The Discovery Singers: a Great Discovery

I listen to a lot of music. Being a composer and musician, I can't get away from music. I have a job which allows me to listen at work, and even when I'm not listening, I have music going around in my head. These days, I find that the music I listen to most is a group called the Discovery Singers. Let me tell you the story of my discovery of the Discovery Singers.

I grew up as a typical suburban middle class American Christian. This kind of life is not inherently conducive to a recognition of one's unending need for the sovereign God. In my youth, I had very little respect for God's holiness and workings, despite being raised by loving parents who were Christians, and attending our baptist church weekly. I think this ugly reality is one of the side effects of growing up in the middle class American culture.

One example of this was my perception of hymns. Now, I have never been one to give much thought to words in music. My nature is to listen to the music itself - how all the aspects work together. That said, I had no care for the deep, meaningful words recorded by so many hymnists. Long ago, these dear people struggled and meditated and wrestled with realities of life and spirituality. They laid their hearts out on the page, passing on to future generations new, poetic ways to worship and proclaim truth through music.

Years later, little fools like me would know nothing of these people, disregarding their work as weird, boring music that you only heard in church services. In my youth, praise bands were emerging and taking over the music scene in Christian churches. No longer did churchgoers know or care how to read music in parts. The band now provided the music, while we sang the basic melodies.

Let me assure you - I have no problem with praise bands in church, and have played in them myself. As a matter of fact, I would probably prefer it to traditional a cappella hymn singing. My point relates to the lack of knowledge and respect for hymns themselves. With the loss of the reverence present in many hymns, I think we lost some of our reverence in worship. (Philosophy of worship is not the point of this post, so I will not continue with that discussion here.)

Looking ahead to my adult years, not much had changed. As the years passed God was doing challenging work in my heart and demanding that I grow - a grace I am very grateful for. During this time, I was searching around for some good internet radio. I don't remember specifically what I was after at the time, but I think I was trying to find good a cappella Christian music. My favorite internet radio site at the time was Live365.com. During my search, I stumbled upon a humble station called “Hidden Pearls Radio”. As I tested this station, I found that they played various forms of calm Christian music, typically (if not all) arrangements of hymns. As I listened I heard some great a cappella vocal arrangements from one choral group. Looking in the playlist, I found that this group was called the Discovery Singers. I kept wanting to hear more, until they were the only thing I wanted to hear. The reason for this attraction was that the arrangements and performance were so solid. This finding fell in line with my belief that arrangements can make or break pieces of music. As I listened to this worshipful music, I found that, because the arrangements were so pleasing, so well-crafted, they were doing justice to the words. The words to these great hymns in conjunction with quality arrangements and top-notch performance made this listening experience very welcome in my day. I found myself suddenly appreciating hymns, with a heart ready to contemplate the words being sung.

From there, this appreciation only grew. I found Discovery Singers CDs for a great price on Barnes and Noble's website and purchased four CDs from their “Hymns You Know and Love” collection. Eventually, I made the pleasant discovery that they also had a CD called “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”, which I picked up right away from an online seller.

Since then, they have become perhaps the largest percentage of music I listen to, in terms of time. I find that this style of thoughtful, worshipful music is more and more welcome to my ears from day to day as God continues to call me to transformation. It is a special grace to hear hymns performed in such a way that the music does the words justice.

My purpose in telling this story is threefold:

1. To encourage readers not to forget hymns, those who wrote them, and the deep truths these songs carry
2. To share how God worked in my heart through music
3. To lay some groundwork for any future posts in which I mention hymns or the Discovery Singers