Arguably one of the biggest pianists of our time, Mr. Sunday Olawuwo is the Country Director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) in Nigeria.The music trainer spoke with Sunday Oguntola on the school’s yearly musical conference and related issues.
Why have you been keeping the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) under wraps five years after it came to Nigeria?
We have been doing series of programmes since we started. We have been organising an annual international course & conference for church musicians and stakeholders across the country. So, we have not kept it under wraps. Many have attended the conferences from across the country. It’s just that the awareness will continue to grow.
So, what genre of music do you focus on? Contemporary or classical music?
The RSCM is generally about Church Music – every music that promotes Christian worship – classical or contemporary; we seek to improve standards of musical performance in Christian worship.
Many are worried that hymns have been relegated in church music. Do you share that worry as a music trainer?
Yes, I do. This is because Hymns remain a major component of our Christian heritage. You will find that as old as some of those hymns are, they contain a lot of messages. In fact, they are richer in messages than many of our contemporary songs. An average contemporary song contains just a few lines that you continue to repeat.
But the hymns are like poems written in many verses for singing, meditation and reading. So, for us, we are worried and we are working for many people to appreciate these hymns again.
That is why we gather music leaders, song writers and producers for a week for intensive training. They all return to their various churches to effect changes and reforms that they have absorbed during the training.
Our passion is to promote quality church music. You find that the contemporary songs we do in this part of the world are not done professionally.
An average music leader only listens to an album and tries to reproduces everything by ear. That is how they learn but that is not right. It is unprofessional. Every composition has a music score that can be read by those who understand music, including the contemporary songs.
So, if you love a particular music you listen to, all you have to do is to do your research, get the original music score to be able to interpret it correctly.
But often times because even the music trainers don’t understand music language and they can’t interpret those music scores; they resort to reproducing by just listening to the music. If you do that, there is no way you will be able to reproduce the music correctly and perfectly.
Did you read music to be able to do all these?
I studied music at a professional level; but that is not my main job because I also run a chain of businesses.
So, you don’t do music full time?
Yes, I don’t do full time. I’m a graduate of Economics and so I run family businesses alongside my music career. My passion came from the fact I was born into a musical family. My father was a renowned Organist & Choirmaster and I had the opportunity of sitting for ABRSM professional exams up to the final grade.
I also had some training at the world famous St. Giles Organ School in London.
Why can’t you face music alone?
I don’t do music as full time for so many reasons. One, for me, it has become a calling and that is why you won’t see me get out of it for once. My primary assignment is to use my musical gift to teach others and elevate the worship of God.
It is not about making money from music or making a living out of it. Definitely if I’m not making money out of it, then I must be doing something else to make a living. My first degree was in Agricultural Economics from OAU, Ile-Ife.
After then I had a master’s degree in Management Economics and later an MBA. As an entrepreneur, I run family businesses and everything goes together.
How then do you cope?
I just try to manage my time. I am always divided in between many activities but I give priority to God’s work because I believe when you do that, He will bless your other endeavours.
So, how did music discover you or vice versa?
Well, I was born into a family of musicians. My father, who just died last December, happened to be one of the greatest organists of his own time. We were all choristers under him and so I picked it from him. All my life, music has always been there.
Being a disciplinarian, my father made me learn music under strenuous conditions, including being punished for not practising enough. I was in the choir all my life.
As a child, I felt bad and wondered if I had to be a musician like him but I thank God I did. It got to a time he would always say to me that ‘look, if you don’t do this thing now, you’d regret it in the future.’
People were coming from outside to learn from him. We had a piano in the sitting room that everybody wanted to play but I would rather play football than practise. But at a point, God touched my life and they had to start telling me at home to leave the piano after hours of practicing.
I thank God for how far He has led me. I have had the opportunity to serve as Organist & Choirmaster in a few churches before my present position as the Director of Music at Archbishop Vining Memorial Cathedral – a position I have held for 15 years first as Organist & Choirmaster and later the Master of the Music or the Director of Music.
What kind of feedback do you get?
People have said we shouldn’t restrict the training to Lagos alone but bring it to the east, north and every part of Nigeria. Although many people come from different parts of the country, they wish we could bring it closer. We are already working on that and I believe it will happen soon.
How many participants do you have every year?
We have always had an average of about 60. We are working towards achieving 100 participants this year. We have two facilitators coming from Ireland and the United Kingdom in addition to local facilitators.
Are the participants few because the conference is elitist?
No, we are not elitist. I think the main challenge is that many people cannot leave their work and other activities to come and stay for a whole week for the training.
That is because we have a bad culture of not resting in this part of the world; we don’t go on vacation. We just like to work and work. Otherwise, you can plan your annual leave for a programme like this to spend your vacation nicely.
A lot of us don’t know how to relax and enjoy our lives. But we’d keep the tradition because this is how it is done by the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) across the world. I have attended so many in many parts of the world including UK, South Africa, Australia, Canada etc. It is always a one week, residential course.
There are so many things you have to learn that cannot be broken into parts. The impact is so inspiring and blown. But the awareness is growing.
Why can’t churches retain the good musicians they produce?
That is another beauty of the conference. It is not just about the choristers and musicians but also about the stakeholders like priests, pastors and administrators. We need to let them know how to manage church musicians because it is a team work.
Go and look at any church that is thriving. You will find that the pastors or leaders of worship there appreciate and promote music a lot. They use good music as tool for attracting and retaining members of their congregation.
But why do the musicians leave as soon as churches produce them?
If you check most of those musicians, it is about the remuneration and personal fulfillment. The fact that the economy is comatose also puts more people under financial pressure. They want to commercialise every little skill that they have. You can’t blame anyone for that. Many believe that If they know how to play the organ and they can’t get a jobs, then it won’t be bad idea to make money from their skills but one must be careful not be driven only by money.
That is why I think our churches should remunerate our musicians better than they do now because that is the only way to keep them. If you remunerate them well, you can keep them for a long time and that creates stability. But when you give them peanut, you cannot stop them from leaving when they find better opportunities.
Most of the people I have trained in orthodox churches have moved to Pentecostal Assemblies because they are paid better there.
But some leave churches all together
That is essentially driven by money and possibly fame. We live in an age where secular music sells like hot cakes. For Christian musicians, they must define what they want.
If the goal is to make money, you can’t do that in the church. No matter how much you are appreciated, you can’t make as much money in the church as in the world. We have to be clear about that.
