Catholic Champion
Because the Truth is a matter of life and death.
Music and the Loss of
Virtue
By Matthew James Bellisario 2008
Part II
An attitude adjustment.
Claudio Monteverdi was a great Italian Baroque composer who was arguably the most influential composer of his time. His music is a wonderful gift to the human soul. He had a correct understanding of what the purpose of music was. He once said, “The end of all good music is to affect the soul.” Monteverdi knew the great power of music, and how it should be composed. If we listen to his composition, Vespro Della Beata Vergine, (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) it doesn’t take long for you to be uplifted by this wonderful piece of music. It disposes the listener to a peaceful and hopeful state of mind and soul. You don’t even have to understand the lyrics, and you are still uplifted. Monteverdi delivered this type of uplifting structure even in his secular works. His secular operas contained a virtuous message in them that never left its listener in a hopeless state of despair, much to the chagrin of modern film and opera. We see such an example in his secular opera L’Orfeo, which ends with the character Orpheus rising to the heavens singing where he finds his ultimate fulfillment. If we fast-forward over 300 years we see a drastic change in the attitude of the arts in film and music. A well-known director Martin Scorsese recently released his latest excuse for a film called The Departed. The film had no virtue throughout its entire length, and leaves its viewers in a state of despair. One of the main characters is shot and killed at the end, the other main character is shot in the head and finally an obscure character ends up killing the only witnesses and escapes without being detected. There is no hero of the story, no good characters in any of its entire running time, all the while insulting two priests and a nun, and peppering its listeners with profanity and terribly composed music. It is an endless hole down to despair with never a hint of hope at getting out. Maybe that was his intent, however we are exposed to tragedy every day of our lives, do we need to be inundated with this attitude during our entertainment as well? One might ask the question, what good is it? One with a right mind would answer the question by saying that it isn’t any good for anything. This is the simple contrast of our modern music and art compared to those of the past.
The great composer Johann Sebastian Bach once said of music, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” He wrote some of the most beautiful sacred and secular music ever written. His well-known compositions such as his Mass in B minor and Saint Matthew’s Passion draw the listener into the divine. They give rise to the intellect and subdue the passions of the body. His music puts our being into harmony with our Creator. The same can be said for the music of Handel and Antonio Vivaldi. If we fast-forward once again to our modern age we see a very famous music composer of our times. His name is Billy Joel, and here is his attitude on Catholicism. "I wasn't raised Catholic, but I used to go to Mass with my friends, and I viewed the whole business as a lot of very enthralling hocus-pocus. There's a guy hanging upon the wall in the church, nailed to a cross and dripping blood, and everybody's blaming themselves for that man's torment, but I said to myself, 'Forget it. I had no hand in that evil. I have no original sin. There’s no blood of any sacred martyr on my hands. I pass on all of this." "I believe that all important matters have to be settled here, not in the clouds somewhere after we kick off." -Billy Joel, American Musician. How great of a contrast we see between him and Bach. Joel even goes as far as denying that he has no original sin! His music also reflects his attitude. His music broods with immorality in its rhythm, as in the song “Only the Good Die Young” while the lyrics also compliment it by saying, “Catholic girls start much too late.” And “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the Saints.” The attitude of the music is reinforced by the rhythmic composition. This music is terrible and it disposes the listener to an attitude that religion is stupid and a waste of time. Once again the contradiction is wide between the great virtuous composer of Bach to the demonic amoral composer of our time Joel. I could go on and on with comparisons endlessly. We have been over run with music such as this for many years now. I think it will help if we go back in time and look at music the way the ancients did. Even those before the time of Christianity will help us see the truth of how powerful music is.
