- Music has hidden power that can touch not only your emotions but also your spirit / innermost being - see here
- Nothing is unclean of itself - it is your involvement with it that may or may not be good, see Act 11:7-9 and Rom 14:14
- Whilst I do well to check out how music affects me, I have no right to be judgmental regarding your views, see Rom 14:4-5
- My duty not to offend others should affect what I do with music, see Rom 14:3 and Mat 22:36-40
If you do not like my conclusions maybe you should read no further - but I would be interested to hear what you think so do please consider leaving a comment.
What is music?
You'll find plenty of and disparate definitions but here is mine: "music is an ordered sequence of sounds that generally include notes. A note is one of an ordered set of tones (a 'scale'). A tone is a sound having musical pitch." A bit convoluted but then I am an engineer.
Music thus is ordered in both in time sequence and in choice of sounds. This order is what distinguishes it from noise. As a reaction against this status quo some exploratory avant garde musicians have tried to remove all semblance of order from their music, like John Cage in his 4'33" - three movements of silence...
and his Imaginary Landscape no.4. which uses random noise from transistor radios...
One has to try a bit harder to define music in such as way as to include these examples!
If you were able to travel back in time to the middle ages or before you would find very different music. Likewise the music of the orient with its quarter-tones might sound alien to western ears. Even in my lifetime church music has changed radically. And then there are all those musical genres to suit different tastes. I would be wary indeed to pounce of one such flavour and pronounce it diabolic without very good cause.
Notwithstanding there is "music" that I personally find objectionable, music that I find very appealing but something within me warns me not to allow myself to become immersed in it - maybe this is my upbringing, maybe not. Anyway I do not see why I or anyone else should not have personal choice in music any less than in colour or food.
Go to previous page
Go to next page
Personal choice in music, colour & food... But what if (for instance) someone you care about is killing themselves by eating the wrong things in the wrong quantities? You can see it is "wrong"; you then are faced with one of the most difficult things, how to warn someone that they are hurting themselves. Difficult because most likely your relationship won't be 100% up to scratch with this person and that will prove to be the sticking point because to be effective this must be done out of love etc etc.
ReplyDeleteSo with my kids I tell them music is a bit like food - there is junk food, which can give you a bit of a sugar high, and so on. And there are worse things than sugar. Too much of the wrong thing does hurt you. So does being so terrified of sugar that you'd never eat chocolate. However, to stretch the analogy to the breaking point, what if you are diabetic
It seems to me that musical art (similar to how a different type of artist uses colour) uses sound for effect. Sometimes I think the artist knows very well exactly what they are trying for. Some music is fairly obviously angry; some sensual; some just wants to let down and have a good time. Perhaps God will play some rap for real during the apocalypse. Some of the artists know what they are doing (ie angry, sensual) and some seem unconscious but the themes are still there. Beethoven I would put down as being less pre-considered than Mozart for instance.
A bit like how I swear some women know exactly what they are doing when they dress a certain way and others seem (and I believe the truth of their ignorance – it’s just that this too can be a sin :) ) to be totally unconscious of their effect.
I think knowing these things is important, a bit like retaining a sense of real morality is important while watching any given Hollywood flick - which do not as is widely believed lead the charge of all that is normal, right & good but may still be enjoyed with caution.
Once you *know* then certain music does become overtly unwise to listen to – yes, this is a generalization.
I do think it is interesting that the music of past ages seems to "loose its power”. I remember with amusement listening to a much touted preacher when I was a boy: he described the raptures he would go into listening to this classical violin music and how God delivered him. Disparately we tend to view classical music nowadays as having had its claws drawn; thus Rachmaninoff streams innocuously from my friend's office - some very passionate classical music I feel, and passionate about exactly WHAT you ask yourself? Who cares, these days? Who cares about their sexual orientation or morality or where they stood in regard to the church of the age? Even the Beatles nowadays are fairly acceptable, except to those who experienced first hand the impact of those years.
And I do really agree that the claws are drawn to a large degree - my guess would be that the "spirit of the age" is pushing against new boundaries now. Maybe the old ones are already down.
thanks again for your blog: much appreciated