Power of Music: The true power is beyond the words

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In a world of pop culture, the pop conscience comes into play. If music represents rebellion against parents, as in the rock of the sixties and the metal of the seventies; or, to use the words of one of the poets I have quoted, "you've got the music in you" is an incentive to stay out all night and go clubbing, then it is impossible to divorce the music from those vices in our culture.

If this is your conscience, you have a duty to avoid the forms of music which you find to trouble you. For instance, you should avoid most all Renaissance, Enlightenment, tribal or other forms of music as well, correct?

Cheers,

Adam
 
Personally, if I considered a set of sounds and beats immoral because of their connotations or typical culture, I could not listen to any music at all. Every bit of culture is damaged and ugly because of sin. There are musicians of every kind that make wicked music of every kind.
 
In a world of pop culture, the pop conscience comes into play. If music represents rebellion against parents, as in the rock of the sixties and the metal of the seventies; or, to use the words of one of the poets I have quoted, "you've got the music in you" is an incentive to stay out all night and go clubbing, then it is impossible to divorce the music from those vices in our culture.

If this is your conscience, you have a duty to avoid the forms of music which you find to trouble you. For instance, you should avoid most all Renaissance, Enlightenment, tribal or other forms of music as well, correct?

Cheers,

Adam

Sir,

Why exactly is music and its effect consider a great deal more subjective than for example, loud sounds and contaminated water? Let say someone says, "If someone listens to music at a certain level for a certain period of time they will lose their hearing, slowly but progressively". Would anyone response, "Well that is just you and your hearing, don't try to tell me how my body and ears operate. I can handle it."

Or lets say someone says, "If you drink water containing X, Y, and Z, you will get disease X and die within six months." Would anyone respond, "Well that is you and your digestive system, don't pretend to tell me about the effect on me and my body."

CT
 
Music is bad bad bad and if you listen to it backwards you find out that you really don't get your wife, dog, and house back instead you find out that you've been worshipping satan all along! Mawawawhahwahhahw!!!
 
Or lets say someone says, "If you drink water containing X, Y, and Z, you will get disease X and die within six months." Would anyone respond, "Well that is you and your digestive system, don't pretend to tell me about the effect on me and my body."

Frequently natives of undeveloped countries have immunities to the "bugs" in the water, so this is a completely possible scenario.

I think the case against "evil music" is similar to the case against alcohol--both are said to have harmful effects and are therefore "evil". The Bible doesn't forbid any specific form of music(that I've found, anyway). However, it does forbid drunkenness(which I think can be generalized as "conscious-dulling" or "inhibition-removing") and being placed under the power of something(i.e., addiction). Music sometimes seems to have both of these powers--and different music does sometimes have different effects on different people, just like some people are more affected by alcohol than others.

As far as lyrics go, though, I think this quote from Adolf Hitler makes my point: "If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough, and often enough, the people will believe it."

edit: Also I would caution against aesthetic relativism. If God created beauty(which I think we'd all agree about), then it stands to reason that He gave men a sense of what was "beautiful" and what was not. If some culture's sense of beauty is twisted, it's because of the harmful effects of sin.
 
Quote from armourbearer
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pergamum
I thought we were talking about the music itself and not the lyrics.

We are. You cannot divorce music style from the message that style conveys to our culture.

E.g. Disco style music and worship is inappropriate for worship services and if persisted in will affect our view of God - adversely.

We'll start associating the Lord with entertainment and being entertained, and with all the things we associate with disco.

The same goes for this sort of music:-

[video=youtube;4-R9zZj-5zI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-R9zZj-5zI[/video]
 
There is no music that can be divorced from culture. There is no culture that can be divorced from sin. Therefore, all music would then be sinful, or at least reflect a sinful culture.

However,

There is no culture, however marred by sin, that does not reflect some common grace and beauty. Therefore, there is no culture that does not have some sort of beauty in its music.



If we say that we cannot have moral lyrics to an immoral form or divorce music style from the message that it conveys to our culture, can one then try to say that there can be no form of rap music or music by Christians with an accented back-beat or syncopated rythm that does not lead to immorality?

....Sounds awful Bill Gothard-ish to me.

-----Added 10/17/2009 at 07:28:24 EST-----

Quote from armourbearer
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pergamum
I thought we were talking about the music itself and not the lyrics.

We are. You cannot divorce music style from the message that style conveys to our culture.

