SACRED SOUNDSCAPES AND RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY: REFRAMING CHURCH MUSIC AS A FOUNDATION FOR MUSIC EDUCATION AND PRACTICE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This article discusses church music as having played a major role in giving members
opportunities to come in contact with music thereby laying a foundation for formal music education.
It therefore reconceptualized church music in Nigeria as a religious pedagogical system (RPS) and
not just a liturgical devotional and aesthetic practice. Forty articles were selected and analyzed.
This analysis combines literature on Nigerian church music, gospel music, Pentecostal worship,
hymnody, inculturation, decolonial music education, choir training, informal learning and religious
education. It creates the Sacred Soundscape Pedagogy Model, which outlines the five interrelated
ways in which church music impacts music education, namely, liturgical participation, informal
apprenticeship, doctrinal-musical memory, cultural translation and performative formation. The
article argues that the churches in Nigeria function as informal conservatoires where singers,
instrumentalists, conductors, composers and worship leaders are trained through the process of
participation, imitation, repetition, correction and public performance. Alongside this, it also
reveals that there are tensions related to the teaching of church music: the dominance of Western
music, the lack of a robust curriculum framework, commercialisation, lack of theological depth,
generational gap and lack of documentation of indigenous Christian sound. The article makes a
contribution to the fields of music education, African Christianity, religious pedagogy and
ethnomusicology by suggesting that the future of Nigerian music education cannot be oblivious to
the sacred soundscapes in which many musicians are first exposed to music, learn their craft, and
imagine music. It concludes from the articles analyzed that Nigerian church music historically and
presently serves as a significant musical learning ground, religious formation, cultural negotiation
and professional practice.