At
the risk of repeating myself, I must also add the Bible is not silent
concerning musical performance in the process of training our young
people. The twenty fifth chapter of I
chronicles begins by explaining that, “Moreover
David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of
Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with
psalteries, and with cymbals…” This
verse make it very clear that these Levite sons were separated to perform on
instruments of music. They were
commissioned and taught how to perform the music of the Temple.
Verses six and seven of the twenty fifth
chapter of I Chronicles give further explanation of this ancient music
education process. “All these were under
the hands of their father for song in the house of the LORD, with cymbals,
psalteries, and harps, for the service of the house of God, according to the
king's order to Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman.
So the number of them, with their brethren that were instructed in the
songs of the LORD, even all that were cunning, was two hundred fourscore and
eight.” Notice that the chief Levite
musicians instructed (lamad 3925) i.e. taught their sons to be skillful
performers of the songs (shiyr 7892) of the LORD (YHVH 3068). This Scripture leaves no question about the
specificity of their performance education—they were not only taught about this
music but were also taught to perform the songs of the LORD. I have no doubt that they studied about the
ancient didactic lyric poetry that was a part of their music ministry in the Temple, but the study and
appreciation of this ancient lyric poetry was certainly not the end of the
praxis of musically educating these Levite sons—they actually performed this
music in the context of Temple worship.
No comments:
Post a Comment