1: Title 2.

Research Aims

Church Music and Society: Community Choir

You learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation ~ Plato We wish to study how music, as sung prayer, impacts the social fabric of a neighborhood. We propose to conduct this research by inviting students and neighbors to enroll in the Community Choir. The neighborhood is diverse; residents are college students, families, and seniors. Our choir question is this: Does church music impact ones ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings? This question subsumes another: Does church music impact ones ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings? Our grounding assumption is Augustinian: to sing is to pray twice. The principal aim of this research is to explore the intercept of the choir question and the grounding assumptionin real time. We believe that this concept is novel to the extent that it does not exist in the social psychology literature. Thus we request funding for study and also a choir. While paradoxical, human speaking and human singing are similar faculties. Yet some music alters ones perception of space and time (Gardner, 1999). 3. Explanation how project fits within the Prayer, Virtues, and Human Flourishing Research Theme Beyond above, we believe that this topic is consistent with ideas of the Prayer, Virtues, and Human Flourishing theme. Singings impact on personhood is ubiquitous. And beyond St. Augustine, we sing because singing does something to words that nothing else can do. It gets them into our memory and into our hearts. Singing makes a text memorable and gets into the rhythm of living; into our heartbeat and our breathing and our walking, sitting, standing (National Association of Pastoral Musicians). 4. Specific information about the research methods to be used We propose to conduct a case study in the spirit of the general methodological and public administration literature. We identify the inquiry as empirical, an investigation of a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context where the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (Yin, 1994). Merriam (1998) suggests that the case study reveals events and what events may represent. The case is eminently justifiable for this research because a case can range from a small agency to an entire state government. The embedded subunits of the case are Community Choir sessions, taught in the gallery of a Church. Participation is voluntary. Sessions are interactive. Each meeting consists of warm-up, focused dialogue, and singing. Participants will choose the repertoire, although a few Catholic standards are the exception. There are neither right nor wrong answers. We wish to get everyone singing and then find connectionsperson to person, person to neighborhood, etc. (Paley, 2007). The proposed case and its embedded subunits are our foundation for interpretive policy analysis prescribed by Yanow (2000). She suggests that assessing local knowledge: looking at words, symbolic objects, and the acts of policy-relevant actors (the choir and the neighborhood) along with corresponding texts and attached meanings, are data. She underscores the importance of identifying an interpretive community before data collection. It is: Those members of a community, whether a community of musicians or a community of engineers, who come to use

the same or similar cognitive mechanisms, engage in the same or similar acts, and use the same language to talk about thought and action. (2000) Seminal to method is Brower, Abolafia, and Carrs On Improving Qualitative Methods in Public Administration Research (2000). There is a caveat: musical pedagogy falls beyond the scope of this proposal, the organ and chorus are teaching tools and instruments of research. Choir meetings will strive for musical progress, not musical perfection. Music theory will be basic: notes, time signatures, and values. Music is simply a means to discover prayer and civic-mindedness. For choir meetings, the concept of experiential learning is canonical. Because singing will inform our research and vice versa, both the research and pedagogical approaches are experiential. Sessions are interactive. Each meeting consists of warm-up, focused dialogue, and singing. We will choose the repertoire together, although a few standards are the exception. We will strive to fulfill Glasers (1984) mandate that experiential learning creates a new relationship between student and subject matter, where the student moves from a concrete, observational realm (novice knowledge) to a more abstract, theoretical realm (expert knowledge). Experiential learning emphasizes the interaction between experience and learning by exploiting the subjective nature of the learning process (Kolb, 1984) and creating a transformation of experience that engenders knowledge (Mainemelis et al., 2002). We account for this approach with The Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, as articulated in Ben-Zvi and Carton (2007; 2008). This construct is a modified version of Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956); (hereafter Original Taxonomy). The Original Taxonomy represented an effort to standardize the language of intellectual (learning) behavior. It is a one dimensional continuum; a cumulative hierarchical system of learning classification that uses observed student behavior to infer the level of student achievement, where more complex behaviors subsume the simpler behaviors (Athanassiou et al, 2003; Bloom, 1956; Krathwohl, 2002). The Revised Taxonomy augments this work. It is a two-dimensional matrix that juxtaposes knowledge and cognitive processes. The knowledge dimension represents a continuum from concreteness to abstraction. The cognitive process dimension represents an assumed hierarchical continuum of cognitive complexity. 5) A Summary Statement of the Anticipated Significance of the Project Music is a poorly understood dimension of prayer, yet verses of this hymn provide context succinctly: Verse 1: When in our music God is glorified, and adoration leaves no room for pride, it is as though the whole creation cried Alleluia! Verse 2: How often, making music, we have found a new dimension in the world of sound, as worship moved us to a more profound Alleluia! Verse 3: So has the Church, in liturgy and song, in faith and love, through centuries of wrong, borne witness to the truth in every tongue, Alleluia! The study is innovative its intellectual merit may be a derivative of the lens through which we view the problem. This research in liturgy music, and prayer may help us understand why choirs and instrumental ensembles are an integral part of the social and cultural fabric of many communities. The study may also illuminate sung prayers impact on street-level bureaucrats, those persons who implicitly mediate aspects of the constitutional relationship of the citizens to the state (Lipsky, 1980).

Last, there is no mention of a choir or organ as research instrument in the literature. This is significant to the extent that music represents abundant joy in many lives. If our starting point is such, the choir has real potential to develop as a more civic-minded community of meaning (practice). 6) The estimated total budget needed to complete the research is $200,000: Salaries, co-PIs; stipends for music education consultant and work-study student; organ maintenance; materials and supplies; conference travel; fringe benefits (2 years). Logistics: Eight semesters Choir Meetings: One weekday evening, 7:00 10:00pm Prerequisite: A desire to sing