What happened to MUSIC?

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This is only a partial post regarding our Catholic Faith but I want to ask other users here is what happened to actual “MUSIC”, not the “Pop / Rap” art form or whatever they call it nowadays but what happened to actual music, you know the old days where the basis of music was studied, “Treble Clef, Bass Clef”, scales, arpeggios etc.

Nowadays, it’s so disgusting to see foul-mouthed hooligan’s making millions of dollars boasting about a gangsta lifestyle and gullible kids loving it and kissing their butt praising their “Talent”. Do any of these fools actually know how to play an instrument?

Sorry folks but rapping isn’t an instrument, and let’s give it up that you are racist if you dare to criticize the great Jay-Z.

Is there even a rock n roll band or classical band or jazz band that is even mentioned in current media anymore? However strong your faith is, I feel sorry for our children that these songs are in advertisements. Go to any sporting event or the gym and that’s all the music you here.

I feel bad for Julliard students who practise 6 to 8 hrs a day perfecting a craft and alot of them once they graduate are starving artists having to work 2 jobs to make ends meet.

Let’s pray that this **** will eventually die out and Music that has actual musicians in it can make a comeback for our children’s generatioin.

Anyone agree?
 
There is plenty of great music out there and fine performers. It’s just that you hardly find them among those promoted through the pop culture machine.

Don’t look there… look elsewhere and you will find them… There is really some amazing talent out there doing things never done before and with a great degree of skill.

Joe B
 
If you look at any age of music, you’ve got good quality artistry and you’ve got garbage. It’s always been this way. I promise you that there are a lot of really good, talented, interesting and inspiring musicians around today, even on the radio! Just listen to the good, walk away from the bad.

Support talented artists! Give them air play! Take the attention away from the culture of death, immorality and excess!

…soapbox ended. 😉
 
As a college student majoring in music (focus on piano), I know exactly what you mean, and yes, I agree. However, as JButky mentioned, although it is a competitive field and it can be hard to find a music job, there is definitely still good music out there being performed quite often. You just have to know where to find it. But you’re right - classical music or other “good” music is hardly advertised. I myself don’t listen to anything modern. After 14 years of studying music and playing good music, I just don’t find anything past, I don’t know, the 1950s or 60s, appealing (although I guess it was starting to get crazy by then).
 
There is one area were real music is being written and used in a really high-profile way in popular entertainment: movies. We just tend not to notice because movie scores are mostly heard in the background when we are paying attention to the action in the film, or else during the credits when people are getting up and walking away (or stopping the movie on the TV or computer).
 
Married39 said:
This is only a partial post regarding our Catholic Faith but I want to ask other users here is what happened to actual “MUSIC”, not the “Pop / Rap” art form or whatever they call it nowadays but what happened to actual music, you know the old days where the basis of music was studied, “Treble Clef, Bass Clef”, scales, arpeggios etc.

Nowadays, it’s so disgusting to see foul-mouthed hooligan’s making millions of dollars boasting about a gangsta lifestyle and gullible kids loving it and kissing their butt praising their “Talent”. Do any of these fools actually know how to play an instrument?

Sorry folks but rapping isn’t an instrument, and let’s give it up that you are racist if you dare to criticize the great Jay-Z.

Is there even a rock n roll band or classical band or jazz band that is even mentioned in current media anymore? However strong your faith is, I feel sorry for our children that these songs are in advertisements. Go to any sporting event or the gym and that’s all the music you here.

I feel bad for Julliard students who practise 6 to 8 hrs a day perfecting a craft and alot of them once they graduate are starving artists having to work 2 jobs to make ends meet.

Let’s pray that this **** will eventually die out and Music that has actual musicians in it can make a comeback for our children’s generatioin.

Anyone agree?
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I understand your anger, but is being aggressively promoted by a small group of executives who are convinced they like it and we should to. But I’ve gotten past my anger, for the most part, and will never listen to modern music again - whatever it’s called. The degrading, killa, gangsta, rapist, murderer, abusive to women talk is not something anyone I know wanted. Just because enough people bought into this garbage does not make it music. Just look at the number of rappers who are dead or have been arrested. They are not just trying to sell something they call “music,” but a lifestyle, like T-shirts wrapped in plastic that look like a kilo of cocaine. It is wrong. 100% wrong.

