MusicalGod

2010-05-11T22:19:00.000-07:00

SIGH....

2009-09-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

God, Music, and the Limits to Analogy

This is a cross-post from the "Next Great Awakening" series at http://www.harmonicminer.com. I hope you'll check out the whole series at that link.

As I've written elsewhere, God is the Being who exists alone in His category... whatever that might be. We know a little. We are tempted to say that God is infinitely present, powerful, intelligent, and good. These ideas are more Greek than anything, because they were in love with philosophical absolutes. But using those categories can deceive us if we are incautious, because it allows us to pretend that we know more than we do. In His initial communication with humans, God seems not to have tried to "name" Himself, or describe Himself, or apply adjectives to Himself in an attempt to make Himself known to His people. He said, "I am who I am," or, "I will be who I will be," or, "I am that I am," depending on whose translation you believe. He made Himself known by His deeds more than by His self-description, though there isn't necessarily a rigid line between the two. Start reading from Genesis 1, and notice how long it is before God applies adjectives to Himself.

The Scripture simply points out that God is above everything else that can be named in any of those categories, far, far above, and leaves it at that. It does not say precisely that God knows everything (and how humans could even understand what it means to make the statement is beyond me...). What is "everything"? Everything that can be known? Everything that matters? Everything that will ever be? Everything that might have been? There are things that fit in one of these categories, but perhaps not in another. Does God know anything that cannot be known? It seems to me that to claim there is nothing that God does not know is as much a statement about the nature of reality as it is about the nature of God, and it places limits on the type of reality God is "allowed" to have created, according to our theories. That's what's behind the old kid's question, "Can God make a rock so big that He can't lift it?" In other words, there can be conflicts between infinite characteristics, as we understand infinities. If God knows everything, particularly the future in an exhaustive way, does it have to mean that he wasn't powerful enough to make a Universe where He didn't? Or is it merely that He decided not to make such a universe? Could God destroy the universe, then forget He ever made it? If not, his power is limited. If He could do this, His knowledge would be limited after He forgot having made the universe. Do we limit God (our understanding of Him, that is) by insisting on infinities whose definition and nature we cannot grasp?

Nowhere does scripture tell us that God is only enormously, or "infinitely," powerful, intelligent, good, just, loving, immortal, present, etc. Those are only the "aspects of God" that relate to humans directly, because there is some analogy from these "attributes of God" to the far lesser parallels in human beings. That is, humans are present in a place, have some intelligence, some power, some moral status, some lifetime, etc., so the parallel of "God's version" of those characteristics may tell us something about both ourselves and Him. But the Orthodox remind us that God is other from us, and probably has unseen, unknowable, and unguessable aspects, attributes, and character that may interact within the Godhead in various ways, including with those attributes listed above, in ways that again demonstrate the folly of humans trying to think they have "captured" God with some set of concepts.

God is a PERSON, who has graciously allowed us to know what is surely only a small part of his essence or character, in those attributes we can imagine, and to which we can relate in our finiteness. And that is what makes the Incarnation so completely breathtaking. The Incarnation was a huge sacrifice in itself, before there was a Crucifixion. He shed so much of that Magnificence to become one of us, and disclose Himself to us more fully. Could this life be merely a sort of boot camp, to prepare us to accept more of His self-disclosure in the next?

A very poor analogy might be that many of us engage in occupations or recreational activities that we literally could not explain to a person from five thousand years ago, and any attempt to make the explanation would be bound to create misunderstanding. I suspect our attempts to "describe" God aren't much better. We can say what He did, and we can say what He reveals to us (in scripture, in the "general" revelation of nature, and via the Spirit), but we cannot say with either precision or completeness what He IS, only that He is.

Of course, some of the contradictions mentioned earlier, caused by dueling infinities, are perhaps less real than apparent. We simply don't know. We can manipulate concepts of "infinities" mathematically, and symbolically, but that doesn't mean humans can grasp them. We should exercise some degree of humility. God is unique, and probably "infinite" in some sense(s), but we don't really know what that means, and while it may comfort us to say it, it is probably semantically null. We, on the other hand, are exceedingly finite, marginally stupid, and pretty weak. From this flows a basic principle.

Analogies involving humans and God flow basically in only one way, and produce distortions, ranging from risible to terrible, when applied in the wrong direction. We can "compare" ourselves to God in a meaningful way, but we cannot compare God to ourselves without committing a very fundamental category error. There may be small exceptions to this. We may learn something about love by watching humans interact, and from that we may speculate about God's love. But since every human aspect is finite, when our reasoning involves trying to place limits on God that flow from our human perceptions of each other, and from what we understand of the nature of "knowledge," or "power," or "justice," or "love," we have surely erred.

What passes for skeptical argument against the existence of God, the goodness of God, or the power of God usually flows from trying to place human limits on God, that is, analogizing from humanity to God, or from the creation itself to God. But it all flows the other way. We are what we are because God is what He is. Creation is what it is for the same reasons. This is why it's so ludicrous for naturalists to sneer at the notion that God might have made the entire universe just for us. They want to know, why is it so ridiculously huge? Why spend 13.7 billion years getting it ready for us? But surely our understanding of God's motives in this instance is limited by how humans do things, and how they have to do them. On the other hand, if you happen to be God, taking 13.7 billion years to get the place ready for the renters may just seem like a good way to do things, satisfying some "aesthetic" sensibility or concept. And really now, is there any reason to think the universe seems all that huge to God? Is He impressed with the size of it? Is He awed with Himself and the Creation? It's pretty foolish to impose human categories and "sense of scale" onto God.

I expect that ants are awed with the size of the White House lawn. I suppose I would be too, if I had to mow it.