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato was born in 427 BC. He is considered by many to be the founder of philosophy of the arts. Much of what he learned came from his predecessor Socrates. Plato believed in a virtuous and harmonious life. He also regarded music as way of attaining that virtue and harmony in man. Plato says, “music as highly important; its lofty purpose is to serve, not for superficial entertainment, but to help in building up a harmonious personality and in calming the human passions.” (Strunk 1965) Even Plato and the ancients recognized the influential power of music. In today’s modern times, it seems that only the destructive spirit knows this, while those who seek holiness have forgotten it. I want to continue to look at what Plato and those of his time thought of music and other arts that had an evil disposition to them. There is indeed a quality and character to all things in art, either grace or gracelessness. Plato, “Gracelessness and evil rhythm and disharmony are akin to evil speaking and the evil temper, but the opposites are the symbols and the kin of the opposites, the sober and good disposition.” He continues, “Is it then, only the poets that we must supervise and compel to embody in their poems the semblance of the good character or else not write poetry among us, or must we keep watch over the other craftsmen, and forbid them to represent the evil disposition, the licentious, the illiberal, the graceless, either in the likeness of living creatures or in buildings or in any other product of their art, on penalty, if unable to obey, of being forbidden to practice their art among us, that our guardians may not be bred among symbols of evil, as it were in a pasturage of poisonous herbs, lest gazing freely and cropping from many such day by day they little by little and all unawares accumulate and build up a huge mass of evil in their own souls. But we must look for those craftsmen who by the happy gift of nature are capable of following the trail of true beauty and grace, that our young men, dwelling as it were in a salubrious region, may receive benefit from all things about them, whence the influence that emanates from works of beauty may waft itself to eye or ear like a breeze that brings from wholesome places, health, and so from earliest childhood insensibly guide them to likeness, to friendship, to harmony with beautiful reason.” (Strunk 1965)
We have let happen in our society, exactly what Plato said would happen if we allowed bad music into our culture. It has given a foothold to evil and has brought about disunity and vice. Plato saw it happen in his time as well. In fact the Greek civilization saw a great decline, preceded by a corruption of art and music. This happened in the classical civilizations of China and India as well. Plato is not a Christian fundamentalist, but a person seeking virtue. In fact he lived 400 years before Christ came into the world. But even he had an image of what good morality should include, often surpassing what most Christians today would propose. Even though he did not have the Divine Revelation of the one true God formally, he had deducted some of it by the pure natural order of things, which we also know was created by God. The ancients knew that bad music would eventually poison the minds and souls of its listeners, and hence wanted to regulate it in their culture. Plato continues, “education in music is most sovereign, because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained, and otherwise contrary.” (Strunk 1965)
Aristotle also concluded that music does contain in it imitations of character. We know that people, who are always depressed, write depressed music. Those who are amoral write amoral music. Now of course we cannot take this to a great extreme, however, as a general principal, those who at least have a virtuous mentality and disposition, will express the same in art. Of course we can find exceptions where many of the ancient composers were not exactly angels. But the whole attitude of their culture was different. Even if many of the ancients did not practice what they preached, they at least had a sense of right and wrong. In today’s culture, we have no sense of right and wrong, and it shows in all of the arts. Music has become in our day a conduit of evil and malice.
The ancients also viewed music as the binding fabric of our very existence. Many of the ancients theorized that the universe was bound together by an audible force; therefore music was viewed as being very sacred. Pythagoras of Samos was one who saw music as the binding force of the universe. (Strunk) We as Catholics do not want to go too far with this mentality, however we can deduct some truth from this all the same. We can deduct from our Sacred Scriptures and Church teaching that music also is very important to us. We read in the book of Revelation many times where the angels sing and worship our Lord. We read in the Old Testament where David danced with lute and lyre praising the Lord. The Church for many years did exactly what Plato suggested almost 400 years earlier. She carefully regulated what kind of music would be allowed into the Church Liturgies. It was not until the 1960s that people in the Church would begin letting worldly music inside the liturgy. This of course has been a complete disaster. We know that the experiment of bad music has been an utter failure. We have allowed the Satanic, secular music to step inside the Church and it has helped to corrupt the people. Aristoxenos an ancient philosopher wrote of the terrible influence music had on his culture, “now that our theaters have become utterly barbarized and this prostituted music has moved on into a state of grave corruption, will get together by ourselves, few though we be and recall what the art of music used to be.” (Strunk 1965) We too are in the same dire straits in our culture, and in the Church. The Church and our culture have been barbarized by the rotten music of our day. We must get back to music that disposes us to virtue.
