Musical and Social Meaning…part 8

Musical and Social Meaning…part 8

 As I have often said, “No worship leader musics to himself (in an artistic esoteric bubble) because it is impossible to do so in the context of public worship.” When one takes a careful look at Ephesians 5:19 it is very clear that as early as the time of St. Paul’s inspired letter to the Ephesians, the philosophical belief existed that all public sacred musicing is done in community i.e. “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…”  So, any philosophical view that all public sacred musicing is done solely unto God is an incomplete view. Of course the Christian sings unto the Lord, but he is also instructed to sing in community in the inspired musical discourse in Paul’s letter. Therefore. it is an awesome responsibility for a minister of music to lead a congregation in musicing and thereby be responsible for implanting music in the minds of the people—causing cognitions to take place via the neurological synapses of the worshiper’s brain that are stored first electrically and after repeated musicing are stored chemically which is much more permanent.

These cognitions will be replayed over and over in the mind of the person who experienced the (through metacognition and by involuntary mirror brainstem responses) until these memories are stored chemically for a lifetime.  According to Patrik Juslin’s BRECVEMA  research, music triggers the mirror neuron system of the human brain and stimulates emotional states in the performer and the listener. Once these emotive cognitions are stored chemically in the brain the understandable meaning that surrounds the memory of these emotive experiences is very difficult to reverse because of the fact that the cognitions have become thought patterns that keep on influencing that person every  time musical metacognition takes place.