Today I was sitting around, thinking about my area of study (music). It's interesting to me that music is something that pretty much everyone takes hold of, and I get to major in it. Everyone is interested in music in some way or another. Everyone has either a favorite band, favorite singer, favorite style....you can't get away from it. Music is a really cool form of expressing yourself; whether you wrote the piece yourself, or if you're relating with the artist in similar feelings or experiences.
It's funny how one can like so many different styles of music. I love listening to piano concertos by Mozart, and Etudes by Chopin, or the rebellion music of Beethoven (I call Beethoven the music rebel, because he always went another way when it came to "specific" form). At the same time, I love gospel music by Kirk Franklin, which is a totally different genre. I love jazz, rock, R&B, contemporary Christian...and it all helps me in expressing the type of mood I am in.
I think back to the earliest notated music, when people were just singing the monophonic Gregorian Chants. This music is really cool to sing once in a while, but it's hard, because if it does have harmonies, it's all in perfect 4th's or perfect 5th intervals, which makes the sound "hollow". This music was in the church, and the elders thought that music should be only simple, not expanding in creativity or harmonies. Martin Luther, who was known for the reformation, also loved music. He argued against monphony, saying that polyphony is a beautiful thing.
"We marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace". -Martin Luther
The Catholic church associated music with something mystical or allegorical. But since Luther was reforming everything anyway, he voiced his thoughts, saying that music was simply practical and was to be used for praising God and proclaiming the Word. This influenced music in the church, and helped bring us to where we are today.
That's why music is so cool to me. It can be simple, but it can be elaborative and complex, and I still love it.
1 comment:
mmm... what a fun post to read.
i've been thinking about music a little more than usual today too.
and i love it too!
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