Failed arguments made by skeptics about God usually take the form, "If God was good, then He would....", or "If God was all powerful then He would have....", or "If God knew everything then he would have...", and so on. Such arguments usually assume that God is a super nice man with a big brain and lots of power. Humans are simply incapable of grasping who God is, apart from his self-revelation, and we don't help the situation by applying the same logic as a 10 yr old speculating about what he'd do if he was immortal, super-good, super-powerful and super-smart. ("Daddy, if you could have any super-power you wanted, what would it be?")

One way to say this is that even if we attempt to "analyze" God in a functional way, we could not move from that analysis to a resynthesis of Him, because whatever parts or aspects of God we can separate out do not add up to the PERSON that He is.

And now, for a bit of pure conjecture. I think God may have given us something that is shared by most humans and all societies, a thing whose nature and characteristics make it analogically similar to God in certain ways. That thing is music. The nature of the similarity is that just as God is the sole inhabitant of His "category" (superintelligent, superpowerful, superpresent, immortal creator of the universe, able to move in and inhabit all dimensions of space and time simultaneously, as well as outside of them, etc.), music seems to inhabit its own category without even a kissin' cousin in other human endeavors. I am not saying that "music is like God" or "God is like music." I am saying that each is the sole member of its "set."

I've written elsewhere about the uniqueness of music. It is often thought to be analogous to art, mathematics, language, or communication, but the analogies actually flow the other way. It seems to me that people try to dignify many other disciplines and activities by analogizing them to music. We speak of two basketball players who are "making beautiful music together," the "harmonization of texts," the "counterpoint of ideas," the "rhythm of dialog," and so on. Mathematicians seem especially fond of musical metaphors for their own work. Even theologians create "harmonies of the gospels."

I suspect that most people who have only a casual awareness of music will find all of this a bit difficult to absorb, particularly if they have not thought deeply about all the things that they "know" about music without fully "knowing" that they do. But professional musicians with academic training will understand a little better. If, to you, music is just singing or playing an instrument, or going to a concert, you may not fully appreciate the intellectual subtleties, expressive nuances, the internalized structure, the great precision and perceptual skills that are involved in the higher levels of musical endeavor. Yet, with all of these aspects, music is just one thing. It is a single integrated and integrating thing, which requires all of these human capacities to be integrated in it, but exceeds the sum of its parts. It is mysteriously "other" in human life, not much like anything else at all. When we attempt to pull out music's different aspects, and try to account for music as merely the sum total of its various aspects, we make the same error as trying to resynthesize God out of the analysis of His aspects. (It is, by the way, similar to the error of trying to account for human beings as the sum total and interaction of our cells, DNA, etc., as if we are merely a meta-effect of our parts.)

None of this means that it is a bad idea to analyze what we can of God, or of music. It means we should be humble about it, accepting that there is a whole which we cannot vivisect in order to truly understand it. While we cannot kill God by making this analysis, we can certainly kill our experience of God by believing too much in our analysis, and not enough in the person of God. And if we believe that our analysis of various aspects of music has somehow captured its essence, we run the risk of killing our ability to experience it properly, as well.

One other observation about music: essentially every other "advanced human activity" has its roots in something far simpler, and immediately practical and useful for survival in that first, simplest expression. Art may have grown from the ability to scratch in the dirt to create simple representations ("Johnny, if you see one of these, run!"), the ability to shape clay to make pots, the making of clothing from animal skins and fibrous plants, the making of weapons (stone flaking) and so on. The utility of even very simple language for cooperation in practical tasks is obvious. If you can count, you can estimate the number of animals in the herd, the number of opponents you face, or the amount of food you need for the winter. If you can measure, you can judge how much water to carry, how long the spear should be, and so on. Dancing developed and celebrated the skills of hunters, warriors, and possibly those seeking a mate. If you can dance, you're healthy and coordinated, and more desirable.

What can you do if you can sing? Or if you can tell if someone else is "doing it right"? Or if you've spent your time learning to play the lute, or the flute, instead of how to throw spears or make clothing? And how is that immediately useful? What benefit does it confer? From what simpler ability that IS useful for survival does music spring?

Music is the most useless of human activities, yet paradoxically, the mastery of it requires great coordination, sensitive aural perceptions, truly incredible amounts of practice (putting almost anything else to shame in the precision it requires), intellectual power and subtlety. It literally takes a lifetime, in a way that most other things do not, to master it. And even then, there is always something new to learn. This new learning is NOT merely additional facts and knowledge, or additional skills, though those things are true, too, but uniquely musical learning/development/growth that reflects the characteristically integrative nature of music, with a bit of "new learning" involving facts, relationships or theories, skills, perceptions, etc., all related to an internalized musical structure that resists being pulled apart into its components.

More discussion of this is at the links on art, mathematics, language, and communication .

Did God make us love music, and want to do it, so that we would train our minds, coordination, perceptions, and so on, "saving them" in culture, so to speak, for a later time when such precision would be required? Are there new skills and capacities humans will develop in coming centuries or millennia, of which music is a mere hint, or perhaps only a part, in the same way that the ability to scratch in the dirt and recognize simple signs and pictographic images was a mere hint of the richness of written language and mathematics, that would not be developed for many thousands of years? What capacities has God built into us, of which we know nothing yet?

Music is a uniquely integrative thing, involving at its highest levels nearly every intellectual, physical, perceptual and expressive capacity of a human being, all integrated around a single thing/activity/experience. At its best, it uses essentially all of a person to "do" it. All of which gives rise to another speculation: did God make us love music, and create the capacity for it, so that His people would be able to use it to preserve the oral tradition of His revelation and historical activity among them, until they developed the tools to write it all down?