In order to discern whether music is good or bad, we must look at its rhythm and its harmony. There are few characteristics of music that would disqualify it from being virtuous. The first of these being a syncopated, voodoo-like rhythm that speaks directly to the bodily sexual passions. This can be heard in relatively all modern music like pop, rock, blues and country music. The rhythm is the primary driving force in these types of music, which consequently speaks directly to the passions and not at all to the intellect. (Nortz) If music should be primarily to uplift the soul and promote virtue, then music that does the opposite should be avoided. If we go back to origin of rock and pop music,, we find ourselves in Africa. The drumbeats of pagan voodoo rituals became the primary driving force of the blues and rock/pop music. The early blues singers like Robert Johnson often speak of despair, immorality and Satan. In Robert Johnson’s famous song, Hellhound on my trail he laments being worried of Satan constantly following him. Other songs of his like Hot Tamales sing metaphors of sexual immorality. Robert Johnson became one of the main catalysts for rock groups like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and other performers like Eric Clapton. Similar rhythmic beats can be found in the east as well, such as the music that belly dancers would dance to, primarily to arouse the bodily passions of the people. It is important to note that our bodies are not bad, and the sexual passions are normal when they are directed toward the function that they were made for. Our sexual natures are to be used within the context of marriage. A normal human being does not need to be aroused outside of that context. When music becomes a catalyst for the sexual passions then it disposes the listener to vice. We wonder why so many people go to loud nightclubs and dance halls only to find themselves in a state of sin by the end of the night. Rap music played in these places goes straight to the body; hence you see the sexual dancing that is aroused by it. Unfortunately we live in a culture where non-marital sex is the norm and most people do not think it is wrong. Since this is the case, most people see nothing wrong with this type of music. Music should not be used to dispose people to bodily temptation. Most popular music of all types fosters this behavior.
The next disruption of music comes through the harmony. Any music that disposes its listeners to despair and leaves them there cannot be virtuous. Many modern pop songs are nothing but pity parties for the listener. When a music piece leaves the listener in a state of depression it should be classified as illicit. When we are in a state of depression, we often want to know that others feel the same, and so we are drawn to sad music. We like to sulk and feel sorry for ourselves. However God does not want this from us. Sure we are to grieve at times, but we must never despair from our trials. A good piece of music will never leave the listener in a state of depression. Even a well-composed classical piece that has a sorrowful interlude will lift the listener out of it before its climactic finale. Much of country music also speaks of lost love and emotional turmoil, which never promulgates hope to the listener. Blues and rock music also promotes a feeling of sadness or despair.
The third characteristic of destructive music is chaos. If you listen to a modern jazz piece such as Mile Davis’ Bitches Brew, you will hear an utter chaotic movement of music. Much of jazz and modern heavy rock has this distinct quality. This type of music puts its listeners in a state of rage or disarray. There is no set key for much of jazz, and it therefore is unsettling to the soul. It does not lift up, but only confuses and leaves one feeling uneasy. Contrary, when one listens to Vivaldi’s Gloria one cannot help but lifted up in spirit and in intellect. Likewise when one hears the Opera of Monteverdi, L’Orfeo, one is lifted into harmony with him or herself. The music is in order with the soul and does not drive one to a melancholy state. So, we must ask ourselves, what are we feeding our intellect, our emotions and our souls from the music we regularly listen to? Do we often listen to music that contains driving syncopated rhythms, a harmonious state of depression or a chaotic maddening disposition? These are the three important questions to ask yourself. We can say that these are the attitudes of the music itself.
