Posted on 09/09/2012 7:19:11 AM PDT by WXRGina
I used to want to live to be a hundred years old. It wasn’t just an idealistic notion, but a real possibility. My grandfather lived 99 years, my mother 97.
But the world has changed. At 67 years of age, I’m not particularly looking forward to 33 more years of being held captive in a world so different from that in which I grew up — a world that produced my values, my beliefs, my identity.
A sense of not belonging anymore is being fed daily by every exposure to contemporary life — news reports, politics, economics — but mainly by stark changes reflected in our art forms. What was known as art fifty years ago is only known by those who were alive back then, or to the esoteric few who bother to study art history.
“Culture” today has no connection to the culture of the past. A sensitivity for beauty has been replaced by a jarring “street” mentality. Junk art has replaced sculpted forms. The art of story telling is dying, as special effects replace plot and character development. Dramatic content has become bloated with crudity, immaturity, and banality.
For me personally, the greatest difference between today’s culture and the culture of our past is in the loss of the art of song. The song has been redefined from being melodically derived to becoming a beat-driven form. Song used to consist of a developed melody cradled in lush harmony and carried along on a heart-beat of rhythm. Today, the beat is the driving force of song. Harmony has less significance, and is used primarily in instruments supporting the beat. Similarly, melody has been reduced to short musical patterns, endlessly repeated, which emphasize the predominance of the rhythm.
The change in the structure of song reflects the cultural changes in social settings in which singing is done. In our old culture, it was more common for people to enjoy singing by itself, simply for the pleasure of the song. But in the new culture, singing is more often associated with a performance experience, such as a mega-concert, or with dancing at a club or party. And as an art form, dance itself has become increasingly less “refined” and more “primitive”. Influenced by Rap and Hip Hop, the popular enjoyment of body movement has become primarily expressive of sexuality and “street” pride, where dance used to embody more innocent and even noble messages.
I realize art has always expressed all the elements of human character, good and bad, high and low. But the change I have witnessed in my life-time is one of emphasis. Where most art used to emphasize the highest ideals, now most art wallows in harshness and reckless abandon. Add to this the intolerant, judgmental and even mocking attitude of today’s younger generations toward art forms of the past, and I feel quite alienated.
This morning as I was sipping my first cup of coffee, I sought solace from what is euphemistically called “the news”. I flipped through the channels until I came across the 1936 movie, “Rose Marie”, starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. Maybe you’ve never heard of them. But back then, they were as big, as famous, as popular as one could be.
At first I watched the film in a distracted way, not really awake, not really in the mood. But soon, as Nelson Eddy began to sing, I experienced a flood of memories from when I was an aspiring baritone. Listening to his resonant tone, his superb vocal control, his clear diction and the apparent ease of his upper range, I began to identify with the singer’s experience — the use of technique to convey passion.
The greatest reward of singing for me was when someone would tell me how much they “liked my voice”. What they were really saying was that they had experienced the same feelings listening to the song that I had felt singing it — the same feelings the composer felt writing it. And that is the essence of art: separate lives sharing common passions through the connective talents and skills of the artist.
My memories, like the movie I was watching, were of an old style of song, and the singing was that of a bygone era — an era of love songs — something that would be considered sappy today, but then they were heart-felt, simple, direct and universal. Songs such as “Indian Love Call” expressed feelings that everyone dreamed about: “You belong to me. I belong to you”. They engendered a passion shared by audiences, regardless of social or cultural differences.
When I was a singer, I was particularly moved by that passion for life and love elicited by such songs. Now I feel separated, isolated, disconnected because the world has changed. Now I feel like a stranger, an outsider, someone who is irrelevant, a “stranger in a strange land” — someone more comfortable in a world that no longer exists.
In our culture and art today, love has become a victim. It’s a victim of sex, drugs and rock and roll, a victim of self-esteem, a victim of political correctness, a victim of multiculturalism, class envy, and every other form of social disunity that contributes to the breakdown of our cultural identity. As individuals, we have every opportunity to pursue any distraction in our attempt to fulfill our aspirations and satisfy our every desire.
But as a people, that is not enough, because a genuine love for one another has been buried in the grave of the past, along with modesty, circumspection, discipline, tolerance, forgiveness and accountability to the transcendent standards of an infinitely perfect God. That very God has been rejected by the world — a world that is not my home. I guess I’m just homesick.
I think that a lot of it is just laziness. When I read a sonnet by Shakespeare, I marvel not only at the beauty of the words and how they’re put together, I also marvel at the time and effort and care spent in crafting something so beautiful.
Yes, You Tube is an excellent source of the classic music. That Wayne King version of “Dream a Little Dream of Me” is a peach! I love it!
I will give you a couple of examples of what some of the “core students” considered art. We were taken to a gallery to view some “art”.
