Musical Sound Communicates Meaning Part 19

Musical Sound Communicates Meaning Part 19    

           .Peter Kivy made a statement about strict formalist’s musical believes that is worthy of our consideration in this discussion of musical sounds.  “But isn’t that exactly what the formalists is saying that absolute music is?  Isn’t she saying that the symphonies of Beethoven, the string quartets of Haydn, the organ fugues of Bach are ‘meaningless noise’?  And what greater condemnation could there be of a human enterprise?  You spent your life making meaningless noises.”  Introduction To A Philosophy of Music by Peter Kivy, p.137.  Surely the Christian musician should understand that if religious music is to be considered amoral because it is part of a “closed benign system” that is incapable of communicating meaning, then that Christian musician is spending his or her life producing meaningless noises.      

           To me, the “music sounds are amoral” theory just doesn’t make any logical sense philosophically.  Musical sounds do matter because they communicate meaning to everyone who hears them.  Furthermore, I cannot find a shred of evidence either in or out of the Bible that would support the theory that musical sounds are a part of a “closed system”.  If this was true the musician could, contrary to the teaching of the Bible, “live and die to himself” when it comes to the task of producing musical sounds.    

Thought for the Day-    

Since music is not a closed system and since it has the capacity to communicate meaning, every musician will have to give an account at the judgment for how he or she influenced people with music.