Sunday, July 31, 2016

Viewing Music through “Christian Eyes”


Viewing Music through “Christian Eyes”
One of the shortcomings of music education both in secular and religious settings has been the lack of educating students multi-culturally. Christian musicians have too often viewed music through “Western” eyes.  There are musics from many cultures that do not violate Bible principles of musicing.  If a type of music does not violate Christian principles then it is redeemable in Christian culture. One of the objectives of a Christian music education philosophy (CMEP) is to study musics of other world cultures and evaluate them in light of Christocentric music aesthetic.  All too often CMEP has excluded the study of any music that is not clearly Western and follows the rules of music of the Occident.  Christian music educators must not look at non-Western music through “Western eyes” but rather through “Christian eyes” recognizing that many styles of music are redeemable if they do not violate biblical principles of musicing or  are closely related to anti-Christ culture.
 Every Christian music educator should be reminded that the music notation of the entire Old Testament (the te’amim) does not follow the rules of music of the *Occident, yet no one could say that the music of the Bible does not follow its own precepts. All the Old Testament was notated long before and without the influence of the music of the Occident. (See chapter 8 of Music of the Bible in Christian Perspective)

 

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