E.g. Disco style music and worship is inappropriate for worship services and if persisted in will affect our view of God - adversely.

We'll start associating the Lord with entertainment and being entertained, and with all the things we associate with disco.

But this is not a queston of moral/immoral but a question of "fittedness."

The music simply does not "fit" the cultural context, just as a funeral dirge would not fit at a wedding.

Much of today's praise music is very upbeat and has solid words and moves many of the younger generation to a more worshipful spirit. And these praise songs (many with better lyrics than the ol' 1920's hymns) have drums and rythms.


Is it percussion that is the enemy? The Bible speaks of praising God with tambourines. Those are percussion instruments. Is it repetitive words that is the enemy? Well, the psalms are pretty repetitive. Is it raising of the hands? This has biblical precedent too.
 
There's biblical precedent for individual men raising their hands in prayer, not for the whole congregation to wave their hands during a praise song, as if they were at a concert.

I don't want to get into the subject of a cappella EP, but their is no New Covenant basis for our formal worship sevices being mediated through instruments without life, like drums, nor for setting aside God's Hymnbook for the inferior creations of man.

But I appreciate I have strayed here, and this is a thread about the immorality/morality of music generally and also about the respective moralities of different types of music.

On that subject, I didn't buy evangelist/apologist John Blanchard's argument that music that is

(a) Loud

(b) Has a strong beat

(c) Is repetitive

has an association with sexual intercourse.

I like pipe music, which has all of these features, but I've never associated it in my mind or any other way with copulation.
 
I would beware of taking Huxley's advice - he was the author of Brave New World. Utopians keep getting referenced on this thread for some reason (first Plato, now Huxley).

Chapter 5 of Brave New World seems to link the chord A Flat,and maybe saxophone-ish sounds with Utopian bliss:

The saxophones wailed like melodious cats under the moon, moaned in the alto and tenor registers as though the little death were upon them. Rich with a wealth of harmonics, their tremulous chorus mounted towards a climax, louder and ever louder–until at last, with a wave of his hand, the conductor let loose the final shattering note of ether-music and blew the sixteen merely human blowers clean out of existence. Thunder in A flat major. And then, in all but silence, in all but darkness, there followed a gradual deturgescence, a diminuendo sliding gradually, through quarter tones, down, down to a faintly whispered dominant chord that lingered on (while the five-four rhythms still pulsed below)

I have no idea what a gradual deturgescence is, but I guess Huxley linked it with his utopian paradise.

-----Added 10/16/2009 at 11:53:36 EST-----

By the way,

The Star Wars Darth Vadar theme song (dum dum da dum dum da dududum dum da dum du dududum dum da dum di dum dum di dum) sounds instrinsically sinister I will grant, But even this sinister-sounding entrance theme for my favorite movie villain is probably culturally-conditioned. It could sound regal and gay for some some cultures I suppose but it is hard to believe that it just doesn't sound "menacing" in tone.

Regarding Huxley. Brave New World is not a utopian book, although Huxley fancied himself as something of a social reformer (at one stage in his life). The essay I cited has nothing to do with utopianism: it is an essay about Brahms. A gradual deturgescence is a slow removal of the swollen quality that something possessed, and the paragraph you cited is Huxley describing a musical climax and aftermath.

Music does have an impact, and good (in the sense of competent or musical) musicians know how to achieve their desired effect with the majority of their target audience. The fact that nearly everyone at a Hannah Montana concert is screaming, or that audiences at the Sala Nezahualcóyotl have a general agreement in demanding an encore shows that while there are undoubtedly exceptions for accidental reasons, music has a definite tendency. So, for reasons of personal history, Mendelssohn's cheerful violin concerto is rather melancholy to me - but it is not an intrinsically melancholy piece of music.

I'd like to suggest that it would be a simpler procedure to listen to what people on this thread are saying, without raising spectres of what other people have said. The point of the articles cited in the original post is that thinking about the moral influence of music has a long and distinguished pedigree, and so lumping in all points about the morality of music in with Bill Gothard is to make rather a dog's breakfast of the topic.
 
What criteria would you then use to determine the morality of a piece of music?


Is the wedding march okay? At least for weddings? Wagner's Lohengrin is part of a "pagan" piece written by an Anti-Semite, and for that reason many Jews and many Missouri-Synod Lutherans don't play this piece at weddings due to these connotations. So it appears that a soothing piece can be pagan. I cannot perceive this from the hearing of it though.


