Berglund also
touched on another concept that is particularly germane to the discussion of appropriateness
of church music with his mention of style implications.We
all recognize music by its style. Style recognition involves the communication
of auditory musical information incorporated in instrumental and or vocal tones
that are systematically distinguishable to the listener. This auditory information is communicated to
the listener from the structured execution of a particular music. Thus it becomes recognizable as a particular
musical style. Robert Berglund believes
that,”…it is through musical style that music assumes much of its meaning to
the listeners. Certainly in vocal music
concrete meaning is arrived at by texts.
But as far as music is concerned, meaning, both concrete and abstract,
designative and embodied, is generally arrived at through style. In other words, as people are aware of style
and its implications through conditioning and psychological associations along
with their intuitions, music assumes meaning.” A Philosophy
of Church Music by Robert Berglund p. 22
Music finds its place in the
multiplicity of style classifications by how it presents itself. All music has purpose and that purpose causes
it to take on stylistic characteristics that are the means of communicating its
meaning to the listener. Every astute
composer desires to draw the listener into the emotion and meaning expressed in
the music. For this reason, a Christian
musician must become familiar with just what the music part of a particular
style of music is attempting to communicate to the auditor.
Although
it is true that every garage or basement musical group is not necessarily a
skillful communicator of a particular style of music, many of them are because
they apply the style patterns to the building blocks of the music they are
composing, arranging and performing—thereby the music becomes a communicator of
the desired meaning. Since the time of
the Coryville jazz groups in New Orleans and the Chicago and Kansas City jazz
inventions, jazz has been successful in transmitting sexual meaning to its
listeners. The same success may be said
of the rock-n-role of Elvis Presley and those who followed him in that
style. Probably the most successful
communicator of sexual meaning, without doubt has been the many sub-styles of
rock music.
For a Christian musician to make a claim that
the aforementioned music styles were and are not capable of communicating their
desired meaning is naive and short sighted.
To contend that these styles of music were and are benign and therefore
not capable of communicating meaning is to deny music’s great power which is
delivered with the help of these style meanings. The music part of music molded by style
becomes a powerful communicator of musical meaning which is related to the real
world around all of us.
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