Anti-Music

Anti-Music

            I believe that this name anti-music was originally a term tending to use irony or mockery to represent the negativism of some musical compositions of the 20rh century. It was also a term discussed in a music web site called antimusic. As far as I can tell the name originally came from a coined term in the book Broken Record: The Inside Story of the Grammy Awards by Henry Schipper.  Schipper recounts in this book that the Academy and their awards program were initially set up as the old-line music biz’s answer to the growth of Rock n’ Roll, a form of music they considered “Anti-Music”.   Perhaps another way to look at the meaning of this word is to consider it any form of music that defies convention to such a degree that some people would not recognize it as musical or a legitimate music genre.  Perhaps a better understanding of this term would be any form of music intended to overthrow traditional conventions and expectations.   Some other related considerations of anti-music could possibly be anti-genre music or noise-music.

            Noise-music is a form of so-called music that some would consider to be the “expressive” use of noise or distortion within the context of what the composer or arranger considers to be “music” or “anti-music” music. This type of composition challenges the distinction between musical and non-musical sound. It is directly related to the 20^th century philosophy off the destruction of music absolutes.

            Where am I heading with this discussion?  The purpose is not to get entangled in the controversy over whether anti-music is music or not.  The purpose of this very brief mention of anti-music it to point out that it was not developed by God fearing Christian musicians who were desiring to worship God with a genera of music that negated the elements of traditional Western music.  Therefore, it is misguided for a Church musician to entangle public worship with such styles of music.  Such entanglement is one of Satan’s stratagems for squeezing religious music into the world’s mold.