Posted on 06/02/2003 1:58:35 AM PDT by fortheDeclaration
I just don't believe in pushing young voices beyond their maturity level.
As someone bereft of expertise in this area, I cannot disagree with your analysis.
Every time I hear Miss Church, (or hear OF her) I feel a great concern about her, as a human being, I hope that as many as hear her, will pray God's protection over her, that the "star making machinery" does not chew her up, and spit her out.
A beautiful voice may be a terrible thing to ruin, but a soul lasts forever.
Aside from that, Miss Church illustrates a point which perhaps was not covered adequately, in the original article. Although I have only heard her over the television, with its characteristic low fidelity, I find that I am able to hear every word she sings. To my untutored (and aging) ears, her singing has a clarity and beauty which is very rare, these days.
"If the trumpet makes an uncertain sound...." If we are able to hear (actually HEAR every word) and understand the lyrics of the songs we listen to, we are able to make a judgement as to whether we should accept those words, into out "heart." I find that almost all of the singing in America, today, is unintelligible.
For at least forty years, we have as a part of popular culture, assimilated more and more messages, at a subliminal level. I do not mean "backward masking," I mean that we have let words enter our souls, which words are never passed over the filter of our rational minds. We can "hear" that someone is singing words, but most of them are unintelligible. If you take the time to READ the lyrics, they typically seem to be gibberish--English words and phrases, but without apparent meaning.
This is not only a problem with secular music. I remember once, during a church service, a woman sang a solo in what (to my untrained ear) seemed to be in the style of the Opera. The "sound" was beautiful, to me, but I could not understand a word. I asked a friend who was there, (a trained musician) to be sure that it wasn't just my ears. Neither of us could tell what any of the words were. Unless others had a better "ear" than either of us, no one was "edified."
If a solo is musically perfect, but conveys no message to the hearers, then "the trumpet makes an uncertain sound...." and no one is edified.
</END RANT>
DG
Never liked Bach. (Okay, that's a lie... I never liked Bach all that much... I certainly don't dislike him).
Too bloody happy, even on his best days (though not so petulantly exuberant as Mozart).
Give me the lightning, and the thunder; give me the cutting sleet and the icy rain; the black earth and the pine forests on the wind-swept crags... give me Beethoven and Mahler, Wagner and the Sturm und Drang...
Aaahhhhh......... make me feel alive.
Now that's music. :-)
Methinks this criticism is about fifty years too late.
It might've applied to Elvis and Chuck Berry, but it hardly applies today. Thank heavens we made it through Sinatra and "swing" music... because Music today is hardly "three Verses and a Chorus" anymore.
For the first time in decades, Music is... innovative again.
Admittedly, "Kid Rock" is pretty much an idiot. Anytime your best song ("American Bad-Ass") consists of little more than ripping off a more-than-a-decade-old Metallica song ("Sad but True"), you've got nothing to offer.
But forget Kid Rock. Forget the Top Forty. Compare a little Die Krupps and Rammstein (admittedly, both are German bands) with the prevailing US Pop Scene -- Melody is back. Harmony is back. Experimental Dynamics are back. Compared to Sinatra... music is back.
Kudos for your efforts, Alan Ives, but it ain't "We're gonna rock around the clock tonight, We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylight, We're gonna rock around the clock tonight."
You're still criticizing the wasteland of the 1950's. I can understand that... it was a wasteland.
But look a little deeper... music is back. Human Ingenuity will not be denied.
News Flash.
Thus a deep and abiding reverence for holy beauty should permeate our worship: enveloping body and soul. In my humble opinion, colour, smell, sound, bodily position, and the like are all elements of worship, and should be conducted in accordance with God's holiness and beauty.
Now, the question arises, who establishes the standards of Christian beauty- and who establishes what qualifies as holy and reverent worship, reflections of "love and awe"? I do not think my personal musical preferences shoul; for one thing, I am enjoy all sorts of music from jazz to Scottish to classical to Gregorian chants to bluegrass- however I do not expect anyone to cater to my particular styles. While I find all these forms of music reflective of beauty, and, directly or indirectly of the Source, I do not think them all well-suited for the purposes of divine worship- if for no other reason than there is little hope of obtaining any sort of catholicity within most styles. Some people cannot stand bagpipes, and some people down right despire anything resembling rock (and even fewer probably enjoy the vibrant euphony- or cacophony!- of bagpipes and driving beats combined). Nor would I consider that sort of music particularly reverent or fully reflective of God's love and awe and all His other attributes. Reflective of life, perhaps, but not of awe.