A secondary characteristic we should not neglect is the lyrics of the songs. Although the lyrics are not the primary component of a musical composition, it can make an impression on the listener. The most destruction that has ever come from musical lyrics has been done in the last 50 years. Rock, country and popular music has made anthems out of sinful lyrics and musical compositions. In many of these songs, the lyrics reinforce what the music is already saying. The rock band AC/DC has its listeners singing a rather stark anthem; “I’m on a highway to hell”. I can think back to myself in highschool listening to this as I was driving down the road thinking how great of a song it was. Can such an anthem be good? When I was just 8 years old I was singing songs like God of Thunder by Kiss in which I ignorantly repeated the lyrics, “God of Thunder and rock and roll, the spell your under will slowly rob you of your virgin soul.” This music was composed by loud syncopated beats and screeching electric guitars that drives the Satanic message. This is the order of things throughout popular music. This stuff doesn’t only apply to heavy rock groups such as these. Brittany Spears sings to our teenage daughters lyrics like these while set to syncopated occult like rhythm. “You lookin at me, with a sexy attitude, but the way your boys movin it (uh) it puts me in the mood OUW!” Is that what you want your kids listening to? Do we need more examples? Another one of her songs says, “Got up, got on the dance floor Hooked up with a guy named Joe When the music was fast and slow But what happened next, guess? But you don't wanna know.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the “you don’t wanna know” means. Our culture has turned into a moral wasteland, and our music has helped in its downfall.
The lyrics often reiterate what the music is already saying. Unfortunately this formula does not work in reverse. Many “Christian” singers and bands try and take illicit music and make it good by putting virtuous lyrics to it. This does not work. The music is the primary catalyst of the composition. The lyrics merely compliment the music. When you have a rhythmic piece of music speaking to the passions and then try to put virtuous lyrics to it, all you get is confusion and chaos. Listen to groups like Third Day and Audio Adrenaline. Their music is nothing but modern rock music with “Christian” lyrics. They do not mesh, and if one were not able to understand the lyrics, which many times you cannot anyway, you would not be uplifted by the music itself. This makes the music illicit and unfit to be called virtuous music.
Part III click here
By Matthew James Bellisario 2008
Part II
An attitude adjustment.
Claudio Monteverdi was a great Italian Baroque composer who was arguably the most influential composer of his time. His music is a wonderful gift to the human soul. He had a correct understanding of what the purpose of music was. He once said, “The end of all good music is to affect the soul.” Monteverdi knew the great power of music, and how it should be composed. If we listen to his composition, Vespro Della Beata Vergine, (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) it doesn’t take long for you to be uplifted by this wonderful piece of music. It disposes the listener to a peaceful and hopeful state of mind and soul. You don’t even have to understand the lyrics, and you are still uplifted. Monteverdi delivered this type of uplifting structure even in his secular works. His secular operas contained a virtuous message in them that never left its listener in a hopeless state of despair, much to the chagrin of modern film and opera. We see such an example in his secular opera L’Orfeo, which ends with the character Orpheus rising to the heavens singing where he finds his ultimate fulfillment. If we fast-forward over 300 years we see a drastic change in the attitude of the arts in film and music. A well-known director Martin Scorsese recently released his latest excuse for a film called The Departed. The film had no virtue throughout its entire length, and leaves its viewers in a state of despair. One of the main characters is shot and killed at the end, the other main character is shot in the head and finally an obscure character ends up killing the only witnesses and escapes without being detected. There is no hero of the story, no good characters in any of its entire running time, all the while insulting two priests and a nun, and peppering its listeners with profanity and terribly composed music. It is an endless hole down to despair with never a hint of hope at getting out. Maybe that was his intent, however we are exposed to tragedy every day of our lives, do we need to be inundated with this attitude during our entertainment as well? One might ask the question, what good is it? One with a right mind would answer the question by saying that it isn’t any good for anything. This is the simple contrast of our modern music and art compared to those of the past.
