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2shelbys
Guest
Of course. I did not say that they did. My comment was not about the lack of artistry but the stifling of it.
This is true but the fact that they get no airplay and have to self-promote only supports my assertion.
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P
Prometheum_x
Guest
If you are going to make statements like that, you are going to have to define exactly what you mean by these particular genres.
By that I mean the essential characteristics in regards to rhythm and meter, scales, harmonic and melodic patterns, and lyrical tendencies.
Upon providing that definition, you will discover that terms such as “rock” and “pop” are used in a very non-specific way by the general public and the only people who pay attention to the specifics are music snobs like me. Then we can discuss the specific aspects of that genre.
If you choose to stick with the loose, non-specific generalizations, you statements have no real practical application, as there is a statistically significant proportion that do not meet your description.
H
Ham1
Guest
No, modern music is not evil. Some modern musicians are and yet some of them still create good music.
Here is a site (with songs that you can download) for a band that has a great sound and good message. No, I am not in this band…
www.walkingspanish.com
Here is a site (with songs that you can download) for a band that has a great sound and good message. No, I am not in this band…
www.walkingspanish.com
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2shelbys
Guest
So ALL rock music is the same? Such generalizations are never correct. There are plenty of bands whos music does no such thing. You simply can not condemn an entire genre of music in this way. Especially when you obviously do not listen to it and really do not know what messages are out there.
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2shelbys
Guest
Well said. (If you are a music snob why haven’t I seen you at any of our meetings?)
P
Prometheum_x
Guest
When are they?
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2shelbys
Guest
They are held on a loose schedule that coincides with the scheduling of gifted musicians playing in the area!When are they?
C
cynic
Guest
So I have to partake in a sin to understand it as such?
As it happens I used to listen to all kinds of rock music, I know well the endorphine rush, the egotistical fantasising, and self centred melancholy that it’s all based on.
C
Catolico
Guest
so I guess poetry and pretty much all forms of art and expression are evil, right?
If an artist makes a beautiful painting “glorifying own feelings” and not using his/her art “solely for worship” it´s a sin right?
But of course if an artist makes a painting of Jesus then it would also be a sin because then it´s “idol worshiping” right?
So all forms of art and expression are evil, is that what you are saying? Sounds a lot like the rules the Taliban had, don´t you think?
BTW who is it who said music is meant to be used solely for worship?
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2shelbys
Guest
Again you say ALL. Do you not realize that such blanket statements are NEVER correct? You are assuming that ALL music is the same which is not even close to true. That may have been true of all of the music you used to listen to but ALL music? Even Christian rock which seeks only to glorify God? Nonsense.
C
cynic
Guest
yeah because it uses the same type of sound as secular rock, the same emotional tricks, illicits the same sensuous feelings. The lyrics may be good, but as another poster said lyrical content has less to do with the emotional/intellectual ( and of course spiritual) effect of the music than the sound itself.
P
Prometheum_x
Guest
Tricks? That’s an accusation of deception.
You have yet to establish that there is anything wrong with sensuous feelings or the other emotional/intellectual effects of such music. There may be – but so far you have only claimed that there is.
What you are doing is establishing a false dichotomy between spiritual/physical. Underlying your criticism of this modern music is a concept that the more spiritual something is, the less physical it must be, and conversely, the more physical something is, the less spiritual it must be.
If that were true, our bodies would not be resurrected on the last day.
T
Topher
Guest
Everything is used to worship God. The work I do, the recreation I enjoy, my prayers, my quiet time, everything. That does not mean that everything must explicitlely say God in it or have a picture of God on it. The fact that music is beautiful, whether it is “Secular” (if there is such a thing as secular") or Christian, is a testament to God’s beauty and Grandure, even if the music is about human emotions, which by the way were also created by God and when, under submission to reason, they also glorify God.
T
tom.wineman
Guest
C
Christ_Soldier
Guest
This is a very interesting issue as secular/modern contemporary music plays such a big role in our society today, more than, in my opinion, it has throught any societies in recent history.