Would you say that Brahms is "superior" in a moral sense to something with a drumbeat? Are you then not mistaking structural complexity and moral superiority?



Summary for me:

Here is my position,

It seems that music is largely a product of cultural preference, available instumentation,and lyrics. We all agree that music has effects on people. Separated from lyrics and also the "fit" for which it is made, it is futile to try to determine the morality of a tune without its words.

There is perhaps an ounce of objectivity in a sea of subjectivity regarding musical "morality." The Darth Vdar theme at a wedding seems a "bad fit" and I guess there is an element of morality to poor taste.

I reject that some musical styles of music are "evil" just due to the beat and not due to any words. I have heard this done many times, usually in relation to "modern Christian music" and its supposed immorality.

If we charge that some musical beats mimic copulation-rythms, then we could counter with the claim that music makes work easier and much work is rythmic and repetitive (tribals often chant while chopping woods, hoeing gardens, etc, and I suppose railroad men might also sing as well, as they worked. The Dwarves whistled while they worked).



On the missions field, we are putting the Gospel into tribal chants, local musical forms and using local instrumentation.

I have had one of my supporters bemoan the fact that pianos were so heavy that they could not easily be transported "over there" - I suppose this supporter's desire was that I should teach "those people" more about "real music" - but I am perfectly content to use the local forms as a fit vessel for the Gospel to be communicated.

Finally, in my experience, many of those advancing theories of music where some forms are moral and other forms are immoral usually are propping up a theory that Western Culture is the pinnacle of advancement and thus their arguments usually find the music of 18th century Christian Europe to by the height of advancement.
 
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What criteria would you then use to determine the morality of a piece of music?


Is the wedding march okay? At least for weddings? Lohengrin is part of a "pagan" piece written by an Anti-Semite, and for that reason many Jews and many Missouri-Synod Lutherans don't play this piece at weddings due to these connotations. So it appears that a soothing piece can be pagan. I cannot perceive this from the hearing of it though.


Would you say that Brahms is "superior" in a moral sense to something with a drumbeat? Are you then not mistaking structural complexity and moral superiority?

Are you talking to me or to Richard?
 
What criteria would you then use to determine the morality of a piece of music?

As I said, I'd take my starting point for myself (since I'm not legislating to others) from its impact on me. It's also as well to point out here that of course you can resist the impact of a piece of music, and when you listen to something critically you often do resist it. So for instance it would be possible for someone at a rave to sit in a corner and sulk - but that's not what the music there is for. The question is not "can this music overpower my guard?" but "what is the effect of surrendering to the music?"

Is the wedding march okay? At least for weddings? Wagner's Lohengrin is part of a "pagan" piece written by an Anti-Semite, and for that reason many Jews and many Missouri-Synod Lutherans don't play this piece at weddings due to these connotations. So it appears that a soothing piece can be pagan. I cannot perceive this from the hearing of it though.

I'm not sure I understand your paragraph here but I enjoy Wagner in small doses and with the right performers.

Would you say that Brahms is "superior" in a moral sense to something with a drumbeat? Are you then not mistaking structural complexity and moral superiority?

Brahms is superior to many in a musical sense (though he is not one of the greatest composers, so it is also true that many are superior to him). People sometimes have trouble distinguishing between artistic skill and morality, or between terms of artistic evaluation and terms of moral judgment (see Orwell's Benefit of Clergy). A great artist may be a very evil man, and a very good man may be a worthless artist. A lot of excellent pieces have a drumbeat - Baroque composers like Bach and Handel understood the use of percussion instruments extremely well, as did Beethoven. I suppose the real question comes up, because art that is bad in an artistic sense is often regarded as demoralising, but I'm not sure if that's what you're asking.

Summary for me:

Here is my position,

It seems that music is largely a product of cultural preference, available instumentation,and lyrics. We all agree that music has effects on people. Separated from lyrics and also the "fit" for which it is made, it is futile to try to determine the morality of a tune without its words.

Not quite: if we all agree that music has effects on people, then we can look at how piece M affects subject H and render a wise judgment on whether H should listen to M.

There is perhaps an ounce of objectivity in a sea of subjectivity regarding musical "morality." The Darth Vdar theme at a wedding seems a "bad fit" and I guess there is an element of morality to poor taste.