The great composer Johann Sebastian Bach once said of music, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” He wrote some of the most beautiful sacred and secular music ever written. His well-known compositions such as his Mass in B minor and Saint Matthew’s Passion draw the listener into the divine. They give rise to the intellect and subdue the passions of the body. His music puts our being into harmony with our Creator. The same can be said for the music of Handel and Antonio Vivaldi. If we fast-forward once again to our modern age we see a very famous music composer of our times. His name is Billy Joel, and here is his attitude on Catholicism. "I wasn't raised Catholic, but I used to go to Mass with my friends, and I viewed the whole business as a lot of very enthralling hocus-pocus. There's a guy hanging upon the wall in the church, nailed to a cross and dripping blood, and everybody's blaming themselves for that man's torment, but I said to myself, 'Forget it. I had no hand in that evil. I have no original sin. There’s no blood of any sacred martyr on my hands. I pass on all of this." "I believe that all important matters have to be settled here, not in the clouds somewhere after we kick off." -Billy Joel, American Musician. How great of a contrast we see between him and Bach. Joel even goes as far as denying that he has no original sin! His music also reflects his attitude. His music broods with immorality in its rhythm, as in the song “Only the Good Die Young” while the lyrics also compliment it by saying, “Catholic girls start much too late.” And “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the Saints.” The attitude of the music is reinforced by the rhythmic composition. This music is terrible and it disposes the listener to an attitude that religion is stupid and a waste of time. Once again the contradiction is wide between the great virtuous composer of Bach to the demonic amoral composer of our time Joel. I could go on and on with comparisons endlessly. We have been over run with music such as this for many years now. I think it will help if we go back in time and look at music the way the ancients did. Even those before the time of Christianity will help us see the truth of how powerful music is.
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato was born in 427 BC. He is considered by many to be the founder of philosophy of the arts. Much of what he learned came from his predecessor Socrates. Plato believed in a virtuous and harmonious life. He also regarded music as way of attaining that virtue and harmony in man. Plato says, “music as highly important; its lofty purpose is to serve, not for superficial entertainment, but to help in building up a harmonious personality and in calming the human passions.” (Strunk 1965) Even Plato and the ancients recognized the influential power of music. In today’s modern times, it seems that only the destructive spirit knows this, while those who seek holiness have forgotten it. I want to continue to look at what Plato and those of his time thought of music and other arts that had an evil disposition to them. There is indeed a quality and character to all things in art, either grace or gracelessness. Plato, “Gracelessness and evil rhythm and disharmony are akin to evil speaking and the evil temper, but the opposites are the symbols and the kin of the opposites, the sober and good disposition.” He continues, “Is it then, only the poets that we must supervise and compel to embody in their poems the semblance of the good character or else not write poetry among us, or must we keep watch over the other craftsmen, and forbid them to represent the evil disposition, the licentious, the illiberal, the graceless, either in the likeness of living creatures or in buildings or in any other product of their art, on penalty, if unable to obey, of being forbidden to practice their art among us, that our guardians may not be bred among symbols of evil, as it were in a pasturage of poisonous herbs, lest gazing freely and cropping from many such day by day they little by little and all unawares accumulate and build up a huge mass of evil in their own souls. But we must look for those craftsmen who by the happy gift of nature are capable of following the trail of true beauty and grace, that our young men, dwelling as it were in a salubrious region, may receive benefit from all things about them, whence the influence that emanates from works of beauty may waft itself to eye or ear like a breeze that brings from wholesome places, health, and so from earliest childhood insensibly guide them to likeness, to friendship, to harmony with beautiful reason.” (Strunk 1965)
We have let happen in our society, exactly what Plato said would happen if we allowed bad music into our culture. It has given a foothold to evil and has brought about disunity and vice. Plato saw it happen in his time as well. In fact the Greek civilization saw a great decline, preceded by a corruption of art and music. This happened in the classical civilizations of China and India as well. Plato is not a Christian fundamentalist, but a person seeking virtue. In fact he lived 400 years before Christ came into the world. But even he had an image of what good morality should include, often surpassing what most Christians today would propose. Even though he did not have the Divine Revelation of the one true God formally, he had deducted some of it by the pure natural order of things, which we also know was created by God. The ancients knew that bad music would eventually poison the minds and souls of its listeners, and hence wanted to regulate it in their culture. Plato continues, “education in music is most sovereign, because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained, and otherwise contrary.” (Strunk 1965)
Aristotle also concluded that music does contain in it imitations of character. We know that people, who are always depressed, write depressed music. Those who are amoral write amoral music. Now of course we cannot take this to a great extreme, however, as a general principal, those who at least have a virtuous mentality and disposition, will express the same in art. Of course we can find exceptions where many of the ancient composers were not exactly angels. But the whole attitude of their culture was different. Even if many of the ancients did not practice what they preached, they at least had a sense of right and wrong. In today’s culture, we have no sense of right and wrong, and it shows in all of the arts. Music has become in our day a conduit of evil and malice.
