<p> I (Andrew Jamieson) discuss my creative process, centered around the transcendence of structures, or the dialogue between them. I define structures broadly, from musical meter and texture to political structures and life circumstances. My core inspiration is black Pentecostal worship. I illustrate black Pentecostalism with examples from City of Refuge United Church of Christ in San Francisco. Visiting this church, I experienced music and communal interaction with a clear structure that facilitated presence of the Holy Spirit and even the ability challenge oppressive circumstances. In a similar way, experimental musicians, such as Sun Ra and John Oswald, present and challenge established structures, from jazz grooves to preexisting recorded music and the institutional structure it represents.</p><p> My own work, <i>Where Perhaps It's Worse,</i> presents structures from preexisting musical material against which musicians perform their own material and express my own ideas. The primary structural backdrop is the third movement of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, itself a quote collage. I explore the various ways my work challenges both musical and extramusical structures.</p>

<p>Two churches were studied through observations and interviews to examine the role of music in their worship services. One of the churches was a Pentecostal church that was predominantly Caucasian and the other was a nondenominational church that was predominantly African-American. The interviews determined that despite cultural differences, including musical style, the perceived role of the music was basically the same in both churches. The role of the music is to create an environment that encourages and enhances high levels of praise. Both churches were consistent in the belief that God is actually present in some form if there are high levels of praise. </p>