You'd have to define what you mean by poor taste. Some people lack social graces, and while this is a real defect it might not be a moral failing. But deliberately offending expectations for no reason is hardly living at peace with all men as much as lies in us. To illustrate, in comparison with other people, I have a deficient palate, because I physically and intensely loathe many flavours that others find delicious. I am not persuaded that this is immoral of me, but it is a defect: Christ, after all, ate fish, while the prospect of a fish dinner seems to me like adequate reason for despair and maybe suicide. I can hardly say that Christ was deficient in liking fish, though, so it must be I who am below par in this regard. So if someone is incapable of enjoying Boccherini, that is sad for them, but not necessarily an indication of depravity.

I reject that some musical styles of music are "evil" just due to the beat and not due to any words. I have heard this done many times, usually in relation to "modern Christian music" and its supposed immorality.

If we charge that some musical beats mimic copulation-rythms, then we could counter with the claim that music makes work easier and much work is rythmic and repetitive (tribals often chant while chopping woods, hoeing gardens, etc, and I suppose railroad men might also sing as well, as they worked. The Dwarves whistled while they worked).

I think your rejection and your counter are both a little mistaken. If a beat has a tendency to impact people in a certain way, then the morality of exposing yourself to such an impact is a legitimate question.

Your rejection actually supports your hypothetical opponent's case. Manual labor is often carried out communally, and if people must use their muscles together music is a practical way to co-ordinate them - hence the use of a drum to make oarsmen stroke together, or to help soldiers march in unison. And that makes it clear that some rhythms are helpful to some activities: the phenomenon of mix CDs to "set the mood" should serve as evidence that other rhythms are helpful to other activities. So in acknowledging that some rhythms help people work, you've established the point that rhythms make an impact. It's not a counter - it's additional evidence!


On the missions field, we are putting the Gospel into tribal chants, local musical forms and using local instrumentation.

I have had one of my supporters bemoan the fact that pianos were so heavy that they could not easily be transported "over there" - I suppose this supporter's desire was that I should teach "those people" more about "real music" - but I am perfectly content to use the local forms as a fit vessel for the Gospel to be communicated.

Finally, in my experience, many of those advancing theories of music where some forms are moral and other forms are immoral usually are propping up a theory that Western Culture is the pinnacle of advancement and thus their arguments usually find the music of 18th century Christian Europe to by the height of advancement.

Many of the people I've heard propounding theories that some forms are moral and others immoral couldn't recognise good music when it slapped them upside the head, and had an attenuated appreciation of 18th Century Europe. But if you do think that cultures advance and decline, obviously, SOME point has to be the pinnacle so far. In other words, I get the feeling that you think identifying that as a pinnacle is absurd, but I wonder if that isn't because you are uncomfortable with the whole idea of a pinnacle to begin with.
 
There's biblical precedent for individual men raising their hands in prayer, not for the whole congregation to wave their hands during a praise song, as if they were at a concert.
There isn't really a biblical precedent for closing our eyes, folding our hands and bowing our heads in prayer as well, but we do it, and it aids us in our piety.

I don't want to get into the subject of a cappella EP, but their is no New Covenant basis for our formal worship sevices being mediated through instruments without life, like drums, nor for setting aside God's Hymnbook for the inferior creations of man.

In order to pull this argument off, notice what needs to be done:
1. Define biblical worship only in terms of the "New Covenant". By this, do you mean New Testament?
2. Distinguish instruments with "life" and those that don't have life. Where do we find this distinction biblically? Between tambourines, trumpets, harps, lyres, 10-stringed instruments, and hand claps, which have life and which do not?
3. Distinguish "formal" worship vs. informal or spontaneous, when really biblical worship includes all of these modes.
4. Assume that anything created by man is inferior. Do remember that at one point, David's psalms were simply his own personal collection of poetry set to tunes which he himself created. He even exhorts worshippers to sing unto the Lord a new song. The NT speaks of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, which I don't believe are given in order of rank.

With all these frameworks unnaturally pressed upon the biblical teaching on worship, then yes, you might be left with nothing but EP.
 
[Moderator]EP is off-topic for this thread, and EP is to be discussed in its own subforum only. Any further posts relating to EP will be violently and irremediably deleted.[/Moderator]
 
Actually that Charles Wesley thing is a myth. Just saying.

