[Blog author's note: My father was fascinated by the understanding that man was created in the image of God, and many of his note card thoughts are related to that idea. It has been my intent to avoid sharing note cards that speak in detail of the image of God because my father and I frequently spoke of turning those thoughts into a book. This is a possibility that I have not forsaken, and to avoid undermining such an endeavor, I have held those note cards in reserve. However, we went last night to a concert put on by The Geneva School. (My son attends there and sings in the choir.) This school routinely puts on musical and dramatic performances of such quality that I am always much awed that juveniles can perform so powerfully. My parents were also in attendance, and my father was moved to tears by what he heard. As a result, I have been thinking since about my father's note card regarding music being a byproduct of man's nature in God's image. I finally decided to share the thoughts that follow. These thoughts are deep, and I think the reader will benefit as much from a second read as from the first. Enjoy!]
October 1998
The one who writes music is the originator thereof; the one who plays it is the means. The one who enjoys it is the target, the consumer. This could be a triad in connection with music, but it is not the triad of the music itself. The foundation of the actual music is the rhythm of it, consisting as its framework of key, tempo, time, etc. as expressed by the bass notes. The theme of it conveying the haunting melody is that part of it inviting words and which is the part others enjoy of beauty and grace and which they remember as the song. These are the treble notes. These cannot successfully oppose and overcome the bass notes which are too insistent and penetrating and carrying to resist. Rather, they must coordinate with the bass notes in order to make sense and to be enjoyed and to avoid confusion. Within the rhythm framework, melody usually has more liberty of expression then the bass notes have. Then, fit in amongst the bass and melody lines are many other possible places to fit other notes which are harmonious to both bass and melody. The filling of these places results in many other possible musical lines which enrich the basic combination of the two – rhythm and melody.
Any of the three can be removed, and the others can exist. Melody can exist by itself. Bass notes can also, but not well. It is not good that man should be alone. Even harmony lines do better than that. Children are harmony lines controlled by rhythm and melody, but they are not going to go out on their own someday to become songs on their own or become rhythm or melody. In music, they are just there. Not everything has to be applicable in every triad, but some things do. What are they? That is, what has to be common to all triads? How much is really there, and how much is force fit?
To some, the first one I mentioned would be the triad if any were—composer + publisher/ performer. That makes good sense doesn’t it? But so what? As much as that one appeals to “them”, that much it does not appeal to me. We can’t have everything become a business deal. First, I said composer, performer, audience. Does every triad have the third member as a receptor member? The cultivated member? If so, then in Spirit, soul, body, are we cultivating the body, which is the least important?
Is it the music that is the trinity? …or the fact that man organizes the phenomena into music? Surely pitch and tone (timbre) are in nature apart from man. Without any image of God these exist in vibrations. Birds sing, although not in diatonic scale and modes and such like. But man had discovered and learned and experimented and invented (using the phenomena) instruments (means) of using the phenomena for his pleasure—evil or good—and putting it into form—composing and playing—music. What for? His soul comfort and pleasure. The phenomena in themselves are just there, potential. Unused, they will never be music. The fact that man develops them into music shows that the potential for music is in man, not in the phenomena. But God made the phenomena as well as man. True, but man was made in the image of God. Yes, but phenomena were created by God, and all creation reflects him. True, but God specifically says that men were created in his image. Birds sing, but it is not music. Conclusion (?): Man, because he is in the image of God, develops his music into a composite of three integrated parts. Interesting, isn’t it?
No comments:
Post a Comment