What follows is an excerpt from “The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty”

By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

"Falsehood however has another strategem. A beauty that is deceptive and false, a dazzling beauty that does not bring human beings out of themselves to open them to the ecstasy of rising to the heights, but indeed locks them entirely into themselves. Such beauty does not reawaken a longing for the Ineffable, readiness for sacrifice, the abandonment of self, but instead stirs up the desire, the will for power, possession and pleasure. It is that type of experience of beauty of which Genesis speaks in the account of the Original Sin. Eve saw that the fruit of the tree was “beautiful” to eat and was “delightful to the eyes.”

"The beautiful, as she experienced it, aroused in her a desire for possession, making her, as it were, turn in upon herself. Who would not recognize, for example, in advertising, the images made with supreme skill that are created to tempt the human being irresistibly, to make him want to grab everything and seek the passing satisfaction rather than be open to others.

“So it is that Christian art today is caught between two fires (as perhaps it always has been): It must oppose the cult of the ugly, which says that everything beautiful is a deception and only the representation of what is crude, low and vulgar is the truth, the true illumination of knowledge. Or it has to counter the deceptive beauty that makes the human being seem diminished instead of making him great, and for this reason is false.”

And this:

catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0221.html

Peace,
Ed
 
What Happened to Music? 50 years ago they asked the same thing, 100 years ago when Ragtime and Jazz was the thing people were saying the same thing.
Nowadays, it’s so disgusting to see foul-mouthed hooligan’s making millions of dollars boasting about a gangsta lifestyle and gullible kids loving it and kissing their butt praising their “Talent”. Do any of these fools actually know how to play an instrument?
Click to expand...
Todays pop music is just an evolution of what came before, just now it more single performer/artist focused instead of a group or band, there really not much of a difference.

The ones who produce the music behind rappers and pop stars, many are classical trained with a variety of instruments and musical theory.

All one needs for “real” music is something to make noise in rhythm and/or melody, beyond that “real” music is a matter of opinion. 🤷
 
Married39 said:
This is only a partial post regarding our Catholic Faith but I want to ask other users here is what happened to actual “MUSIC”, not the “Pop / Rap” art form or whatever they call it nowadays but what happened to actual music, you know the old days where the basis of music was studied, “Treble Clef, Bass Clef”, scales, arpeggios etc.

Nowadays, it’s so disgusting to see foul-mouthed hooligan’s making millions of dollars boasting about a gangsta lifestyle and gullible kids loving it and kissing their butt praising their “Talent”. Do any of these fools actually know how to play an instrument?

Sorry folks but rapping isn’t an instrument, and let’s give it up that you are racist if you dare to criticize the great Jay-Z.

Is there even a rock n roll band or classical band or jazz band that is even mentioned in current media anymore? However strong your faith is, I feel sorry for our children that these songs are in advertisements. Go to any sporting event or the gym and that’s all the music you here.

I feel bad for Julliard students who practise 6 to 8 hrs a day perfecting a craft and alot of them once they graduate are starving artists having to work 2 jobs to make ends meet.

Let’s pray that this **** will eventually die out and Music that has actual musicians in it can make a comeback for our children’s generatioin.

Anyone agree?
Click to expand...
Actual music is still alive within the Catholic church often we in the music ministry still sing liturgical classical, contemporary classical and contemporary christian music. Many of the catholic churches employ music directors who often have completed formal musical training or who have been performing various classical works throughout their lives. Many of these music directors do still teach music theory basics and even advanced musical techniques. Several of the choir members often have a choral background where it is necessary to be able to read music and use musical theory methods.

I’m a classically trained vocalist with a background in music theory, which I use every time I perform along with my choir at mass. Many of my choir buddies also possess, a music theory background as well.

I agree that certain types of music are foul and shouldn’t be allowed in the
media.🙂
 
JButky said:
There is plenty of great music out there and fine performers. It’s just that you hardly find them among those promoted through the pop culture machine.

Don’t look there… look elsewhere and you will find them… There is really some amazing talent out there doing things never done before and with a great degree of skill.

Joe B
Click to expand...
I’m interested in great music that is not offensive. Can you provide a few examples or five?

Peace,
Ed
 
Avdima said:
What Happened to Music? 50 years ago they asked the same thing, 100 years ago when Ragtime and Jazz was the thing people were saying the same thing.

Todays pop music is just an evolution of what came before, just now it more single performer/artist focused instead of a group or band, there really not much of a difference.

The ones who produce the music behind rappers and pop stars, many are classical trained with a variety of instruments and musical theory.