Really? Interesting ...

Do you have a source? It's a big myth that many people think is common knowledge. Do share if you know something.

thanks

Alot of the bar tunes were added later. It is an odd history. I'll search out the sources and add footnotes or something. Sorry for not having the ready, sincerely.
 
Would it be fair to say that the only way for something to be universally evil--i.e., wrong for every person--is if God sets such as a moral law? Murder, for instance, is wrong because God forbids it, and is therefore wrong for everyone without exception. If this is the case, then for a certain kind of music to be universally "wrong", it would have to be because of a moral law which God set up, would it not?

So if someone were to argue that a particular form of music is universally "wrong", they would have to show from Scripture that God forbade that form of music. No one I've heard has done so.

The other side argues that music is an amoral issue and is neither right or wrong. Well, yes, but I would argue that there is no such thing as an amoral action. So listening to that music is not an amoral issue, even if the music itself is amoral.

With that said, I think it's reasonable to believe that music has an effect on people. In some cases, the effect can be powerful--and in other cases, it can be completely mundane. But if the effect that the music has on us causes us to violate one of God's commands, either in thought or in action, then our listening to the music is wrong.

In fact, I think those who take the far left view(so to speak) that listening to music is an amoral issue would often agree with my reasoning, except that they would disagree that music actually has this kind of power over us.

Is that your position, Pergamum?

[Moderator]EP is off-topic for this thread, and EP is to be discussed in its own subforum only. Any further posts relating to EP will be violently and irremediably deleted.[/Moderator]

Isn't that "disemboweled"? :)
 
What criteria would you then use to determine the morality of a piece of music?

As I said, I'd take my starting point for myself (since I'm not legislating to others) from its impact on me. It's also as well to point out here that of course you can resist the impact of a piece of music, and when you listen to something critically you often do resist it. So for instance it would be possible for someone at a rave to sit in a corner and sulk - but that's not what the music there is for. The question is not "can this music overpower my guard?" but "what is the effect of surrendering to the music?"

Is the wedding march okay? At least for weddings? Wagner's Lohengrin is part of a "pagan" piece written by an Anti-Semite, and for that reason many Jews and many Missouri-Synod Lutherans don't play this piece at weddings due to these connotations. So it appears that a soothing piece can be pagan. I cannot perceive this from the hearing of it though.

I'm not sure I understand your paragraph here but I enjoy Wagner in small doses and with the right performers.



Brahms is superior to many in a musical sense (though he is not one of the greatest composers, so it is also true that many are superior to him). People sometimes have trouble distinguishing between artistic skill and morality, or between terms of artistic evaluation and terms of moral judgment (see Orwell's Benefit of Clergy). A great artist may be a very evil man, and a very good man may be a worthless artist. A lot of excellent pieces have a drumbeat - Baroque composers like Bach and Handel understood the use of percussion instruments extremely well, as did Beethoven. I suppose the real question comes up, because art that is bad in an artistic sense is often regarded as demoralising, but I'm not sure if that's what you're asking.



Not quite: if we all agree that music has effects on people, then we can look at how piece M affects subject H and render a wise judgment on whether H should listen to M.



You'd have to define what you mean by poor taste. Some people lack social graces, and while this is a real defect it might not be a moral failing. But deliberately offending expectations for no reason is hardly living at peace with all men as much as lies in us. To illustrate, in comparison with other people, I have a deficient palate, because I physically and intensely loathe many flavours that others find delicious. I am not persuaded that this is immoral of me, but it is a defect: Christ, after all, ate fish, while the prospect of a fish dinner seems to me like adequate reason for despair and maybe suicide. I can hardly say that Christ was deficient in liking fish, though, so it must be I who am below par in this regard. So if someone is incapable of enjoying Boccherini, that is sad for them, but not necessarily an indication of depravity.

I reject that some musical styles of music are "evil" just due to the beat and not due to any words. I have heard this done many times, usually in relation to "modern Christian music" and its supposed immorality.

If we charge that some musical beats mimic copulation-rythms, then we could counter with the claim that music makes work easier and much work is rythmic and repetitive (tribals often chant while chopping woods, hoeing gardens, etc, and I suppose railroad men might also sing as well, as they worked. The Dwarves whistled while they worked).

I think your rejection and your counter are both a little mistaken. If a beat has a tendency to impact people in a certain way, then the morality of exposing yourself to such an impact is a legitimate question.

