Music and the Genesis Record—part 4

Music and the Genesis Record—part 4

            The way a composer or arranger organizes and utilizes the building blocks of music will give them the propensity to either be *congruent or incongruent with the purposes of sacred musicing to a high and holy triune God.  It is not the building blocks of music that are good or evil, but rather it is how they are arranged and performed that gives them positive or negative meaning.  To be more specific, it isn’t diatonic seventh chords, incomplete dominant ninth chords, augmented sixth chords, Neapolitan sixth chords, syncopated rhythms, put beats, dynamics, or hemiolas that are profane.  It is the way that a composer, arranger or performer uses them that determines their appropriateness or inappropriateness.  

            There is no such thing as an evil chord, dynamic or rhythm per se, but every astute performer, composer or arranger understands that they may be used inappropriately in a given situation.  Furthermore, the inappropriate *juxtaposition or *amalgamation of styles of music is capable of making subtle, or not so subtle, jest of the very thing that a Christian musician is supposed to be expressing when he or she musics unto God.