I memorized 150 lines of Wordsworth in high school, and it's all gone now. But I still know the words to any song that I sing once a month or so. I am quite confident that my children sing the same words to many songs that were sung in the 19th century, and have little doubt that their grandchildren will do the same. To me, this makes the notion of a very reliable and accurate "oral tradition" far more likely than it may seem at first glance.

To the main point: music may be an example of a thing that is "alone in its category," and reminding ourselves of the limitations on analogies between music and art, math, language or communication may help us avoid the far more serious error of seeing God as a really big, powerful, smart, good, immortal human, as if we "share a category" with Him. And perhaps that's what makes music such an appropriate vehicle for the worship of God.

A theologian friend of mine who read a draft of this post had another comment, that "God is personal, and music is personal." I think the idea is to remind us that God is not merely the embodiment of infinite principles, but rather is the Person from whom those principles flow. The analogy of music to this is that music is one thing, a personal thing, that can only be done by and with persons, but out of which all these other relationships flow involving perception, skills, intellect, expression, etc.

As interesting as speculation about music's role in the preservation of the revelation and history may be, the first mention of music in the Bible involves Jubal, an instrumentalist. So choral directors should not be too smug.

But: can you imagine getting to hear Jesus sing?

There wouldn't be a dry eye in the house. But they would be tears of inexpressible joy.

I have the feeling that, being Jesus, He would soon be inviting us to sing and play along.

2009-02-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

God, the Creation, and us

Here is a post from a different blog that touches on a musical analogy to the nature of the relation between God and us.

2006-01-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

New place for MusicalGod is here.

This site, on Blogspot, will still be here for awhile, until the links between articles on this site have been fixed on the new one.

2006-01-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

Why jazz is worship music

I can relax now, because Mike said this just right. I literally have nothing to add, and when this topic comes up again, I'll refer them here. Full text at the link below, or just read the quote. Then go practice.

The Breath of God in Broken Pieces: On Jazz at Addison Road: "The beauty of Jazz is this; Coltrane, and Monk, and McCoy Tyner, and Ella, they all dance the same twelve steps that Bach, Mozart, and Handel danced. That’s it. That’s all we get, the same twelve steps. They all get a fixed amount of time, from first note to last breath, and they all break it down into groups of two and three. That’s it. Just twos and threes.

We who create in this world are working with someone else’s clay. We aren’t creating, we’re recreating. We act in the way that our Father taught us to act, when he breathed into us his image. From that moment on, we set about the mystic task of gathering dust, adding water, and recreating.

Jazz is an infinite statement of recreation. It lives, as all music does, within the brutal confines of physical constraints; the fifth note of any scale always has the same relationship to the first note, because the alternating series of high and low pressures in the sound wave follow fixed and eternal rules, and those rules force it to function in that way. The beauty of Jazz is that it finds its freedom, its limitless expression of human experience, within the confines of that fixed structure.

What else can I say? That it is an incarnation of community? That it is a model of trinitarian theology, where three create as one, being separate, but being the same? That it is the music of the poor and the weak emphatically stating that freedom is their birthright? That if Bach and Mozart and Handel were alive today, they wouldn’t be at the Met, they’d be at the Village Vanguard?"

2005-12-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

Christmas Music

I know I'm not the first to say this, but Christmas music is among my very favorite music. So much of it is just so right. Unlike so many songs where the music seems to be just a stylistically neutral vehicle for the words, Christmas music often exhibits a nearly perfect wedding of text and music (within the limitations of the strophic paradigm, of course).

I sang (try not to laugh) in my small local church choir for Christmas. We do OK for what we are, a group of amateurs with limited rehearsal time, and lots of enthusiasm. But we were elevated beyond our ensemble's ability by the material we sang. And hardened musical warrior that I am, I confess to a few chills here and there in especially nice spots in the music.

Now, don't get me wrong: if you've read previous posts here, you know that I'm deeply skeptical of communication in music. But I will say that the musical elements in many Christmas songs are ones that I respond to: modal elements, particular melodic turns that support the lyric, and so on. And let's face it, the lyrics of many Christmas songs are just among the very best.

On the other hand, maybe it's just because I grew up hearing this particular music in especially happy and meaningful times. However, there's plenty of other music that I don't like for which I should have equally good associations. So I have to believe it has something to do with the quality of the music.

Happy New Year to all!

2005-12-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

Trying not to blog down

OK, it's a bad pun.

I'm the "faith integration mentor" for the School of Music at Azusa Pacific University, but I also teach music theory (lower and upper division, a little of each), composition, commercial music and music technology.

I have several problems to solve in this role:

1) How to do faith integration in music myself!

2) How to help my fellow music faculty navigate the institutional pressures to do this in some recognizable way while retaining their own personal integrity and professionalism in teaching.

3) How to communicate to faculty from other disciplines that, for the most part, approaches to faith/learning integration they've used won't work as well in music, or will work to music's detriment.

Along the way, some related issues arise:

What IS faith integration in music? Is this any different than the use of music as an evangelistic tool? Or is it just a theology of music?

There seem to be lots of people who are willing to say what faith integration is NOT, but aren't willing to say just what it IS. Why is this?

I think the answer is pretty clear: they don't know. Neither do I. Nevertheless, I am personally determined to discover or develop some better understandings of faith integration in music. My standards for "better understanding" in this case:

1) There is a way to apply it (the "better understanding") to teaching music (especially instrumental music, music theory, and choral music with non-religious text) that makes the experience more musical, not less.

