Finding Christ in the music...

I had a follow up question on a previous blog post that I would also like to respond to:

I'm wondering you thoughts on music. I stopped listening to secular music because in the past it was a gateway "drug" for me that lead to bad choices. Now I only listen to classical or hymns or Gregorian chants. But my spouse says that the music he likes leads him to heaven. However the music he plays to me sounds depressing and brings up memories for me that aren't so great. I'm not looking to win an argument but doesn't music provide a gateway to hell with lack of a better word? Or is secular music ok and even heavenly? Thanks!

Music does have a singular power that is somewhat unique to other forms of beauty and art. I am partially expanding a comment I made on here a few weeks ago, but have continued to think about because it is a topic that has interested me for a long time. Music is something well grounded in Natural Law. Natural Law being that idea that God left in the heart of every created person a basic knowledge of right and wrong and the gift of the intellect to be able to a logical wayto  come to rationally understand the idea that God exists. Part of that primordial consciousness left by the Creator on His created is the power and understanding of beauty, of which music is a very unique form of beauty.

There is a rich history on the basic theory of the power of music going back to at least Pythagoras and the concept of the "music of the spheres" in the time of the ancient Greeks. But even before that in most cultures, there is some form of music. It us usually not the pattern of Western musical theory with notes and chords and intervals, but there is usually some semblance of music in most cultures, whether it's tribal drums or melodious whistling or community chanting of some form on some musical scale. In good music that has beauty there is a musical mathematical beauty that Pythagoras picked up on that is somehow at work with 5ths, 4ths, Octaves, and golden means. Some of Pythagoras' stuff comes off to modern ears as pre-scientific mummery, but there is a beauty that the human ear can discern through Natural Law that points to a harmony and balance which reflects the omnipotence and transcendence of creation, and ultimately the creation's Creator.

And it is interesting that we have come full circle in the concept of the music of the spheres. Aristotle picked up on it, as did others, believing that the planets and stars were part of this music of the spheres. Most scientists and theologians in the West totally bought this in its entirely into the Renaissance. Music was one of the high arts that anyone who had any sort of academic training in the Middle Ages had to study. When astronomy began to be mechanized with telescopes, the concept of the music of the spheres fell into philosophical disrepute because surely planets don't make music. But then when we started understanding deep space radio signals and realized stars and pulsars and all do in fact make sound at regular mathematical intervals that can be picked up by modern instruments like radio telescopes, we have come back full circle to the idea of the music of the spheres to the point where they are research all sorts of musical therapies nowadays.

Some of that research is dubious, but music doth indeed have powers to soothe the savage beast. Modern brain scans and neurology do bear out the idea that music is processed byt  by the brain in the "pre-verbal" parts of the brain. In other words, the human brain begins to hear and interpret musical sound before it begins to process verbal words and linguistics. In fact, one can argue the words and meter are in themselves a form of music. You hear it more in some languages than others. Chinese, for instance, has a very sing-songy sound to it. In fact, as I understand it, in Chinese, how one intones certain words can change the meaning. It can be the same word, but if said at a different pitch, it can alter the meaning of the word.

You even hear this in English to a much lesser extent. But you can play the game they teach you if you ever have to go to speech therapy or elocution lessons on how you stress words in a sentence. For example: What to you WANT? What do YOU want? What DO you want? WHAT do you want? In a way, we don't think that so much as music, but it is in a way. It certainly changes the meaning, or at least the nuance, on what word you stress when you speak. If you are not all that familiar with English, you might not pick up on the changes in meaning, but if you are listening and fluent, you certainly can. This all stems from the fact that music is actually something that targets the pre-verbal part of the human brain. Music forms the language and not vice versa. The astute theologian should be quick to point out that maybe there is order and beauty in music, and that order and beauty reflects the fingerprints of the Divine that we call Natural Law.

Now, back to your question about music as a gateway drug to bad choices, etc. I had to ponder that a bit before I answered. My knee jerk reaction, being a child of the Enlightenment and science and reason and all that most everyone is now (like it or not), was to say, well, that's silly superstition. If I am a rational man of science and logic, surely I would be immune from the effects of music on my rational thought and decisions. Then it occurred to me as I was typing this that I was listening to my usual playlist of rot gut outlaw country music. (Another moderator in the group who shall remain nameless likes to call me Waylon, but that's not for small minds to ponder 🙂 ) I had to ask myself, why does that type of music appeal to me?

People who only know me from my formal writings are always surprised to learn that. I listen to a wide variety of jazz and classical as well, but I always return to classic country music. Partly, it's what I grew up with, having grown up in the East Tennessee holler. That and bluegrass was largely the only thing on the radio stations of my youth. So, partially, it is cultural. Partially, it is because, believe it or not, I find Jesus in it. A lot of 20th century country music has deep roots in Gospel music and Christian imagery. Even the songs directly about drinking and honkey tonking always have the overtones of "I'm doing something wrong and I know its wrong and destroying my life, but I do it anyway." The inference is usually there, even if left unsaid, that I am a sinner and in need of redemption, a theme carried over from its Gospel music roots. I think that's why songs by the likes of Hank Williams Jr, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash appeal to me because in a way, they are a reminder to me that I am, despite all ways I can hide my regional redneck accent with my education and what not, I, likewise, am a sinner in need of redemption.

So, I guess at the end of the day, my takeaway message from this comment is that, yes, music has power. Yes, music by virtue of that power, can lead you down dark paths and places you probably shouldn't be. At the end of the day, however, do not be too hasty to jump to judgments about types of music you don't necessarily see the beauty in. All music is a form a beauty. It may well be a perverse and distorted Portrait of Dorian Grey kind of beauty, but Christ might be there in that distortion to some person who needs to hear that message in a way that no other form or art or beauty or rhetoric can reach. Just food for thought.