Colleen Karnas-Haines

COLLEEN KARNAS-HAINES {[email protected]} is the Director of Assessment, Planning, and Accreditation for the College of Computing and Informatics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She earned her BA in music and cognitive science from the University of Virginia and her PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland. After years teaching music history, she now supports departmental research initiatives and uses her free time to apply machine learning to music history research.

The Quest for Universal Music in the LDS Children’s Songbook

Articles/Essays – Volume 53, No. 4

Over the years, the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has expressed a set of theories about the nature and purpose of music. Elder Bruce R. McConkie asserted a divine origin of music: “Music is given of God to further his purposes.” Former Church President Heber J. Grant proclaimed the evangelical power of music when he said, “The singing of our sacred hymns, written by the servants of God, has a powerful effect in converting people to the principles of the Gospel, and in promoting peace and spiritual growth.”