The ancients also viewed music as the binding fabric of our very existence. Many of the ancients theorized that the universe was bound together by an audible force; therefore music was viewed as being very sacred. Pythagoras of Samos was one who saw music as the binding force of the universe. (Strunk) We as Catholics do not want to go too far with this mentality, however we can deduct some truth from this all the same. We can deduct from our Sacred Scriptures and Church teaching that music also is very important to us. We read in the book of Revelation many times where the angels sing and worship our Lord. We read in the Old Testament where David danced with lute and lyre praising the Lord. The Church for many years did exactly what Plato suggested almost 400 years earlier. She carefully regulated what kind of music would be allowed into the Church Liturgies. It was not until the 1960s that people in the Church would begin letting worldly music inside the liturgy. This of course has been a complete disaster. We know that the experiment of bad music has been an utter failure. We have allowed the Satanic, secular music to step inside the Church and it has helped to corrupt the people. Aristoxenos an ancient philosopher wrote of the terrible influence music had on his culture, “now that our theaters have become utterly barbarized and this prostituted music has moved on into a state of grave corruption, will get together by ourselves, few though we be and recall what the art of music used to be.” (Strunk 1965) We too are in the same dire straits in our culture, and in the Church. The Church and our culture have been barbarized by the rotten music of our day. We must get back to music that disposes us to virtue.
In order to discern whether music is good or bad, we must look at its rhythm and its harmony. There are few characteristics of music that would disqualify it from being virtuous. The first of these being a syncopated, voodoo-like rhythm that speaks directly to the bodily sexual passions. This can be heard in relatively all modern music like pop, rock, blues and country music. The rhythm is the primary driving force in these types of music, which consequently speaks directly to the passions and not at all to the intellect. (Nortz) If music should be primarily to uplift the soul and promote virtue, then music that does the opposite should be avoided. If we go back to origin of rock and pop music,, we find ourselves in Africa. The drumbeats of pagan voodoo rituals became the primary driving force of the blues and rock/pop music. The early blues singers like Robert Johnson often speak of despair, immorality and Satan. In Robert Johnson’s famous song, Hellhound on my trail he laments being worried of Satan constantly following him. Other songs of his like Hot Tamales sing metaphors of sexual immorality. Robert Johnson became one of the main catalysts for rock groups like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and other performers like Eric Clapton. Similar rhythmic beats can be found in the east as well, such as the music that belly dancers would dance to, primarily to arouse the bodily passions of the people. It is important to note that our bodies are not bad, and the sexual passions are normal when they are directed toward the function that they were made for. Our sexual natures are to be used within the context of marriage. A normal human being does not need to be aroused outside of that context. When music becomes a catalyst for the sexual passions then it disposes the listener to vice. We wonder why so many people go to loud nightclubs and dance halls only to find themselves in a state of sin by the end of the night. Rap music played in these places goes straight to the body; hence you see the sexual dancing that is aroused by it. Unfortunately we live in a culture where non-marital sex is the norm and most people do not think it is wrong. Since this is the case, most people see nothing wrong with this type of music. Music should not be used to dispose people to bodily temptation. Most popular music of all types fosters this behavior.
