Developing a Music Philosophy in Christian Perspective—part 1

Developing a Music Philosophy in Christian Perspective—part 1

            Donald Hodges recently stated in his Book A Concise Survey of Music Philosophy, “Most Philosophy books omit the topic of religion.”(p, 17)   I have found his observation to be true over the half century since 1067 that I have seriously studied Music in the Bible and music philosophy.  After I wrote Music of the Bible in Christian Perspective in 1995, I realized even more fully that there was little written material on the subject of a Biblically based music philosophy.  I decided that my next writing task should be a church music book that would consider music philosophy for churches in this century.  So, I set about to prepare Church Music Matters, A Music Philosophy in Christian Perspective which was published in 2005. 

            I thought that this project would probably be my “Swan Song” since I was nearing retirement from Bible College music administration, classroom teaching, and choral and instrumental conducting.  However, after retirement I could not get away from the awesome reality that I had not covered several of the major issues of music philosophy that secular music philosophy books were and are considering.   Also, I had not specifically prepared material that directly concerned music education philosophy.  So the task before me began to take form.