2) The departure from norms of teaching these things (which do not include "faith integration" as understood in non-musical disciplines, or we wouldn't be having this discussion) is not "pro forma" or an obvious "add on", just to say we did it.

To me, the whole notion of integration implies a new wholeness that comes about as a result of multiple inputs. It is not a synonym for mixture, blend, or combination. Integration implies a mutual interactivity, more like the issue of multiple streams of genetic influence than chemical mixture (although a close analogy might be chemical compounds with notably different properties than any of the constituent elements). Who could have predicted salt from knowing the properties of chlorine and sodium? However, working backwards from understanding the crystalline structure and properties of salt, we do have a better chance of understanding some aspects of the two elements.

Ideally, a successful integration of faith and music will be like that. It will help us to know things about music and things about faith that we don't know without the integration, or don't understand as well.

Having said all this, I'm very uncomfortable with this language of "theories", and "knowing", and "understanding". I think both faith and music exist as integrations in and of themselves, in ways that are analogous to one another, but quite different, of course. One way they're similar is that neither is fundamentally about "knowing", "understanding" or "theory", though elements of these things exist in both, of course. Nevertheless, if the only way we can express their integration is in the language of "knowing", "understanding" or "theory", we have settled for the most shallow expressions of both faith and music as being demonstrative of the integration we seek.... surely a disappointing outcome.

I hear someone in the background chorus (life as Greek tragedy) shouting, "But there are different ways of knowing, and you're assuming the most narrow way!"

Sadly, it is precisely, and only, that narrow way of knowing that can be verbalized or appear in print. Integration of the sort we are discussing happens only within a person. It cannot happen in mere content which is accessible to anyone who can read and has a general education.

Some problems with which to grapple:

Is it possible for music to inform faith, or only vice versa? (Again, we aren't talking about lyrics, we're talking about music. ) Interesting link on theology and the arts (not necessarily the same thing as "faith integration").

If so, how?

If so, should music be limited only to that which does inform or support faith?

Is music primarily a tool to be used in the service of faith? Or is it something more?

If it is something more, how do we let it be what it can be, without making an idol of it?

There are lots more questions, of course... but at the moment my head hurts. I'm going to go listen to some cool jazz. I have it on good authority from a young friend that Jesus played the electric bass... which sounds unlikely to me, but since the scriptures are silent on this point, I really can't argue it. (When the rocks cry out, who needs an amp?)

2005-12-18T20:24:00.000-08:00

Music and faith potpouri #1

From time to time, when I run across links of interest, I'll post them. Those kinds of posts may be called "potpouri" posts... if I'm consistent about it.... which I may not be. Lemme alone, I'm a musician.

At Life and Art:

"through good theology and a little creativity, Jazz music can really help in faith integration issues. For example, by its very history, Jazz can serve to help reconcile racial relations. Also, due to its rhythmic nature, Jazz can involve the body and help fight that Gnostic mind/body split that exists in contemporary Christianity. Jazz is immediately accessible. Jazz can help correct that tendency of privatization in worship. Like Black Gospel music, Jazz has that 'Call and Response' element. Jazz is individual yet communal and it calls one to participate."

Hmm.. apparently not everyone believes jazz is the devil's spawn.

Spiritual "muzak" at the Institute for Christian Thinking:

"In order to further encourage this intentional promotion of faith, campuses can include facilities such as a prayer garden, a prayer chapel, quiet spots of natural beauty on campus, and by strategically-arranged park benches that provide places for quiet reflection. This faith perspective can also be enhanced by the selection and piping in of spiritually-uplifting background music in appropriate places (e.g., in recreation areas, lounges, etc.), and by the promotion and utilization of visual media programs (e.g., overheads, slides, TV, videos, etc.) which uphold and inculcate values congruent with the philosophical objectives of the institution."

It's not all about CCM... or at least it's not all pop oriented. Check out the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers.

Their self-description:

"CFAMC provides a non-denominational forum for information and dialogue about activities in art music composition by professing Christian composers, as well as professional and spiritual encouragement for its members. Member services include a quarterly email newsletter, "the CONCERTed offering", periodic conferences, a substantial web page, and a free, public email discussion group. Other endeavors include online composer catalogs, networking with major musical organizations, regional CFAMC chapters, comissioning programs, student composer scholarships, recording and broadcast projects, and much more! In short, CFAMC strives to be a place for evangelical concert composers to come together to discuss the joys and disappointments, the issues and struggles of bringing their work and witness as redeemed creative individuals to the arts music world. "

On the surface this appears to be less of a faith integration organization, and more of an evangelistic one, with overtones of mutual support and community.

These are all good things, of course... but offer no window into how a composer's faith perspective changes the way the music is written, except perhaps in matters of text selection, or the "program" of a piece. Question: will anyone be able to tell, by listening, that any piece of music was written by a Christian?

2005-12-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

The uniqueness of music

Music may be a uniquely integrative activity. The deepest musical understandings come from singing, playing, writing (composing), saying (musical relationships), hearing (in the sense of "the seeing ear"), reading (in the sense of the "hearing eye") and conceiving (musical structures). Whatever kind of understanding a musician has of music (in general, or of a particular piece or style), it will always be improved by doing all of these things. These are not merely different modes of "knowing", or expressions of different learning styles, or activities aimed at different ends. They are "interactive" and "simultaneous" methods for the internalization of musical structure and style. The ability to do them all is evidence of that internalization.

Most disciplines involve some level of this integration of conceptual structure and praxis. It is not usually central to the discipline, however, and does not usually involve unique kinds of perception and action that have little direct application to other intellectual and physical activities. Most disciplines involve precise application of general skills (intellectual and physical) possessed by most people.

