“I am the bread of Life” is a Catholic hymn sung in the Catholic Church.This was created by Suzanne Toolan .The characteristics of the music shows, Homophony. Their is Choir that stands out with the organs playing in the background. The key of the song is A major. This song express religious belief through the lyrics of the hym. This hymn is “based on the bread of life discourse in chapter six of John’s Gospel”. Part of the first verse It says “I am the bread of life.He who comes to me shall not hunger…No one can come to me unless the Father draw him.” This refers to John 6:35 in the Bible of what Jesus Christ was saying to his followers. This song means that through the Heavenly Father, Christ can forfill your needs and longings.

sources:

https://www.cjmmusic.com/songs/i-am-the-bread-of-life-song/

https://www.wnewsj.com/opinion/columns/83226/meaning-of-i-am-the-bread-of-life#:~:text=Jesus%20says%2C%20%E2%80%9CI%20am%20the,full%E2%80%9D%20and%20overflowing%20with%20blessing.

Hymn “I am the Bread to Life”:

The religion I choose to discuss for this assignment is Christianity. My family and I go to a church in New Hyde Park so I do have a lot of personal experience with the religion. Like most other churches, my church has a worship team. We have two; one in our mother tongue , Malayalam, and the other in English. In the worship teams, we have a couple of singers and 1 or 2 instrumentalists accompanying them. With the English worship team, I play the guitar and accompany them with the songs. During the service we go through the Order of Worship, but with the services that are in Malayalam, it sounds a bit more song-like as they tend to sound syllabic in reciting the words. Occasionally there are also these conventions/meetings where we invite other churches to worship with us and make it a night of worship. Typically we sing/play gospel-like music, hymns or other Christian music during the services. 

“So in Love” by Isla Vista Worship is a worship  group based in California and produce worship songs for joy and to spread the word of Jesus. In a C Major key, going at a tempo of 88bpm, the song begins with a mezzo piano dynamic and crescendos throughout the song until 2:50 where the beat drops and a choir joins in with the main artist. After the 3:30 timestamp, they decrescendo and fade out in the song. The choir provides support in the harmonies and I would say the texture for this song would possibly be polyphonic due to the different melodies of the instruments and the riffs in the background. There are also chords to the song that the band itself has uploaded on to their website of islavistaworship.com. Regarding the form of the song, They have 1 verse, pre chorus, the chorus and the bridge. They play the first verse, the pre chorus and the chorus first but there is one line they sing before singing the bridge and going back to the pre chorus. Im unsure if it would be considered part of the bridge or separate due to the fact that after saying “you have my heart” there is a slight pause before the bridge starts. All in all, this song is the type that would be played during a convention or a worship night due to the powerful emotion of praise that could be heard in the song.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6XxFE6bBycddGK0maWn0Pa?si=fa34d0bbcf214b8f

The religion I am choosing for this blog is Christianity. I am choosing this religion because I am Christian and take a lot of pride in that. Worship is a huge part of our church service every Sunday. The first hour plus is strictly worshiping the Lord. The Christian church I attend has the newest technology to make sure worshiping is an easy and amazing experience for everyone. They have two huge screens in the front of the church with the lyrics so everyone can see and sing along. We have a specific pastor for music and a whole band. Drums, flutes, trumpets, guitar, singers, and loud projecting speakers. We worship as a form of prayer. Singing these Christian songs is praying. It might not feel like praying because it can feel like you are at a concert, but worshiping the Lord is praying to him. 

One of my favorite Christian songs is “God’s Not Dead”(like a lion) by the Newsboys. This song is one of my favorites because it has a fast tempo. When you think of a “church song”, you normally think of slow tempo, high pitched soft music. The fast tempo in this song proves that church music does not have to be slow songs from hundreds of years ago. You can still worship and feel like you are at a concert. In the lyrics the song states “God’s not dead, he’s surely alive, he’s living on the inside and roaring like a lion”. Singing these words out loud is  preaching that you know God is living within you and makes you stronger. The song is a reminder to those who doubt that God is not there for them, but he will always be.