Musical
Sound Communicates Meaning Part 18
My
belief that some musicians will be damaged more because they understand the
musical sounds more than others does not put a premium on a Christian’s
ignorance of a particular; genre of music; I am merely stating that those who
are the most entrenched in worldly styles of music will possibly be the ones
who receive the greatest emotional and spiritual damage from performing and
listening to it. This is all the more
reason to not pander to the worldly seekers addictions to spiritually harmful
styles of music.
Christian
musicians also must be aware to the sound addictions that some seekers
have. It gives strong impetus to the
church to provide the un-churched seeker a diet of “new song” which will be
music of a higher renovated character than the music with which they have
surrounded themselves. There is no doubt
about it, many sinners will need a renewing of the mind which will not be
possible if church music sounds feed their
sinful lusts by that triggering lust and passion.
At
this point in our discussion I find it germane to return to the school of music
philosophy called formalism. When
considering the well-known philosophy of strict formalists, it is generally
understood that they believe that the meaning of “absolute music” [music
without words] is meaningless outside of the music itself. What that means is that in the real world,
the “meaning” of the musical sounds produced from the music written on the
score are actually meaningless marks on the
page since they supposedly have no meaning in the extra-musical world
and are incapable of communicating anything practical or referential.
Thought
for the Day-
Many times the sounds of a worldly
style of music have become addictive and a source of spiritual failure to the
sinner. It seems strange to me that a thinking music minister would want to
contribute to this sound addiction using the same harmful music.
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