To put it simply: music exhibits all the intellectual subtlety of other disciplines, while demanding integration of that conceptual subtlety with perceptual and physical skills in unique ways. This is the internalization of structure.

We've now come around a sort of circle on these posts. If you've found any of this discussion convincing, it might be a good time to read this and this, both of which are all about the implications for faith integration of music as an internalized structure.

2005-12-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

Summary of limits in the relation of music to mathematics, language, communication and art

I would assert that music is not mathematics, or fundamentally mathematical in any special sense apart from many other disciplines or arts. It is not a language. It is not communication in any normal sense of the term. It is, perhaps, an art, but if so, it is an art which produces no objects of art, since the score is not the music. (In any case, "art" is considerably less definable than mathematics, language or communication, so any analogy to it may not help us much.) Historically, music has not been automatically considered to be an art until relatively recently in western culture, and in some other cultures not at all.

These are some things music is not. Therefore, faith integration with music will also not automatically reflect these things. If it could be conclusively shown to be primarily any of these things, the faith-integration task would be simpler, and would consist largely of borrowing approaches from other disciplines.

This is not to say that music does not share some features with mathematics, language communication and art, but none of them is an adequate metaphor for music, nor do they in combination suffice to explain or capture the essence of music. If there were any simple relationship between music and any (or all) of the foregoing, then the task of faith integration in music would reflect similar considerations to them.

2005-12-11T18:35:00.000-08:00

Music and Art

It is commonly believed that music is “one of the arts” or “one of the fine arts.” This is a relatively recent association in Western culture, perhaps 250 years old. The connection is rarely found in non-Western cultures. While it’s true that music and various forms of art involve creativity in a general sense, there seems little connection other than that.

The skills involved in creating visual art (understood as the manipulation of shape and color to create a visual effect of some kind) were inherently practical almost from the beginning. Early humans closely observed nature, plants, animals, geography, and each other. They had the ability to use hands and visual imagination to create tools, clothing, maps (even scrawled in the dirt), identifying marks, sketches of animals, etc. These skills are not fundamentally different in kind from those of artists; they are different only in application.

What was the inherent practicality of music, and from what “less musical” root does it spring?

Music involves a way of listening mostly dissimilar to any other way of listening. (How do we explain the apparently latent ability of humans 40,000 years ago to have been taught to hear and understand complex harmony that wouldn't be "invented" until the last century? There is room for an imago dei discussion here.)

Because of its unique character, singing involves ways of using the voice that are unlike normal conventions of speech. Playing a musical instrument is a form of tool use, but it demands levels of precision (spatially and temporally) and exhibits levels of complexity related to internalized structure that transcend virtually any other tool use by orders of magnitude.

This point deserves some elaboration. There seems to be no other human activity that involves the level of precision demanded by musical performance. As a form of tool use, its uniqueness can be seen by comparing the learning curve for a musical instrument to the learning curve for any other tool. Is there another tool that a person begins to use at the age of 5 or 6, and begins to achieve some reasonable proficiency in about 15-20 years? A tool in whose use further skill and sophistication will develop over the next 40 years or more? I can think of no tool where private lessons are offered (and often taken) for a lifetime.

Remarkably, this tool use is not simply an athletic thing, a mere celebration of fine motor coordination. Rather, it is directly related to an internalized structure (something more than a mere "concept") of sound and sound relations, tied within the musician to physical gestures that produce an audible version of that structure, and perhaps notational norms for communicating it.

While art seems to be a direct outgrowth of human powers of observation and manipulation, and has its roots in practical activities directly related to human survival, musical perception and creation seem to have little relationship to “practical” skills related to hearing and sound creation.

What are the implications of these observations for faith integration and music?

If we dispense with the canard that art and music have some a priori relationship (short of deliberate reference made by artist or musician), then faith integration approaches that are appropriate to art (chiefly those that assume representation) will not be useful for music. Representational art is intended to communicate, not to confuse… usually.

If someone wishes to make an analogy between music and abstract, non-representational art, that might be accurate. Since abstract art presents faith integration problems of it’s own, that analogy won’t be particularly helpful.

2005-12-06T18:45:00.000-08:00

Music for worship: Jazz and Pop and Rock, oh my

Here's a link to a discussion on jazz and popular music in worship, with lots of responses and some disagreements expressed. Hat tip to CHAD from addisonrd.com.

http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/archives/2005/10/jazz_and_worshi.php

Here are a couple of sites that express some strong opinions about music in worship, with very conservative opinions. Not coincidentally, both sites appear to subscribe to the King James Version as the "real" Bible.

http://www.paulsonmusic.com/

http://www.touchet1611.org/

On the other hand, check these out:

http://songsofdavid.com/ChristianJazzWorship.htm

http://www.jazzworship.com/

Both of the above are "commercial sites", but the fact that they're in business seems to imply that someone THINKS they're worshipping God with jazz.

A little history here:

http://www.oldfirst.org/jazz2.htm

A couple more interesting links:

http://www.chuckmarohnic.com/news/11-21-03.asp

http://www.jazzministry.org/

Well, enough of this. And now, for all you naysayers about modern pop music, and how we should go back to the proper worship music: read some music history, especially medieval and renaissance, and then we'll talk. In the meantime, consider that we have not a fuzzy clue how ANY music sounded that is mentioned in the Bible. Apparently, it was more important to God that we MAKE music, not that we make the RIGHT music (as if there is such a thing).

In the meantime, try not to muddy up your thinking about music in worship, and particularly which styles of music are appropriate, by thinking about lyrical content common in certain styles for secular audiences. Denying those styles in the church is like denying the use of English poetry because some of it is too sensual for your tastes.