Btw, if sensuality (not necessarily an evil word) is ruled out, then surely Jesus was wrong in praising Mary's act of pouring oil on His feet-which Jesus declared a beautiful thing, to be spoken of with honor until the end of time! Sensual, in its beniegn connotation, carries the idea of relating to the senses, the body- and Mary's action certanly was, but it was directed from the depths of love, of selfless and beautiful love, directed in a beautiful, sensual manner: I think of John's description of the lovely odour of the ointments wafting through the room. But it was not seen as such by many others in the room, who could only perceive a waste of money on a silly action- by a women, no less, cleaning Jesus' feet with her hair! And yet it was, and is, intensely beautiful, and resplendent in love and awe.
Which is a rather disjointed way to say, developing Christian aesthetics, specifically for worship, is not a simple thing. It must be examined and considered carefuly. Scripture is our first guide, then the traditional worship forms of the Church. One should not be overly static, but one should not either simply conform to cultural standards and ask no questions. The beauty and splendour and love and majesty and glory of God- all these must be before our eyes.
"...We play Wagner, it scares the hell out of the slopes"...Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now
On the boards early this evening are we?
This is the powerful truth of "leven."
And all I ever had read was one of your replies to know that you are a Race-Baiting piece of trash. You plant your red herring leftism wherever you go.
"music is back."
This looks like a good one for praise and worship:
Die Krupps
Die Krupps II: The Final Option (1993)
Paradise Of Sin
In-a-gadda-da-vida Baby
God Is Dead He Lost The Battle
The Devil Rules Over Life And Death
Feel His Power, Feel His Wrath
Hell - This Is The Paradise Of Sin
Fail - And You Will Suffer In Pain
Nail - That Son Of Desaster
Sell - Your Soul To The Master
In The Garden Of Evil, Baby
The Bilbe's Title Is Helter Skelter
Take A Ride On This Rollercoaster
Live For Sin And Die Faster
Wake - Your Evil Twin
Live - Your Wildest Dream
Let - The Demons In
Let - The Madness Begin
http://www.purelyrics.com/index.php?lyrics=wdxzxdkw
Now, for a nice gentle folk ballad:
Die Krupps
Die Krupps II: The Final Option (1993)
Bloodsuckers
Bloodsuckers
You Suck Out The Oil
For The Salt Of The Earth
You Ravage The Soil
Strip Mining Mountains
You Gauge Out The Face
You Suffocate Life
In An Asphalt Membrane
Don't Eat Your Own Heart
'cause You Can Never Win
Bloodsuckers
You Steel From The Earth
You'll Kill For The Riches
And Decide What It's Worth
Bloodsuckers
Got Your Values Out Of Whack
You've Been Selling Your Soul
For A Greenback Stack
http://www.purelyrics.com/index.php?lyrics=ofnrysuz
DG
Per-Zackly.
On the boards early this evening are we?
I decided to call it an early night.
ask me in FReepMail.
Later, OP
"Pleasantry" is at least partially in the Ear of the Beholder, but the 50s weren't even "derivative", except in the basest sense.
More like rudimentary and facile. By comparison, "derivative" (of the Western musical tradition) is an improvement, virtually a step back from the brink.
I really get irritated with these so called musicians that seem to be able to tell what kind of Music Jesus would like.
WWJL-2 What would Jesus Listen 2?
Well Bach introduced syncopation into the liturgy and utilized augmented 4ths and diminished 5ths (the devil's chords) as sustained chords in the liturgy rather than as mere passing intervals-- much to the chagrin of those stilted zealous religious music critics who even then thought they knew God's peculiar music taste.
They didn't then. They don't now.
But you're mistaken if you think it was intended as "Praise and Worship" Music. I wouldn't use CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters as "Praise and Worship" Music, and neither would I use Die Krupps Paradise of Sin. Both were written from the Perspective of the Rebellious.
Of course, if you only quoted "The Screwtape Letters", you could make CS Lewis out to be a Satanist. If you wanted a more Cosmological viw of Humanity and Sin, why didn't you quote Die Krupps "Taste of Taboo", from the 1997 Album "Paradise Now?"
The burning flesh -- the sensitive skin
the destroying Fire -- comes from Within
Dangerous games -- playing Russian roulette
when your Life is at stake -- HOW FAR CAN YOU GET?
UNITED IN HELL -- PAYING THE PRICE
LIVING FOR SIN -- AND DYING FOR VICE.
We're bent -- we're branded
Forever -- we're stranded.
THAT'S WHAT IT DOES TO YOU -- THE TASTE OF TABOO.
INSIDE OUT IT TURNS YOU -- THE TASTE OF TABOO.
Die Krupps, Paradise Now, "The Taste of Taboo"
Gee whillikers... it's practically like reading Genesis 2:16-17, 3:1-7, set to the blazing electronic tempo of German Industrial music...
But never mind, you don't even know the Albums in question, so I won't ask you to keep up.
At any rate, it's a heck of a lot more intelligent than anything the entire musically-worthless decade of the 1950's had to offer, that's all I got to say.
I recognized the terminological usage, but I'll take derivative (Modern Industrial) over outright banal (the entire 1950's) any day of the week.
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