Is A Written Music Philosophy Important?

Is A Written Music Philosophy Important?

             I am surprised that there are so few Christian musicians who are publishing material on church music and music education philosophy.  I am thankful to those individual Christian musicians, churches, Christian schools, Christian Colleges and Universities, who have committed their philosophy to pen and ink.  In such cases their philosophy is often a well-developed series of systematic statements (beliefs) concerning the nature and value of the whole of music that serves as a basis for that person’s or organization’s direction in music.  Many of these well thought out philosophy of music ministry and or music education have proven adequate to serve as an everyday guide for all their music action.  At the personal level, these well thought out congruent Bible based music philosophies have served serve as a concomitant of these Christian musicians’ whole life philosophy.

              It is unfortunate that so many Christian musicians have never taken the time to write out their music philosophy.  The result is often a philosophy that is in practice haphazard or at least a homespun way of “doing”.  As I mentioned earlier, some Christian musicians whom I have met in my travels over the past thirty years deny that they even need a written music philosophy.  They often hide behind the excuse that they are not trained music philosophers or that they have never even had the opportunity to study music philosophy.  What they don’t know is that everyone has a philosophy of music.  Even in the smallest of communities there is often a barbershop or a feed store with some chairs for philosophers.  Just bring up the subject of music and these grass-roots philosophers, who may not know the names of the lines and space, will tell you exactly what is right and wrong with music today.