Anybody wanna guess which classic hymns and chorales are direct lifts from which German bar songs of bygone centuries? Which hymns originated with lyrics of a considerably, uh, baser nature?

Here's someone who disagrees regarding Luther's hymns:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pjones25/articles/Luther.htm

and about the Wesleys

http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=5442

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_35_18/ai_92352726

I still suspect a considerable interpenetration of sacred and secular music over the centuries. I do believe that "sacred" and "secular" are deeply artificial categories, and in connection with music, these categories are normally used to defend personal taste more than divine dispensation.

Here's a pretty good article on all of this:

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/8564.htm

Bottom line for me, before I go back to posting more on the "background" of these discussions (I'm still promising a post on art and music): make a joyful noise unto the Lord. If you're gonna make it where people can hear it, consider making it in a musical style they understand, at least a bit. Try not to confuse your stylistic prejudice with God's perspective. And if you really want to go back to the "good old days" of the church, you'd better climb into your time machine and find out what was going on before Gregorian chant. Let me know when you find out. I'm pretty sure, though, that it didn't sound like Luther, or Wesley, or Bach, or (fill in the blank here).

2005-10-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

Music and communication

Composers and/or performers may intend a certain reaction to be experienced by listeners, and that reaction may occur, but this is neither essential nor universal in much music making, except in the very broadest sense that audiences (mostly) know when to applaud... in cultures that applaud.

Some of the intelligibility of music to typical listeners seems to be semiotic in nature, depending on very basic parameters like high/low, fast/slow, loud/soft, complex/simple, bright/mellow, etc. However, every generation experiences the fact that its "musical symbols" are different from the last, sometimes hugely so. In response to music that one generation finds teeth-grating, another generation closes its collective eyes in mellow nirvana. In other words, musical gestures and structures are not interpreted in a universal way, even among culturally related listeners.

It's important not to confuse communication with expression and the perception of it. A listener can hear a crescendo, or a nice turn of phrase, and even respond to these on some level, perhaps by assuming a certain emotion on the part of the composer or performers, but the content of the communication is very difficult to define. This is not to say that music is not emotional in some absolute sense; it seems clear that sometimes composers and performers do feel things about the music, and sometimes audiences will feel some of the same things. However, the music and its performance may simply signal some form of emotional intensity, and the listener may easily infer a different emotion (as the one to be intensely felt) than the one “intended” by the composer or performer.

There are many theories of emotion. In order for a theory of communication in music to be based in its assumed emotional nature, it will be necessary to choose one of those theories first. Assumptions about the nature of emotion underlie most theories about the nature of musical communication. For a taste, try typing “theory of emotion” into a web-based search engine, and sample the variety of theories. Each one would have different implications for the nature of musical communication, if such a theory is based in the musical communication of emotion.

To illustrate the problem: everyone has a face, and uses facial expression to communicate, but the very same facial expression may express great pain or great pleasure. Tears may signal sadness or joy. A smile can be truly joyful, or darkly evil. In other words, communication via facial expression depends on a context understood by both parties to the communication, and is not inherent in the facial expression itself. There may be only a few distinct facial expressions, with all the subtleties inferred by the viewer of the expression. Emotions can be exceedingly complex, as any slightly introspective person knows. That does not mean, however, that the face actually communicates them with any great specificity.

Go here for an interesting experiment in facial expression. **NOTE: THE PREVIOUS LINK IS BROKEN. THE CONTENT THAT WAS THERE APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN MOVED. I AM TRYING TO LOCATE IT ELSEWHERE.**

How much more complex is musical structure and gesture than facial expression?

If musical symbols have been previously assigned (i.e., a melody stands for a certain person or place, etc.), some communication may be said to have happened, but it will be based on a simple sign or leitmotiv. Short of that, the communication may be said to be musical communication, about musical things… a tautology if ever there was one.

If music is primarily communication, and if the communicative potential is merely semiotic and very general, then the structural subtleties matter relatively little. That is, of course, the exact opposite of the professional opinion of virtually every music theorist, and not a particularly helpful point for the beginning of an attempt at faith-integration, particularly in music theory, because it invalidates the reason for most of the content, i.e., the study of the structural subtleties that matter so much to musicians.

If a theory of faith integration in music, and especially music theory, is to celebrate the inquiry into the subtleties of musical structure and gesture, that theory will need to be based on something more than the assumption that music communicates emotion, semotically or otherwise.

2005-10-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

Words mean things, but music doesn't use words.

This is another in the chain of posts dedicated to disposing of common misconceptions about the nature of music, and how it can interact with faith in God.

Music has (more often than not) grammar, syntax, spelling, micro-structure and macrostructure. The study of music is enhanced with all kinds of useful analogies to language, especially in terms of how we process input, and understand sonic gestures in the context of what follows. Does that make music a language, let alone "the universal language?"

To put it simply, if music is a language, then none of the words mean anything. For music to be a language, the meaning of the term must be stretched to include structures that make or have no external reference. Without externally assignable meanings to musical "statements" and "gestures", it seems difficult to contend that music is a language at all (at least in any conventional sense), let alone a universal one.

Those who are persuaded of music’s supposed universality may appeal to culturally conditioned musical gestures that seem to convey meaning between a particular composer and a particular audience. Of course, the same may be said of smiles, frowns, yells, laughs and cries. We do not ascribe to them the status of language, however.

In a language, meaning is conveyed by a combination of definition and grammar/syntax/structure. Words mean something in the absence of grammar/syntax/structure (or at least there will be several possible meanings -- i.e., the word "fish" in English will never mean "shoe", regardless of syntax/grammar/structure). Possible definitions in a particular instance are constrained by context, i.e., syntax/grammar/structure, but the possible definitions pre-exist the context.