Your rejection actually supports your hypothetical opponent's case. Manual labor is often carried out communally, and if people must use their muscles together music is a practical way to co-ordinate them - hence the use of a drum to make oarsmen stroke together, or to help soldiers march in unison. And that makes it clear that some rhythms are helpful to some activities: the phenomenon of mix CDs to "set the mood" should serve as evidence that other rhythms are helpful to other activities. So in acknowledging that some rhythms help people work, you've established the point that rhythms make an impact. It's not a counter - it's additional evidence!


On the missions field, we are putting the Gospel into tribal chants, local musical forms and using local instrumentation.

I have had one of my supporters bemoan the fact that pianos were so heavy that they could not easily be transported "over there" - I suppose this supporter's desire was that I should teach "those people" more about "real music" - but I am perfectly content to use the local forms as a fit vessel for the Gospel to be communicated.

Finally, in my experience, many of those advancing theories of music where some forms are moral and other forms are immoral usually are propping up a theory that Western Culture is the pinnacle of advancement and thus their arguments usually find the music of 18th century Christian Europe to by the height of advancement.

Many of the people I've heard propounding theories that some forms are moral and others immoral couldn't recognise good music when it slapped them upside the head, and had an attenuated appreciation of 18th Century Europe. But if you do think that cultures advance and decline, obviously, SOME point has to be the pinnacle so far. In other words, I get the feeling that you think identifying that as a pinnacle is absurd, but I wonder if that isn't because you are uncomfortable with the whole idea of a pinnacle to begin with.

Good thoughts. I think I agree.


Also,


I'm sorry that fish makes you suicidal.
 
Well, now you know something not to make if you have me over for dinner!
 
If this is your conscience, you have a duty to avoid the forms of music which you find to trouble you. For instance, you should avoid most all Renaissance, Enlightenment, tribal or other forms of music as well, correct?

This simply ignores the point I made about "pop conscience." If the music itself did not teach specific messages why would advertising agents, propaganda artists, and movie makers utilise it the way that they do? They are not selling raw emotion, but an idea, and the music is seen as integral to the idea they are selling.

I don't need to avoid any music. I am arguing that the music must be discerned for the message it conveys. Then I can make an informed decision as to what I choose to enjoy.
 
Sir,

Why exactly is music and its effect consider a great deal more subjective than for example, loud sounds and contaminated water? Let say someone says, "If someone listens to music at a certain level for a certain period of time they will lose their hearing, slowly but progressively". Would anyone response, "Well that is just you and your hearing, don't try to tell me how my body and ears operate. I can handle it."

Or lets say someone says, "If you drink water containing X, Y, and Z, you will get disease X and die within six months." Would anyone respond, "Well that is you and your digestive system, don't pretend to tell me about the effect on me and my body."

CT

I think you are drawing parallels that are not there. The parallel you draw poisons the well by things that are clearly damaging physically to things that are not necessarily so morally. It is a begging of the question.

Perhaps your argument is like contaminated water, and by listening to it, I've been poisoned :lol:

-----Added 10/18/2009 at 06:44:12 EST-----

If this is your conscience, you have a duty to avoid the forms of music which you find to trouble you. For instance, you should avoid most all Renaissance, Enlightenment, tribal or other forms of music as well, correct?

This simply ignores the point I made about "pop conscience." If the music itself did not teach specific messages why would advertising agents, propaganda artists, and movie makers utilise it the way that they do? They are not selling raw emotion, but an idea, and the music is seen as integral to the idea they are selling.

I don't need to avoid any music. I am arguing that the music must be discerned for the message it conveys. Then I can make an informed decision as to what I choose to enjoy.

Actually, it is a question regarding "pop conscience". Surely you recognize that the Renaissance had a popular conscience, and pushed certain ideologies using all of the arts and sciences.

I was simply wondering if you were selective in which pop consciences you would condemn, and so far I have no idea, as I did not clearly ask such a question. So, are you selective in which popular consciences you avoid, or are you consistent in avoiding other godless cultures in times past?

Cheers,
 
Actually, it is a question regarding "pop conscience". Surely you recognize that the Renaissance had a popular conscience, and pushed certain ideologies using all of the arts and sciences.

Of course, it had a popular conscience. Once it has entered the halls of the past it fails to exert that particular influence over the present. It now speaks to the modern mind with "classic" voice.