All one needs for “real” music is something to make noise in rhythm and/or melody, beyond that “real” music is a matter of opinion. 🤷
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I strongly disagree, music, like any craft, has to have a firm foundation. Most of my friends are artists and writers and the basics never change, the learning curve never changes. Today, garbage is being aggressively promoted. Today.

peace,
Ed
 
Avdima said:
What Happened to Music? 50 years ago they asked the same thing, 100 years ago when Ragtime and Jazz was the thing people were saying the same thing.
Click to expand...
People always say this, but they always come to the opposite conclusion from me as to what this means. Instead of thinking some people are just comfortable with what they grew up with, and therefore less likely to accept new things, maybe music, as a whole, really has been deteriorating over the years? In fact, maybe art as a whole has been getting less and less complex, and more and more simple, and maybe not everyone thinks there’s no objective way to determine if this is good or bad. 👍

The main thing that happened to music is this: the idea that someone has to be educated and highly well trained to compose or perform or even appreciate music in a meaningful way, is an idea that has gone the way of the Dodo. Ultimately, the cause of this is that the popular music of the masses was seen by cultures as being in some way better or more enjoyable than the “art music” of the aristocracy, or the ecclesial music of the Church. This tendency was marketed, and became a norm.

Today, the “music” is less important than the hero worship and celebrity culture the music acts as a catalyst for. Heave in heavy doses of relativism and individualism, add psychologists and marketing gurus, and add in billions of dollars worth of advertisements, and we’re certainly dealing with an animal that goes far beyond intervals and scales.

As to debates on whether The Beatles are better than Allan Holdsworth, or if blues music is the greatest culture achievement of the United States: meh. Give me the old stuff, and give me the theory so I can know what the heck I’m supposed to be hearing and appreciating. 🙂

EDIT: Incidentally, and I don’t mean to be rude, but the more you know about music theory, the more I feel you have a right to an opinion on this. The more you know about such things, the more of an objective basis you have by which you can analyse them. If you think music is all relative (ahem), you’ll have to explain the bizarre tendencies music has at forming consistent, mathematically demonstrable patterns of behaviour. Clearly, SOMETHING is objective about music. :eek:
 
There are a lot of very good Christian rappers out there. Google Christian Rap .
 
Aelred_Minor said:
There is one area were real music is being written and used in a really high-profile way in popular entertainment: movies. We just tend not to notice because movie scores are mostly heard in the background when we are paying attention to the action in the film, or else during the credits when people are getting up and walking away (or stopping the movie on the TV or computer).
Click to expand...
Very true. I think if Mozart or Beethoven were around today, they would be composing film scores.
 
They have talent - they just have other people looking after the real music theory, and instrumentation.

Many pop singers can sing, but honestly, I find nothing remarkable: they all sing with the same vibrato, in the same tone, about the same things, talking to a “you” than doesn’t exist. There are exceptions, but most of them are quite literally making a moutain of money out of a molehill of talent.

To each their in in regards to musical taste, but not for me, thank you.

I like Adele, and and I like a lot of Indie singers and songwriters. But I am also doing Royal Conservatory exams, and the more I study the more I realise that the Biebz and Drake, and One Direction, and all that lot and crowd are more or less turning out monotonous, electronic noise.

I like electronic music too actually 😛 A lot actually goes into making it.

But REAL music is BEAUTIFUL. The traditional songs of Newfoundland, Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, of all the British Isles. The folk music of the Basque country, of Italy, of India. None of it was originally theorised or written down! It’s still music.

Classical and chant, polyphony, romantic, whatever style along those lines, is true music that serves a few purposes. One, to praise God, Our Lady, and the Saints. Hymnody, chant, antiphons, etc. This is the truest form of all music. That is the most sublime of all music. Classical is for listening, for emotion, for any purpose. It’s true music. These two forms are ignored by the world because of Pop and it’s “propogation”.

Gospel music is another one we forget, and I mean true spirituals, like “Down to the River to Pray” or “Swing Low”. The emotion and the aesthetic is just satisfying to the soul. I wouldn’t want to hear it at Mass but it’s still good.

In completely my own opinion, contemporary Catholic music is just blah and meh and isn’t music and should be declared heretical based on it’s melody alone 😛

There’s my scatterbrained opinion on it all. I’m not a music authority, far from it, and this is just based on the little stuff I’ve learnt so far, which isn’t very much.
 
edwest2 said:
I’m interested in great music that is not offensive. Can you provide a few examples or five?

Peace,
Ed
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It depends on what you find offensive. I happen to be a fan of Gothic metal, groups like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Theatre of Tragedy, and similar. I don’t find it offensive, but I know many who probably would.