Music lacks any pre-existing definitions to correlate musical gestures or fragments with external meanings. To repeat: if music is a language, then none of the words mean anything. Whatever "meaning" it has is almost exclusively internal.

What are the implications of this for music and faith integration?

Essentially, music will do a very poor job of conveying any kind of concept. That doesn't mean the listener can’t find analogies between various concepts and music, but music does not convey them in the manner of a language. To the degree that anyone believes that music conveys in language any particular truth about faith in God, disappointment seems certain.

The next post will discuss communication and music, which is related to all of this, of course.

2005-10-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

Music is no more mathematical than breathing

Music has some mathematical aspects, to be sure. Musical intervals are ratios of frequencies of air pressure variation. Musical tone quality is partly a result of the cumulative effect of various frequencies on/in the overall pattern of air pressure change (what physicists would call the "waveform"). Scale degrees are numbered in some systems, and mathematical relationships of scale degrees are observed. Rhythmic relationships are described in numerical terms.

Nevertheless, the experiences of musicians and listeners are not fundamentally mathematical, any more than the perception of color is experienced mathematically, though the frequencies of reflected light are essential aspects of the physical reality behind our experience of "color." It is a canard that music and mathematics go together in some a priori way, either in content or in perception, except in the same senses that most aspects of human living can be counted or measured.

The rate of breathing can be counted, the volume of breath can be measured, the percentage of oxygen uptake can be measured... but breathing isn't fundamentally about mathematics, either.

Some musicians are also gifted mathematically; but many are not. As a professor of music theory and music technology, I've observed many talented music majors struggling with their math classes. I've also seen them scratch their heads trying to do the low level math involved in converting sample rates and resolutions into RAM usage for a length of time to be sampled. Binary arithmetic is at the bottom of many concepts in music technology, and I've seen no particular affinity on the part of music majors for absorbing it.

So what does all of this imply? Theories comparing the "internal elegance" of mathematics to music don't tell us much more than comparing mathematics and breathing. There is no causal relationship (in either direction) between musical ability and mathematical ability, though they may coexist in many people. Music and mathematics both involve perception of patterns, but so do about a million other things.

The relevance of all this to faith integration and music is straightforward: if their is no privileged relationship between music and mathematics, then faith integration strategies that are appropriate for mathematics aren't particularly likely to apply to music.

Coming next: music and language.

2005-10-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

OK, Time To Get Down (To It)

Some readers of this blog will probably be confused about all the fuss. What's the big deal about integrating music and faith? Isn't it obvious? Aren't some songs Christian, and some not? Aren't some styles of music more worshipful than others? Isn't music the universal language? Isn't it the words that make some music Christian?

And so on.

Just to start at a nice clear point, my answer to most of the questions above is, "probably not".

You may disagree... and there's a comment button below this post where you can say so.

In any case, my opinion is that we can't have a real discussion of the integration of faith and music until we dispense with some common canards about music, and about the music of faith. So, over the next few days (if I'm lucky), or weeks (if I'm not), I'll post explanations of why there aren't that many useful analogies between music and mathematics, or music and language, or music and art, or music and communication.

I'd like to start a conversation here... so feel free to respond, and express your opinion.

2005-10-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

Applications of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to Music Making/Teaching/Learning

Just as it is possible to be an excellent scholar of the Bible without being a Christian, it is possible to know a great deal about music and be a poor musician. One may have a genuine heart for God, sincerely attempting to practice Godly living, and yet be relatively ignorant of Scripture and reasoned teachings flowing from it, so that without some correction from traditional interpretations one is at risk of being led significantly astray by poor teaching, trendy ideas, or cultural pressure. Similarly, one may be a very talented natural musician, but without training that includes study of the classics, the development of traditional interpretive skills, and much effort in personal internalization of these things, one’s ability to express that talent will be very limited.

One way to the internalization of musical structure, style and practice is to say it, sing it, read it, write it, play it and hear it. The musician in training should do all these things, using as subject matter the best music that has come down to us. The musician should learn theories about the grammar and syntax of musical structure, and learn to say them, sing them, read them, write them, play them and hear them, so that concept, skill and practice are integrated in the musician.

Just as it is tempting for anyone to avoid what is difficult and do more of what seems to come more naturally, it is tempting for musical theorists to avoid praxis, for singers to avoid music theory, and so on. Similar observations can be made about the difficulty a theologian may have in some aspect of personal living, or the tendency of some good-hearted Christian laborers to misuse, misconstrue or misappropriate theology.

John Wesley’s teachings on the integration of scripture, tradition, reason and experience in the individual’s life would seem to apply to becoming a “complete musician.” The goal of university training in music should be to encourage the development of a musician who can say it, sing it, read it, write it, play it and hear it, from a reasoned understanding of the “canon” of music that has come down to us (but is still “open”), and in light of the traditions of interpretation and praxis that are expressed in the work of the finest performers, composers and conductors. The result should be a musician who has internalized musical structure and gesture, understands both deeply, connects modern musical life to best of the past, and who never stops growing in any of these areas.

Music students in a Christian university can be introduced to the concept of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral fairly soon in their coursework. Applications of this general approach to learning music can be made, so that students have more appreciation for the integrative possibilities of the (seemingly unrelated) activities and coursework that music majors do. Faculty should be more intentional in explaining and modeling this approach. Frequent reference can be made to a musical activity or assignment as being more or less reflective of different aspects of the analogy to the Quadrilateral, reminding students of the integrative target.

