Books by Dale Harris

Books by Dale Harris
A Feast of Epiphanies

Though I Walk, A Novel

Daytime Moons and Other Celestial Anomalies, a book of poems

Second Wind

Second Wind
An album of songs both old and new. Recorded in 2021, a year of major transition for me, these songs explore the many vicissitudes of the spiritual life,. It's about the mountaintop moments and the Holy Saturday sunrises, the doors He opens that no one can close, and those doors He's closed that will never open again. You can click the image above to give it a listen.

The Song Became a Child

The Song Became a Child
A collection of Christmas songs I wrote and recorded during the early days of the pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020. Click the image to listen.

There's a Trick of the Light I'm Learning to Do

This is a collection of songs I wrote and recorded in January - March, 2020 while on sabbatical from ministry. They each deal with a different aspect or expression of the Gospel. Click on the image above to listen.

Three Hands Clapping

This is my latest recording project (released May 27, 2019). It is a double album of 22 songs, which very roughly track the story of my life... a sort of musical autobiography, so to speak. Click the album image to listen.

Ghost Notes

Ghost Notes
A collections of original songs I wrote in 2015, and recorded with the FreeWay Musical Collective. Click the album image to listen.

inversions

Recorded in 2014, these songs are sort of a chronicle of my journey through a pastoral burn-out last winter. They deal with themes of mental-health, spiritual burn-out and depression, but also with the inexorable presence of God in the midst of darkness. Click the album art to download.

soundings

soundings
click image to download
"soundings" is a collection of songs I recorded in September/October of 2013. Dealing with themes of hope, ache, trust and spiritual loss, the songs on this album express various facets of my journey with God.

bridges

bridges
Click to download.
"Bridges" is a collection of original songs I wrote in the summer of 2011, during a soul-searching trip I took out to Alberta; a sort of long twilight in the dark night of the soul. I share it here in hopes these musical reflections on my own spiritual journey might be an encouragement to others: the sun does rise, blood-red but beautiful.

echoes

echoes
Prayers, poems and songs (2005-2009). Click to download
"echoes" is a collection of songs I wrote during my time studying at Briercrest Seminary (2004-2009). It's called "echoes" partly because these songs are "echoes" of times spent with God from my songwriting past, but also because there are musical "echoes" of hymns, songs or poems sprinkled throughout the album. Listen closely and you'll hear them.

Accidentals

This collection of mostly blues/rock/folk inspired songs was recorded in the spring and summer of 2015. I call it "accidentals" because all of the songs on this project were tunes I have had kicking around in my notebooks for many years but had never found a "home" for on previous albums. You can click the image to download the whole album.

Random Reads

The Thursday Review: The End of the Song at the End of the Age

first posted September 13, 2010

I once heard a lecture by theologian-of-the-arts Jeremy Begbie, where he talked about the connections between musical cadence and Christian eschatology.

In music, he said, cadence is essentially about the resolution of tension. The initial note creates a tension, disrupting silence with sound, and then, as we move away from that initial "home" into new and varied sounds-- a sub-dominant chord, a relative minor, a dominant-seventh and so on--we find ourselves in tension, our ear naturally listening for the melody to arrive back at its starting point in some way. Intuitively we want the tension created by the sound to resolve.

Cadence is one of the building blocks of music, and waiting for the tension to resolve and the song to arrive "home" is part of what keeps us listening. For example, here we move from a D major (tonic), into an A7 (Dominant 7th) and back again; the dominant 7th creates tension, but it also assures the ear that resolution is coming. And when that final "D" does land, no one has to tell us we've come home. The ear just knows.


Cadence is often used for key modulations, too. In this example we modulate from the key of C to the key of F:


Of course, we're not there yet. And the tension created by that last note sort of just hangs in the air, almost begging for resolution. We want to come "home." I once heard a myth/urban legend/joke that if Mozart were to have heard an unresolved Dominant 7th chord like that, he wouldn't have been able to sleep at night unless he heard this:


In his lecture, Begbie talked about the spiritual tension that musical cadence can create for us, and then he drew these poignant lines between cadence, resolution and eschatology. Because essentially, cadence is about looking ahead. It's about knowing that "home" is just on the horizon; and knowing also that the tension's not yet settled, but hearing at the same time that resolution is pending-- it's hanging on the air-- only a measure away.

Cadence, he said, is about hope.

But then he went on to say that sometimes unresolved cadence can be the most hopeful of all. Because sometimes when that unresolved sub-dominant chord or dominant sus4 is left hanging in the air, with no tonic chord to bring it back to earth at last, sometimes the breathless anticipation created in that musical space can teach us to be, if not at home with unresolved tension, then at least hopeful in it.

And the faith, too, is about knowing that home is on the horizon, and that the final resolution of all godless tensions is only a measure away.

And hopeful in unresolved tension, I'm learning more and more, is a very Christian way to be.

I've never forgotten Jeremy Begbie's lecture; and I've never listened to those unresolved suspended 4ths in U2's best work the same way since. I hear them now as these beautiful clarion calls evoking the almost-but-not-quite-yet longings of the heart.

A number of years ago I played this guitar arrangement of "Holy, Holy, Holy" in church, which starts in D and ends on an unresolved Asus2. I asked one of the musicians I was playing with what he thought (with none of this preamble about Begbie, cadence and eschatology). He wasn't sure. "Something," he said, "something feels sort of unfinished."And I thought: "Exactly."

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