As someone others have said, music is both objective and subjective, and also I would add, interpretive. In some obvious cases, if there are lyrics to a certain song, and these lyrics obviously demonstrate/convey evil notions, then the music is clearly evil. Then, which I would say in most prevalent in our society today, there are songs with lyrics that do not directly imply any evil notions when you listen to them, but upon reflecting upon them strenuously, (which I really think is required today to determine if it does have evil notions and therefore whether we should or should not listen to it), we may well determine that they indirectly in some way imply evil notions or ideas. And by evil, this can signify many things. (with music today, it doesn’t have to be Ozzy Osbourne or anyhting-in fact it is just about always more subtle than that) As we know as Catholics, evil takes many forms-the angel of darkness is a clever beast and know what evils we as a people are most susceptible too. Therefore, we must be very careful when considering and determining what modern music to listen to today, considering the society we live in in America today. Also, another aspect of this may be with music videos, as most secular groups today in the music industry use them. These can also be clear indicators as to the specific intent and message of the song and lyrics, as the essentially illustrate them. Then, to cap it off, there are groups who don’t have any lyrics in there songs, wherein it is very difficult to determine intent of the song and lyrics. In this case, I would basically say that, if you feel as though by listening to the rhythms they are somehow leading you to evil thoughts of some kind, then I would not listen to them.
in the end though, I would say that, excluding songs that clearly through music demonstrate contempt for good, is not inherently evil. Might we not say that the evilness or equally goodness is determined by our perception and interpretation of the music?
Grace of Christ on your discernment,
R.A.H.
As someone others have said, music is both objective and subjective, and also I would add, interpretive. In some obvious cases, if there are lyrics to a certain song, and these lyrics obviously demonstrate/convey evil notions, then the music is clearly evil. Then, which I would say in most prevalent in our society today, there are songs with lyrics that do not directly imply any evil notions when you listen to them, but upon reflecting upon them strenuously, (which I really think is required today to determine if it does have evil notions and therefore whether we should or should not listen to it), we may well determine that they indirectly in some way imply evil notions or ideas. And by evil, this can signify many things. (with music today, it doesn’t have to be Ozzy Osbourne or anyhting-in fact it is just about always more subtle than that) As we know as Catholics, evil takes many forms-the angel of darkness is a clever beast and know what evils we as a people are most susceptible too. Therefore, we must be very careful when considering and determining what modern music to listen to today, considering the society we live in in America today. Also, another aspect of this may be with music videos, as most secular groups today in the music industry use them. These can also be clear indicators as to the specific intent and message of the song and lyrics, as the essentially illustrate them. Then, to cap it off, there are groups who don’t have any lyrics in there songs, wherein it is very difficult to determine intent of the song and lyrics. In this case, I would basically say that, if you feel as though by listening to the rhythms they are somehow leading you to evil thoughts of some kind, then I would not listen to them.
in the end though, I would say that, excluding songs that clearly through music demonstrate contempt for good, is not inherently evil. Might we not say that the evilness or equally goodness is determined by our perception and interpretation of the music?
Grace of Christ on your discernment,
R.A.H.
R
Rejoice
Guest
This is just my theory out of thin air, but what do you all think…?
Music is the universal language, so they say. That seems right to me. You can hear a song from any country and in any language and still feel like you “get it”. The artist means to convey a feeling or a progression of feelings (a story) and succeeds. You never have the sense that you don’t “get” the music. Or at least you never have this sense with any music you actually like. You hear a song, you like it, you “get” the feeling of it.
But what exactly has been communicated? Just a feeling or a progression of feelings? I don’t think so. I think it’s more like a sharing of somebody’s feelings. It’s a meeting of souls.
We connect with some kinds of music but not other kinds. I think this is because the artists are in some way similar to us. Fans of a band or artist are usually of a certain type, at least in some significant way (not, of course, in all ways). The artists are either where we’re at in life, where we want to be or where we once were. In all cases, we relate and warm fuzzies abound.
So here’s what I’m getting at. We’re spending time with people through music… we’re connecting… we’re reliving certain feelings communicated to us. But. But! – we don’t think about it. We just like the feeling. If it feels good, if it lifts us up, if it “doesn’t cause us to sin,” then it must be good. But what if we’re not where we need to be in our relationship with God, for example; and what if the artist is in the same place in his or her life? And what if the reason we connect is because we’re in this same place-of-being-not-necessarily-so-close-to-God? And what if this music is affirming where we are? We get comfortable and we don’t change anything. We stay put.