For more on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, see Donald Thorsen's book, The Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

2005-10-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral and Music Making/Teaching/Learning

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral is the term applied by some modern scholars to the confluence of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience in the Christian life, as presented in the writings of John Wesley. While affirming the primacy of Scripture, Wesley added experience to the Anglican triad of Scripture, tradition and reason. To Wesley, correct interpretation of Scripture required the application of reason to traditions of interpretation, and the confirmation of experience and practice in personal life.

Though Scripture is the primary starting point, there is an implied role for tradition, reason and experience in the formation of the canon. While not discounting the role of divine inspiration, there is virtually universal recognition of the roles of oral/priestly tradition, personal experience and reason in the creation of the Scripture itself, and selections made for the canon. Much of Biblical scholarship consists of the identification and illumination of these threads.

In music, there are metaphors for scripture, tradition, reason and experience/practice. The musical notation that has come to us through history is the “scripture.” The “tradition” includes the performance practice (one aspect of “interpretation”) that allows an audience to hear the music performed. This includes a good deal of information from the tradition to clarify aspects of performance practice which are not notated in a specific way in the printed music itself. The tradition also includes writings about music, perhaps in a role similar to commentaries on Scripture. “Experience” includes the internalization of music on many levels, requiring adequate exposure to the “canon” (notation of traditional classics), traditions about how to interpret the notation, techniques of personal practice and study that aid in that internalization and its expression, etc. “Reason” would include disciplines like music theory and musicology, which develop theories about the structure of music, its relation to the culture that produced it, its grammar and syntax, etc., and the application of these understandings to interpretation and the creation of new music (the “canon” is still “open”).

The notation that has come down to us (musical “scripture”) is sometimes the result of the experiences in music making of many people (a sort of oral tradition existing before any notation). Other times, existing musical manuscripts represent the labor and “inspiration” of one creative individual. Some of the music seems to have been improvised first, and then recorded in notation by a very skilled person with excellent memory (who perhaps did some editing of the original performance). The comparison to the development of Scripture is obvious.

Just as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral represents an attempt to grasp the nature of special revelation in our lives, music making/teaching/learning exhibits a similar set of concepts about the general revelation of the arts. It is possible that the Wesleyan Quadrilateral represents not so much the nature of special revelation itself as it represents the nature of human beings who receive it, attempt to understand it, and apply it to living.

For more on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, see Donald Thorsen's book, The Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

2005-09-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some more resources on Faith Integration and Music. These are posted with the usual disclaimer; many are not overtly theological or theistic in approach, but offer perspectives and observations that may be useful.

A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision (3rd edition, Prentice Hall, 2003)
by Bennett Reimer
ISBN 0-13-099338-7

"This edition offers a synergistic solution to problems of prefessional philosophical uncertainty. It argues that what seem to be alternative value positions are better viewed as varied approaches to goals most music educators share, goals now encompassing a wider diversity of values than had previously been recognized.

A key addition is the author's new theory of intelligence, based on roles rather than frames of mind. By demonstrating how each of various musical roles constitutes a particular manifestation of intelligence, he liberates the concept of intelligence from its traditional and continuing narrowness."

The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford, 1997)
by Roger Scruton
ISBN 0-19-816727-X

"It came as a surprise that so dry a question as "what is a sound?", should lead at last to a philosophy of modern culture. Had I though more about the Pythagorean cosmology, and the true meaning of harmonia, I should perhaps have known beforehand, that the ordering of sound as music is an ordering of the soul."

Music, Meaning and Expression (Cornell, 1994)
by Stephen Davies
ISBN 0-8014-8151-1

the chapters:
1) Music and Language
2) Music and Pictures
3) Music and Symbols
4) The Fellings of the Composer and the Listener
5) The Expression of emotion in Music
6) The Response to Music's Expressiveness
7) Musical Understanding

Music, Imagination and Culture (Clarendon, 1990)
by Nicholas Cook
ISBN 0-19-816303-7

Covers problems of perception, imagination, knowing and listening, all from perspectives of composers, performers and listeners.

The Music of Our Lives (Temple, 1991)
by Kathleen Marie Higgins
ISBN 0-87722-756-X

The only book I can find on music and ethics.

Theology, Music and Time (Cambridge, 1989)
by Jeremy S. Begbie
ISBN 0-521-78568-5

An interesting and well worked out theory of how music may provide insight into theology, and not just the reverse (the usual assumption). The main point here is in regard to time in both music and theology.

2005-08-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

MusicalGod

Here are some books that are very useful in this area. Look for another post with more soon.

Music and the Mind
by Anthony Storr. Music stimulates the mind, captivates the heart, and nurtures the soul. A distinguished psychiatrist ponders why.
ISBN 0-345-38318-4

Surprised by Beauty
by Robert R. Reilly. A listener's guide to the recovery of modern music. The best composers and recordings of the last 100 years.
ISBN 0-9660597-4-3

Art in Action
by Nicholas Wolterstorff. A Christian perspective on aesthetics. Especially good for people who want to connect music to "the arts".
ISBN 0-8028-1816-1

Theology and the Arts - Encountering God through Music, Art and Rhetoric
by Richard Viladesau. "... beauty is a means of divine revelation .... art is the human mediation that both enables and limits its revelatory power."
ISBN 0-8091-3927-8

Unceasing Worship
by Harold Best. "...addresses popular misunderstandings about the use of music and offers correctives toward a more biblically consistent practice of artistic action."
ISBN 0-8308-3229-7

2005-08-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to MusicalGod, a blog about faith and music. This blog is maintained by music faculty at Azusa Pacific University.

We encourage comments to any post.