If you’re interested in classical instruments being used in innovative ways, you should look up Lindsey Stirling; she’s an amazing violin artist. Apocalyptica is a group of brothers who specialize in using the Cello in new and creative ways, I don’t care much for most of their newer stuff because they pull in outside vocalists for all their songs, but their first two cds are amazing.

If you’re a fan of horror ambiance, Nox Arcana is a sure bet. They pick a horror theme and build a soundscape around it.

If you’re into something a little bit… odd… The Birthday Massacre is a great band, although not particularly… erm… religious. Their music sounds really happy until you listen to the lyrics. Their songs are sort of a mix of fairy-tale themes as they relate to their perception of the world.

If you like industrial / techno, Celldweller is pretty good, Deadmau5 is nice if you’re into dubstep.

There’s a lot of good music out there to fit any particular style / mood. You just have to know where to find it.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
It depends on what you find offensive. I happen to be a fan of Gothic metal, groups like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Theatre of Tragedy, and similar. I don’t find it offensive, but I know many who probably would.

If you’re interested in classical instruments being used in innovative ways, you should look up Lindsey Stirling; she’s an amazing violin artist. Apocalyptica is a group of brothers who specialize in using the Cello in new and creative ways, I don’t care much for most of their newer stuff because they pull in outside vocalists for all their songs, but their first two cds are amazing.

If you’re a fan of horror ambiance, Nox Arcana is a sure bet. They pick a horror theme and build a soundscape around it.

If you’re into something a little bit… odd… The Birthday Massacre is a great band, although not particularly… erm… religious. Their music sounds really happy until you listen to the lyrics. Their songs are sort of a mix of fairy-tale themes as they relate to their perception of the world.

If you like industrial / techno, Celldweller is pretty good, Deadmau5 is nice if you’re into dubstep.

There’s a lot of good music out there to fit any particular style / mood. You just have to know where to find it.
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Thank you for taking the time but death and darkness prevail in band names like Deicide. So, not for me, since they don’t give me a reason to try them since their names are among the current other bad choices. Bad enough I lived through the late 70’s, early 80’s with stupid punk band names.

I hope you understand that Birthday Massacre puts the wrong foot forward.

Best,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
Thank you for taking the time but death and darkness prevail in band names like Deicide. So, not for me, since they don’t give me a reason to try them since their names are among the current other bad choices. Bad enough I lived through the late 70’s, early 80’s with stupid punk band names.

I hope you understand that Birthday Massacre puts the wrong foot forward.

Best,
Ed
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Let me suggest a band such as Beta Radio. Completely not mainstream. I didn’t know they existed, until I downloaded an app called Songza.

www.betaradio.bandcamp.com

“The Songs the Season Brings” is good particularly, they sing real Christmas music.
 
edwest2 said:
Thank you for taking the time but death and darkness prevail in band names like Deicide. So, not for me, since they don’t give me a reason to try them since their names are among the current other bad choices. Bad enough I lived through the late 70’s, early 80’s with stupid punk band names.

I hope you understand that Birthday Massacre puts the wrong foot forward.

Best,
Ed
Click to expand...
Oh, I understand that entirely. That’s why I made a point of stating that you wouldn’t listen to them for anything religious. I enjoy Birthday Massacre because of the way they mix fairy-tale themes into their songs, and because their style of music is something I’ve never really heard before.

When I said Gothic Metal, I wasn’t directly referring to Black metal, like the band you mentioned; I’ve yet to hear a black metal group I can stomach. Gothic metal is a style that has heavy operatic influences, and a penchant for mixing in classical themes and instruments with modern metal instruments. A few really good examples of this would be from Nightwish: The Phantom of the Opera (their take on the classic theme) and Nemo (probably their most well-known song), or Theater of Tragedy’s Storm. I’m not saying you’ll love it, and they aren’t groups you would go to for Christ-centric lyrics, but their music is still beautiful. (I prefer Nightwish with their old singer, Tarja, even if she did sort of screw them over >_>)

I would still strongly suggest Lindsey Stirling and early Apocalyptic though; while not being Christian music, they aren’t anti-christian. Basically, they’re neutral (well… old Apocalyptica is, I haven’t listened to much of their new stuff)

Ooh, I forgot a couple others. There’s E.S. Posthumus, whio is a bit older, but them there’s also Les Friction, which is a new project the brain behind E.S. Posthumus has been working on. Their first CD is pretty good… I’m not really sure how to describe it… look up World on Fire.

If you like rock, Red is a really good Christian group.

I wish you luck on your music hunt!
 
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