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Harmful Music?
As I was cleaning up my home office, I came across an article which I had printed out with an intent to write a counterpoint white paper. The text of the article can be found in this URL:
http://www.scottseverance.us/music/effects_of_music.htm
Maybe you've seen this article or at least are aware of this thinking. I would guess that most people on this forum wouldn't find much credibility in this article - even the original author admits some imbalance in the paper and suggests that his own previous conclusions were wrong.
Even so, this kind of thinking prevails in some circles and I wonder if it's widespread. Do any of you still hear statements like:
"Rock Music is Carnal because it makes you want to dance and move"?
"Rock Music is disharmonic and therefore wrong or harmful to your psyche"?
"A study on mice proves that certain music can cause nerve and brain damage"?
There are a lot of things wrong with this broad-stroked article and it's supporting material, not the least of which is the idea of blasting mice with music 24x7 and then killing them to study their brains.
But that's where I stop. Anyone want to comment? I'm curious if this is mostly a dead issue or if there are still some circles of thought where this is prevalent. If it's still out there, do you think is there any validity to it? Should we take some of this to heart? Should we reject it outright?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rick Cogbill on
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Stevo, aren't you just saying that musicians should get serious about doing their job? The point of what we do is to communicate, not to confuse. I wonder why that's so hard...
Then again, I've seen a lot of (expensive) visual art that failed to communicate anything to me...but that could just be me!
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on -
I'm not sure - it's not the angle I was coming from, but I certainly wouldn't disagree.
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on -
For the last two weeks, I have been trying to write an invigorating chorus to the last Beatitude, "Rejoice in Persecution". Ain't easy. I mean, starting it is easy -- urban blues under "when they treat you wrong / for doing right / lift your hands to God..." But making music to support the lyrics all the way through can be exasperating (and there are plenty of examples of this in the world, including the third and fourth verses of hymns).
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on
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Profitable, if you do the evaluating yourself. It is a great blessing to the world that, so far, there have not been teams (like those pernicious sound system consultants) that come to your church and tell you that your music is outdated, and that for a fee, they will supply you with current updates on new music and methods custom-tailored to your church, and free chain/nose ring sets if you call this week. One of our other recent posts has an excellent example of a church reviewing its music, and making changes that made a positive difference.
As for brain damage - Ambiguous or vacuous lyrics coupled with soft rock (which I heard this very day on K-LOVE, in one case) unquestionably cause nerve and brain trauma reversible only by changing the channel. Classical music is good for washing soft rock out of the system, unless it has got to a clinical level; then prayer is the best alternative.
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on
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Sorry - I found the opera comment funny and failed to comment. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.
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