnus Dei and have a top British choir sing it, and the music sounds as devout as music can be. Not surprisingly, this choral arrangement has become a staple of albums comprised of meditative music for devout listeners, pagan as well as Christian.

Some have thought that J.S. Bach was being casual or downright lazy when he put sacred words to arias and choruses from secular cantatas and took the music to church. However, the great B Minor Mass includes much music that was recycled in this way. There was no reason to pillage earlier works just to get the mass setting done because the work was obviously of no liturgical use. The only reason to write it was for the sake of writing it, as a culmination of Bach's religious music. That is to say, Bach discerned the dynamism in some of his best secular music and saw in it the potential to express his deepest devotion to God. If the chorus Wir Danken Gott had remained buried in the City Hall Election Cantata for which it was written, most of us would know nothing about it. As the Gratia Agimus Tibi and Dona Nobis Pacem choruses in the B Minor Mass, this music is known as one of the most sublime portrayals of God's Glory.