Take a hypothetical song that conveys a sense of longing. There is a truth in this, for sure. We long for God. We should long for Him. We should always remember all that He has done for us and want to spend eternity with our Creator who knows at every instant what is best for us. But say the song comes from a place of hopeless longing. Say the artist is agnostic and lives a life sorely lacking in hope. And say this hypothetical song is really about a longing that can’t be fulfilled. There is no hope for the longing to be fulfilled. Now we might connect to this song because we might be in that place to some extent. Or perhaps we once were, and the feeling is familiar and comfortable. But we don’t analyze it, we don’t put it under the spiritual microscope. We just listen, enjoy, don’t see any obvious sinfulness and go our merry way.
But we are still farther from God than he wants us to be, if not slipping farther away…
I’m not condemning artists who aren’t close to God. I’m not saying we can’t communicate with people who are less faithful than us. I’m saying maybe we shouldn’t go to doctors who say they don’t know what’s wrong with us or with them for that matter when we can go to the Doctor who has every cure and wants to cure us now, for free. I’m saying we are called to holiness, we’re called to be Saints, and anything that distracts us from that end we should push aside. Right?
Here’s another thought. Think of someone who is angry. What kind of music would they probably make? Not a waltz. Someone who is lustful won’t make a Gregorian chant. And so on. Of course a person is a whole mess of feelings and stories and their music won’t come from only one angle. But whatever angles the music comes will be determined by who the artist is when the music is made. Do we know who the artist is? Do they know? Do we know what we’re getting ourselves into? Wouldn’t it be best for our spiritual well-being (not in a Manichean sense) to limit ourselves to music that we know comes from a place of holiness?
Music is the universal language, so they say. That seems right to me. You can hear a song from any country and in any language and still feel like you “get it”. The artist means to convey a feeling or a progression of feelings (a story) and succeeds. You never have the sense that you don’t “get” the music. Or at least you never have this sense with any music you actually like. You hear a song, you like it, you “get” the feeling of it.
But what exactly has been communicated? Just a feeling or a progression of feelings? I don’t think so. I think it’s more like a sharing of somebody’s feelings. It’s a meeting of souls.
We connect with some kinds of music but not other kinds. I think this is because the artists are in some way similar to us. Fans of a band or artist are usually of a certain type, at least in some significant way (not, of course, in all ways). The artists are either where we’re at in life, where we want to be or where we once were. In all cases, we relate and warm fuzzies abound.
So here’s what I’m getting at. We’re spending time with people through music… we’re connecting… we’re reliving certain feelings communicated to us. But. But! – we don’t think about it. We just like the feeling. If it feels good, if it lifts us up, if it “doesn’t cause us to sin,” then it must be good. But what if we’re not where we need to be in our relationship with God, for example; and what if the artist is in the same place in his or her life? And what if the reason we connect is because we’re in this same place-of-being-not-necessarily-so-close-to-God? And what if this music is affirming where we are? We get comfortable and we don’t change anything. We stay put.
Take a hypothetical song that conveys a sense of longing. There is a truth in this, for sure. We long for God. We should long for Him. We should always remember all that He has done for us and want to spend eternity with our Creator who knows at every instant what is best for us. But say the song comes from a place of hopeless longing. Say the artist is agnostic and lives a life sorely lacking in hope. And say this hypothetical song is really about a longing that can’t be fulfilled. There is no hope for the longing to be fulfilled. Now we might connect to this song because we might be in that place to some extent. Or perhaps we once were, and the feeling is familiar and comfortable. But we don’t analyze it, we don’t put it under the spiritual microscope. We just listen, enjoy, don’t see any obvious sinfulness and go our merry way.
But we are still farther from God than he wants us to be, if not slipping farther away…
I’m not condemning artists who aren’t close to God. I’m not saying we can’t communicate with people who are less faithful than us. I’m saying maybe we shouldn’t go to doctors who say they don’t know what’s wrong with us or with them for that matter when we can go to the Doctor who has every cure and wants to cure us now, for free. I’m saying we are called to holiness, we’re called to be Saints, and anything that distracts us from that end we should push aside. Right?
Here’s another thought. Think of someone who is angry. What kind of music would they probably make? Not a waltz. Someone who is lustful won’t make a Gregorian chant. And so on. Of course a person is a whole mess of feelings and stories and their music won’t come from only one angle. But whatever angles the music comes will be determined by who the artist is when the music is made. Do we know who the artist is? Do they know? Do we know what we’re getting ourselves into? Wouldn’t it be best for our spiritual well-being (not in a Manichean sense) to limit ourselves to music that we know comes from a place of holiness?
- Status