A female student had taken dead tree branches made them stand upright and hung rubber chickens from them with string. Then 2 male students had emptied out an old garage, painted the rotten boards and every single thing in the garage, red, and rebuilt it and put all the (now red) objects back into it. That’s art, right?
The painting class that I was in was instructed to read a book entitled “The Pot That Was Not A Pot” and be inspired to make a painting from that inspiration. The book made absolutely no sense, probably written by a drugged out abuser. The instructor was not impress with my painting, I would have been dissappointed if he had been.
There are still some talented artist out there, painting beautiful landscapes, still life and portraits, beautiful art has not died.
Does anyone here remember the little songbook used in schools of America until the last decades of the 20th Century?
Perhaps the abandonment of such a "shared" knowledge accounts for some of your own feelings.
The poignant old love songs, the simple and lovely songs about nature, about patriotism, about love, and about sadness and loss became a part of the backdrop for education.
Pride in the flag, in America's brave history of freedom--these were instilled in the hearts and minds of children in the schools of the nation.
Note that in the entry of "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," there is an alternate verse which was suggested by the NEA. Yes, that is the same NEA organization which later became a coercive power center for the "progressive" ideas which now dominate and threaten to destroy American liberty and sovereignty.
I hold in my hand "A Golden Treasury from the Bible," "selected by Joy Elmer Morgan, Editor, Journal of the National Education Association," which included Bible verses. According to the Editor, "The Bible expresses the highest aspirations of mankind. In it are the ideas that have inspired, comforted, and lifted humanity for generations." This was only one in a series of "Personal Growth Leaflets" published by the Hugh Birch-Horace Mann Fund and distributed by "The National Education Association, Washington, D. C." The First Printing was in 1939, and the thousands distributed continued for years thereafter. They continued until the so-called "progressive" forces imposed a "different" agenda for the schools of America.
For any who, like the writer here, miss the comforting and uplifting sounds of the music of America--contributed by every segment of its then-populations from all over the world, perhaps those persons can sense that a much larger force has been at work to "change" its foundations, all in the name of "progress."
and Clint Eastwood's take on the situation:
Those are surely typical examples of modern “art”!
You are correct, Ditter—beautiful art has not died. As long as people who have good, pure hearts remain, there will still be good art (I consider myself one of the good artists, even though I rarely paint or draw lately).
Hey, I am now 77, and I strongly suspect there are a lot of us old-timers with that Lone ranger feeling—Hang In! there are only a few of us real Americans (not AINOs, Rinos, etc) left standing...
Take care and Straight ahead!
Semper Watching!
*****
AMEN, GunnyG!
There are still some people that make good music, and here is a really nice "feel good" song: The Jive Aces "Bring Me Sunshine"
You can experience a strong antidote to this modern slop by going to your next Barbershop Harmony Society concert (the old S. P. E. B. S. Q. S. A., Inc.), or Sweet Adelines show.
These well-trained amateurs personally propagate the excellence of singing by performing both old-time and newly-written harmonies, not by merely listening. And there is just such a chapter of singers not very far from any wannabe singer in the USA. Support them by your attendance at their shows. They will sing for you on request.
Excellent idea! Thank you!
For me, I loved barbershop harmony from my youth. One Christmas present was my first pitchpipe when I was 14. Sang in high school choir with a fine director. Took voice lessons in college. Sang in church choirs. helped start a SPEBSQSA chapter that became District Champion 7 years after our first meeting. Member of competition quartets. Performed in quartets entertaining at local business and social club dinners, senior citizen gatherings, hospitals, etc., sometimes for money, sometimes not. Directed another chapter chorus and revived it when on its last legs.
I love Barbershop.
You’re no doubt a marvelous talent! Harmony is lovely!
I find this trend especially pernicious in the churches--of all denominations, and in all regions of the country--where the electric guitar is driving out the organ and the choir.
That’s right; the church is looking more and more worldly.
Some years ago, a teenage girl told me about the "mega-church" that she attended. I asked her if it had an organ, and she gave me a blank stare. She had never heard of an organ, and I had to explain what it was.
By the way, my father was a vocal music teacher and a church choir director. My mother sang in the Old Fashioned Revival Hour Chorus Choir radio broadcast, and her voice was heard by millions around the world.
Music is in your family spirit! Bravo on your Dad and Mom! Your Mom, a radio star!
I am wary of “mega churches.”
My mother passed away last year, but she can still be heard on Old Fashioned Revival Hour broadcasts over the Internet--bootleg versions available on some sites as well as those from the official site. She never soloed on the broadcast, but I think her voice was better than that of the two designated soloists.
She left in 1957 so she could give her kids a religious upbringing in a real church--the Methodist Church--but she and my father would sing in many choirs over the next several decades.
I’ll bet you miss her very much.
I’ll give the old broadcasts a listen!
I love the choir’s singing! Dr. Fuller had a very long radio ministry.
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