We’re picking up where we left off in an interview with Dan Goeller (whose music I previously reviewed).
CHEDIAK: In our last installment, you said it was your desire to “make music unto the Lord–in a more artistic, innovative, and profound way–that would eventually lead me away from the music industry in Nashville and on a distinctively different musical journey.” Can you expand on that?
GOELLER: After a decade of living in Nashville and working in the music industry, I was ready for a change…not just professionally but for our family as well. After the birth of our second daughter in 2005, we wanted to be closer to family, reduce our cost of living, and try to pursue making music more on our own terms. This meant making a move from Nashville to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sioux Falls had everything we were looking for in a place to raise our family, and it was also close to (my wife) Heidi’s family. In February of 2006, we made the nearly 1,000 mile journey of relocating to Sioux Falls.
One of the miraculous things that happened, our first four months in Sioux Falls, is that the University of Sioux Falls agreed to rehearse and record a work for choir and orchestra that I had been trying to produce for a couple of years. In His Own Words is a 45-minute work that derives its musical and narrated texts exclusively from the New Testament words of Christ. In His Own Words is a perfect example of a project that every publisher and record label, with whom I had a working relationship, had rejected. In His Own Words broke all of the marketing and publishing rules. But I was passionate about composing and producing it because it is exactly the sort of music that I believe we Christians should be creating.
CHEDIAK: How does your Christian faith inform the style of music you compose and orchestrate?
GOELLER: If you listen to my music, you’ll quickly recognize that it is stylistically diverse. This is because I believe that defining one’s music mainly by style is very limiting. Whenever I sit down to compose a new piece, I try to consider which sort of style(s) will be most effective to communicate the intended message. However, It is my observation that churches define their “identity” mainly by style and demographic. This seems contrary to the apostle Paul’s admonition to not make these sorts of distinctions (Galatians 3:26-28).
This emphasis on stylistic identity has created a real struggle for me. For example, many churches have dismissed In His Own Words as “not the kind of thing that they do.” Obviously it’s not the words of Christ that they “are not into”, but rather the musical style in which Christ’s words have been set. On the other hand, churches who have embraced In His Own Words or my Christmas project The Word Became Flesh, have rejected my most recent project Sing Praise to the LORD–A Musical Exploration of the Psalms, as “too contemporary.”
It appears that my music is an equal opportunity offender. Rather than trying to subjectively ascertain which style will appeal to a certain group, or the largest group, or generate the most sales, I try to take my cue again from the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 9:19-23) by considering which style will be most effective and appropriate for each piece I compose.
CHEDIAK: What do you hope your music accomplishes?
GOELLER: I think that music is most effective when it intersects three crucial areas: truth, beauty and goodness. This “artistic triumvirate” has been widely discussed since ancient times. Much of the music I hear, even in the Christian music industry, tends to touch one or two of these areas, but not all three. I personally feel that failing to touch all three of these areas relegates ones music to the realm of entertainment rather than art. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with entertainment. But I think that we Christians who devote our lives to the creative arts have a unique opportunity to powerfully impact society. Music can be a very effective vehicle to express the truth of God’s word and “His goodness which endures forever.” And even purely instrumental music, without an associated text, has the possibility of bringing beauty and hope to a world that desperately needs it. I often remind myself that David played his harp for King Saul to calm his spirit (1 Samuel 16:14-23).
Interview of Dan Goeller (Part I)
I previously reviewed the well orchestrated, worshipful, classical-sounding CD Sing Praise To The Lord. I also said I’d be introducing Dan Goeller a bit. Dan is a musician, a conductor, and a man with a deep desire to produce beautiful, innovative choral and instrumental music. In 2005, after a career in Nashville, TN working with a slew of popular Christian artists, he started his own music publishing business, Dan Goeller Music Publishing.
Below is part 1 of an interview series we’ll be doing.
1. What gave birth to your interest in music? Did you pursue formal training? If so, where?
When I was young, I spent hours listening to the radio and vinyl records that I would check out from the library. In addition to listening to music, I would also play the pieces I heard on a small electronic keyboard. I was most fascinated by the music of J.S. Bach. I particularly enjoyed his compositions for pipe organ, since I could more accurately recreate these on the keyboard. Even later on in college, when I became much more fluent in reading music, I still relied on those early memories of learning keyboard repertoire (by ear) to shape the musicality of my performance practice.
My “formal training” began the summer preceding my senior year of high school. I had the opportunity to study pipe organ at Duquesne University and composition at Westminster Choir College in Princeton. After graduation from high school, I studied composition and organ at the University of Miami (in Florida). After that first year of college, I decided that I wanted to finish my remaining three years of college at home. So I transferred to Christopher Newport University and had an opportunity to study composition with Aldo Forte–the staff arranger and composer with the Air Force Band at Langley. This move was especially good for me because it provided an opportunity to conduct and compose music outside of academia. This approach, even while formerly studying at the university, instilled a desire to create music that was aesthetically beautiful and elegantly crafted while maintaining accessibility to both performers and listeners.
2. How did you get into the Christian music “industry”? What were your experiences in that field?
Right after I graduated from college, I wanted to try and find employment as a working composer, arranger, and/or orchestrator. So I packed up my things and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. My first few years there, I struggled to make ends meet as I worked, on a freelance basis, at one of the largest publishing and recording companies in town. I was only paid $4 an hour, so I spent most of my waking hours making copies, editing choral and orchestral pieces, listening to test cassettes, typesetting music, and compiling sales reports. Despite the tedious drudgery and economic hardship of these first few years in Nashville, I used this time as an opportunity to learn everything I could about how the music business worked.
As time went on, people in the industry started to recognize my unique musical knowledge and abilities. It is unusual to find people in the music business who have a comprehensive academic knowledge of music. Most people either grow up in the business or have limited academic training. This extensive knowledge of music provided me with opportunities to work with talented and well-known music industry figures like Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Vince Gill, Point of Grace, Cece Winans, Larnelle Harris, Greg Nelson, and many others.
In addition to working with these artists on national tours and recordings, I also spent a great deal of time arranging and orchestrating music for church print publications. This combination of experiences–in the recording studio, in live performance, and for print publication–formed the foundation of my knowledge of how the music industry works. These experiences also made me restless for opportunities to make music that focused more on the artistic and theological content of the music rather than its market potential. It was this desire to make music unto the Lord–in a more artistic, innovative, and profound way–that would eventually lead me away from the music industry in Nashville and on a distinctively different musical journey.