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 A sensitivity for beauty has been replaced by a jarring “street” mentality.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.
The choir was accompanied by organist George Broadbent and Rudy Atwood, a famous gospel pianist. My mother said she had seen Atwood carry on a conversation while playing a song on the piano.
Most of their repertoire consisted of postbellum American Protestant hymns and gospel songs written or co-written by Phillip Paul Bliss, Fanny Crosby, William Kirkpatrick, Lelia Morris, James McGranahan, Ira Sankey and other great hymn writers. H. Leland Green (1907-1984), the choir director, also wrote a few hymns of his own.
‘The “Africanization” of music. All rhythm, no melody or intellectual structure.
The article’s author was just too polite to state that — and had to dance around it with a symphony of words.’
I’m afraid you didn’t really understand me at all. You obviously have your own opinions, but I don’t agree with him. Rather than taking my meaning, you read your own meaning into what I wrote. I am not dancing around anything. The so-called “Africanization” of music in America is what produced Jazz, a uniquely American form of music, which I happen to love. Any musicologist who has studied Jazz will tell you it is a highly developed, intellectual form, which employs sophisticated melodic and harmonic elements, in addition to rhythm.
Let me add also that I do not automatically hate music that has a driving beat. I like a variety of musical styles and forms, including music with a strong beat. My comment that song has become less melodically derived than beat-driven doesn’t mean I am opposed to music with a beat. Apparently, some readers have little use for critical thought. They simply jump to their own conclusions, without regard to what a writer has actually written.
I happen to love the musical influences that came from Africa. The contribution of many timeless “Africanized” melodies, particularly in the pentatonic scale, have deeply enriched popular secular music of the mid twentieth century. And the “Negro Spiritual” has greatly influenced sacred choral literature. Though I am not black, I have sung in a black gospel choir, and frankly found that musical and spiritual experience to be as profound as any classical choral music I’ve ever sung.
Mike, you’re the music meister! You are very knowledgeable! :-)
That was a long-running, very successful ministry, blessed by the Lord.
In his book The Soul of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Chicago: McClung, 1903), W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that the Negro spiritual was the only art form that originated in America. Of course, it's a safe bet that he never saw a Navajo sand painting, and jazz and blues were a few years in the future.
It was, indeed. Around 1950, the Rev. Charles E. Fuller stated that the Old Fashioned Revival Hour broadcast would end with his retirement or death and that nothing would remain of it except a few phonograph records. Little did he know that it would continue in cyberspace long after his death in 1968.
Right! How could Dr. Fuller have imagined the Internet? :-)
Black and Tan Fantasie--Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, 1928
What a great example! I love it. The music is telling a story. Thanks so much.
If you like Shirley Bassey, take a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ouI5KcyHfE
The kicker? In spite of the intentionally retro video, this is from 2007.
I love it! There’s a classic R & B formula—works every time it’s tried! :-)
It’s good to see some people still playing the “older” sounds today.
Thanks for posting this, Rastus!
You may have noticed the statement about the video that it was shot with two old TV cameras from the fifties (that cost $50 on ebay), which gave it an authentic vintage look. Really amazing... and timeless.
There’s some good music being made today, but you have to look far and wide for it. I’ve actually pretty much stopped trying, but I sometimes stumble upon a gem.
I missed that part, but it surely worked well! I just assumed they filmed it and added the modern "effects" to make it look old. But the old cameras--that's neat-o!
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