I was simply wondering if you were selective in which pop consciences you would condemn, and so far I have no idea, as I did not clearly ask such a question. So, are you selective in which popular consciences you avoid, or are you consistent in avoiding other godless cultures in times past?

I've just finished saying that I don't need to avoid any music and you follow up with a question asking me what music I need to avoid. Clearly you are ignoring what I am saying.
 
I ran across this while thumbing through my Trinity Hymnal this afternoon:

[Addressing the instrumentalists who play the hymns, emphasis mine]

"As you play the organ, piano or other instrument, you are assisting in the worship of God. You have the tools to bring hymns to life on the lips and in the hearts of the people. Your manner of playing interprets the truths of the hymn texts so that thoughts, as well as feelings, are more completely engaged...Prayerful analysis of each hymn (both tune and text) will enable you to play each stanza with sensitivity to its unique content."
Even the men who compiled the Trinity Hymnal recognized that a musician's approach to a piece of music has an impact on the person listening to the music.

When I was a teenager, a choir visited our church. They were selling recordings of some of the hymns they performed. We bought one. I liked the music, so I listened to it a lot. One thing I noticed, however, was every time we got to one particular song, whoever happened to be in the house at the time would get irritated and start to yell or show signs of irritation. Since we had bought the recording because we liked that song, I decided something else had to be going on. A year went by and the group came back to visit our church. I told the director of the group the story about the song and asked him if he had any idea why that would happen. He replied to me "It's funny that you ask that." and he began to recount to me how much trouble they had getting that song recorded. Nothing would go right, the choir members were getting cranky and irritable, people were making stupid mistakes, etc. He said that no one was really happy with the recording, but since they got it down with no mistakes, they decided to go with it.

My question: Did the musicians communicate their irritation through the music on the recording? While it's possible something else was going on (I can think of several possibilities), it certainly appeared to me that the irritability was transferred through the music.

I know that I have always possessed the distinct ability to communicate my moods through music and it often drove my mother nuts when I was living at home, especially if I happened to be angry when I sat down at the piano.
 
py3ak:
As I said, I'd take my starting point for myself (since I'm not legislating to others) from its impact on me. It's also as well to point out here that of course you can resist the impact of a piece of music, and when you listen to something critically you often do resist it. So for instance it would be possible for someone at a rave to sit in a corner and sulk - but that's not what the music there is for. The question is not "can this music overpower my guard?" but "what is the effect of surrendering to the music?"

JBaldwin:
One thing I noticed, however, was every time we got to one particular song, whoever happened to be in the house at the time would get irritated and start to yell or show signs of irritation.

I can sympathize with the effect that music can play on individuals, but it cannot be argued that the same effect applies to all individuals. Some people may commit heinous crimes while listening to classical music, and I know of one guy who became a Christian after listening to Strongarm - a Christian heavy metal band.

Another problem with the argument thing is that the emotional effects which are produced by certain sounds are given moral weightage. Happiness, calmness, rage, boredom, passion, zeal ... can we really say that these emotions are good or evil - in and of themselves? Well, it depends on the context and situation. Even God (whether anthropomorphically read or not) displays rage, zeal, jealousy (though not of the same kind as ours).

Brahms is superior to many in a musical sense (though he is not one of the greatest composers, so it is also true that many are superior to him).

It's hard to base this claim (of any composer or artist) on objective grounds. It's like saying that Michelangelo is superior to Monet or Warhol, which may be true according to some predetermined criteria and tastes, but not to others. These are different artists, during different media, in different eras, with different philosophies, portraying different things to different audiences. It is simply not enough to say that Michelangleo is superior in the "artistic" sense - that is simply too vague and narrow and diminishes the artistic contributions of other eras. the study and appreciation of art did not end in the Renaissance.
 
What criteria would you then use to determine the morality of a piece of music?


Is the wedding march okay? At least for weddings? Wagner's Lohengrin is part of a "pagan" piece written by an Anti-Semite, and for that reason many Jews and many Missouri-Synod Lutherans don't play this piece at weddings due to these connotations. So it appears that a soothing piece can be pagan. I cannot perceive this from the hearing of it though.

Not sure what this says about me but Wagner's Lohengrin is probably my favorite opera.
 
JBaldwin:
Quote:
One thing I noticed, however, was every time we got to one particular song, whoever happened to be in the house at the time would get irritated and start to yell or show signs of irritation.

