MY BACKGROUND

• Film major

• 2003-2004 General Manager (President) of Excel

Entertainment / Highway Records / Lumen Records

• 2005-2007 General Manager of Shadow Mountain

Records / Deseret Book Music

ARTISTS REPRESENTED

• Alex Boye

• Jenny Oaks Baker

• Cherie Call

• Kenneth Cope

• Jule De Azevedo

• Jenny Jordan Frogley

• Mindy Gledhill

• Shane Jackman

• Jericho Road

• William Joseph

• Gladys Knight and the

Saints Unified Voices

• Michael McLean

• Nashville Tribute Band

• Jenny Phillips

• Greg Simpson

• Hilary Weeks

MUSIC: A MORMON’S PERSPECTIVE

• Psychological effects of music

• A history of modern Christian music

• A history of modern Mormon music

• LDS views and thoughts

THE MOZART EFFECT

• Landmark 1993 study in Nature played Mozart’s music

shortly before a spatial IQ test

• Test scores increased by 10-15 points

• Classical music lovers everywhere rejoiced

THE MOZART EFFECT

• Governor Zell Miller (of Georgia)

promises to increase intelligence

in the state

• Baby Mozart sells millions of

copies to hopeful Moms

• Sewage Plant in Treuenbrietzen,

GER plays Mozart to break down

biomass faster

THE MOZART EFFECT

• Some researchers able to replicate study, others unable

to do so

• Effects last less than 45 minutes

• Only applicable to spatial reasoning

THE MOZART EFFECT

• Later studies have shown that musical training does

have a long-term effect

• Difficult to determine causal relationship

MUSIC AS AN ACTION

• Ether 6:9 And they did sing praises unto the Lord; yea,

the brother of Jared did sing praises unto the Lord, and

he did thank and praise the Lord all the day long; and

when the night came, they did not cease to praise the

Lord.

HOW GREAT THOU ART

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy Hand hath made,

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy pow'r throughout the universe displayed;

Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God, to Thee,

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God, to Thee,

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

MODERN CHRISTIAN MUSIC

• Gregorian chants (music by the clergy)

• Renaissance / Classical (Music by the elites)

• Protestant Christian Music (Mormon music parallel)

– Little distinguishing between secular and sacred

tunes

• Negro Spirituals

• Southern Gospel

MODERN CHRISTIAN MUSIC

At some point, rock bands stop being polite young men

in matching suits and become drug-addled, free-loving,

infrequent bath-taking hippies, and the music gets more

interesting. The hippies realize that taking tons of acid

has not actually made their lives quantifiably better and

become disillusioned; some of them become lawyers,

but some find Christianity to be a more satisfying

alternative, establishing a kind of counter-counterculture

called the Jesus Movement. These people (also called

Jesus Freaks) are still hippies, but with less drugs and

sex and more Jesus.

CHRISTIAN MUSIC: THE 1980’S

• Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith

CHRISTIAN MUSIC: THE 1990’S

• Establishment of Soundscan

• Devastated classical music

• Rise of Country and Christian music

• Gospel Music Association

• Jars of Clay, dc Talk

GOSPEL MUSIC: THE 2000’S

• Move away from “Christian Music” as a genre

• Doesn’t necessarily signal loss of faith (but it might)

MODERN LDS MUSIC

• Children’s songbook

• Saturday’s Warrior

• Michael McLean

• EFY

CAUSING A STIR Albums that pushed the boundaries

LDS MUSIC: CURRENT STATE

• Mainstreaming of LDS musicians/music