The next disruption of music comes through the harmony. Any music that disposes its listeners to despair and leaves them there cannot be virtuous. Many modern pop songs are nothing but pity parties for the listener. When a music piece leaves the listener in a state of depression it should be classified as illicit. When we are in a state of depression, we often want to know that others feel the same, and so we are drawn to sad music. We like to sulk and feel sorry for ourselves. However God does not want this from us. Sure we are to grieve at times, but we must never despair from our trials. A good piece of music will never leave the listener in a state of depression. Even a well-composed classical piece that has a sorrowful interlude will lift the listener out of it before its climactic finale. Much of country music also speaks of lost love and emotional turmoil, which never promulgates hope to the listener. Blues and rock music also promotes a feeling of sadness or despair.
The third characteristic of destructive music is chaos. If you listen to a modern jazz piece such as Mile Davis’ Bitches Brew, you will hear an utter chaotic movement of music. Much of jazz and modern heavy rock has this distinct quality. This type of music puts its listeners in a state of rage or disarray. There is no set key for much of jazz, and it therefore is unsettling to the soul. It does not lift up, but only confuses and leaves one feeling uneasy. Contrary, when one listens to Vivaldi’s Gloria one cannot help but lifted up in spirit and in intellect. Likewise when one hears the Opera of Monteverdi, L’Orfeo, one is lifted into harmony with him or herself. The music is in order with the soul and does not drive one to a melancholy state. So, we must ask ourselves, what are we feeding our intellect, our emotions and our souls from the music we regularly listen to? Do we often listen to music that contains driving syncopated rhythms, a harmonious state of depression or a chaotic maddening disposition? These are the three important questions to ask yourself. We can say that these are the attitudes of the music itself.
A secondary characteristic we should not neglect is the lyrics of the songs. Although the lyrics are not the primary component of a musical composition, it can make an impression on the listener. The most destruction that has ever come from musical lyrics has been done in the last 50 years. Rock, country and popular music has made anthems out of sinful lyrics and musical compositions. In many of these songs, the lyrics reinforce what the music is already saying. The rock band AC/DC has its listeners singing a rather stark anthem; “I’m on a highway to hell”. I can think back to myself in highschool listening to this as I was driving down the road thinking how great of a song it was. Can such an anthem be good? When I was just 8 years old I was singing songs like God of Thunder by Kiss in which I ignorantly repeated the lyrics, “God of Thunder and rock and roll, the spell your under will slowly rob you of your virgin soul.” This music was composed by loud syncopated beats and screeching electric guitars that drives the Satanic message. This is the order of things throughout popular music. This stuff doesn’t only apply to heavy rock groups such as these. Brittany Spears sings to our teenage daughters lyrics like these while set to syncopated occult like rhythm. “You lookin at me, with a sexy attitude, but the way your boys movin it (uh) it puts me in the mood OUW!” Is that what you want your kids listening to? Do we need more examples? Another one of her songs says, “Got up, got on the dance floor Hooked up with a guy named Joe When the music was fast and slow But what happened next, guess? But you don't wanna know.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the “you don’t wanna know” means. Our culture has turned into a moral wasteland, and our music has helped in its downfall.
The lyrics often reiterate what the music is already saying. Unfortunately this formula does not work in reverse. Many “Christian” singers and bands try and take illicit music and make it good by putting virtuous lyrics to it. This does not work. The music is the primary catalyst of the composition. The lyrics merely compliment the music. When you have a rhythmic piece of music speaking to the passions and then try to put virtuous lyrics to it, all you get is confusion and chaos. Listen to groups like Third Day and Audio Adrenaline. Their music is nothing but modern rock music with “Christian” lyrics. They do not mesh, and if one were not able to understand the lyrics, which many times you cannot anyway, you would not be uplifted by the music itself. This makes the music illicit and unfit to be called virtuous music.
Part III click here