I can sympathize with the effect that music can play on individuals, but it cannot be argued that the same effect applies to all individuals. Some people may commit heinous crimes while listening to classical music, and I know of one guy who became a Christian after listening to Strongarm - a Christian heavy metal band.


The point I was making here was not that music affects all people the same way, but rather I was pointing out that the state of mind of the musician when he/she is performing can and often does affect the state of mind of the listener. I have been a performing musician most of my life, and I have witnessed this effect (both postitively and negatively) numerous times.

Another problem with the argument thing is that the emotional effects which are produced by certain sounds are given moral weightage. Happiness, calmness, rage, boredom, passion, zeal ... can we really say that these emotions are good or evil - in and of themselves? Well, it depends on the context and situation. Even God (whether anthropomorphically read or not) displays rage, zeal, jealousy (though not of the same kind as ours).

I would agree that you cannot argue that a certain sound affects everyone the same way. What I would argue (as I did above) is that the emotional state of a musician coupled with a style can affect the listener more than most people realize. I have a young piano student who was adopted as a small child from a Chinese orphanage where she was abused. For some reason, she cannot stand to hear or play slow music in a minor key. Just yesterday as I was teaching her, she commented that 1) the song I had assigned made her sad when she played it (it was in a minor key), and 2) When I played it, it didn't sound sad. Oddly enough, the song while it sounded sad to me, it didn't make me feel sad. It made me think of the many clear, cool Autumn days when I walked slowly to school so I could drink in the beauty of the day. I loved the song. My point again is that it's not just the music but how it is played that affects the listener.

No one can deny that music is powerful. Personally, I would disagree with those who say that music is either good or bad. I believe that it would be more accurate to say that the elements of music can be fashioned into a tool for good or evil and each musical tool formed becomes more or less effective based on the person who's using it. An example would be a simple chorus taken from the words of Scripture. A congregation can sing the chorus once or twice, and it can be a blessing. The same chorus sung 30-40 times can be used to hype the congregation into an emotional frenzy. I've seen it done.

At the same time, I do believe that the music we play and listen to as believers should reflect the order and beauty of the God we worship. Music with abhorent and sinful lyrics should not be part of our listening libraries, and neither should music which in and of itself relects disorder and chaos. Those guidelines cover a wide range of style and musical form. This takes the whole discussion back to the definition of what music is in the first place which is a topic for yet another thread.
 
before i was regenerated i played loud lead guitar for rock bands.
i was arrested and put in prison for various crimes in 1988. my conversion took place at this time. when i was released in 1990 i would not even touch a guitar. my calouses turned to mush and my skill was all but depleted... i cared not, because my love for the One who rescued me was my main concern.
2 years went by and i picked it up again. i love to play... i love to play in church and i love to "jam" with other people. i was even privledged to tour with a black gospel band for a couple years
when i began to play again, i became a "worship leader"
i fell in love with Hosanna Integrity music because much of it was simply scripture set to music.
but i noticed a trend back then (early 90's) the music was starting to have a grunge, edgy rock style to it. though i liked some of the music, it seemed out of place in worship.
now that is the normal thing you see in churches today... 20 somethings with tatoos and cool hair, clothes, ect. it lacks reverence. a teenage rockgroup should not be "leading worship" that is my opinion. i think playing music for fun or entertainment is fine. but there needs to be a sensitivity towards what we do in the house of God.

i have a good friend who is a "reformed hip-hop" guy his music is gritty, urban and loud.
the stuff is outstanding
this guy is also a pastor, and he does not 'rap" from the pulpit, because he knows that this particular medium has a place and purpose... and it's not during the worship service.
but again.. these are just opinions
 
What criteria would you then use to determine the morality of a piece of music?


Is the wedding march okay? At least for weddings? Wagner's Lohengrin is part of a "pagan" piece written by an Anti-Semite, and for that reason many Jews and many Missouri-Synod Lutherans don't play this piece at weddings due to these connotations. So it appears that a soothing piece can be pagan. I cannot perceive this from the hearing of it though.

Not sure what this says about me but Wagner's Lohengrin is probably my favorite opera.
Ahhhh! Wagner! *Runs away and hides*

Seriously, we probably wouldn't have had Nietzsche or Hitler without Wagner first. Makes one wonder... :think:
 
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