Recently (well, fairly recently...it was before school ended, but I haven't really had time to blog on it since) I had another thought.
Actually, I was talking to one of my students about the music I was playing at the time (Russell Watson, I believe.) He said he'd like to be able to sing like that if he couldn't be a rock star (or rap artist?)...or something sort of along those lines. It was a while ago. To make a short story shorter we started to compare the beauty of the semi-classical music we were listening to to the beauty of rap. As a disclaimer, I've never claimed to be a fan of rap. Sometimes I can stand some of it. But this student does like rap, and I got him to agree that rap really cannot be considered beautiful. Fun, cool, sweet perhaps...but not generally what comes to mind when you think of beauty.
Perhaps others would disagree (and some rap songs may be exceptions to the "rule"), and if so I'd like to hear their arguments. At any rate, the conversation started me thinking. At Petra we emphasize the importance of truth and beauty and their connectedness. Now, I haven't drawn any hard conclusions, but I do wonder. If some types of music have less beauty than others, does that mean they also have less truth? Or perhaps reflect the true form of music less truly?
Just some thoughts/questions. Comments are welcome. ;)
And for the fun of it, here's a beautiful picture from here at camp. :)
3 comments:
Personally, when it comes to the genre of music, I do not think that one type is necessarily better or worse than any other. Some types may be more prone to beauty and easier to make beautiful, but preference to certain types is solely based on opinion. (This may be my own opinion, but I think country music is least prone to beauty.) I believe that rap can be beautiful but not as classical music is beautiful.
When it comes to lyrics, I think that a lot of secular music is fine (as long as it doesn't have necessarily bad words or concepts.) But I think Christian music is the most misleading. Choices in this area must be theologically correct, no matter what the genre or how cool the songs sound. As I know you agree, "Christian" music is not all necessarily wholesome.
These are my thoughts.
Just a thought: would you argue that beauty is an absolute standard? That is, there an ideal called Beauty and things are deemed beautiful in proportion to their resemblance to Beauty? If so, how would you defend that standard biblically or philosophically? And out of curiousity, what would that standard, Beauty, look like? It seems that if and only if you believe in and define an absolute standard of beauty can you say that rap is less beautiful than classical music.
I do hope that these questions will challenge your perception of Beauty. And I believe, when you think about it, you will find that there is beauty in so many places where you would never even expect to find it. Maybe you will even find a sort of beauty in rap! =)
And for the record, I do believe there is some beauty to be found even in rap.
I'll leave now, before you have time to throw any markers at me...
Adam-
I'm not sure that I would agree that a lot of secular music is "fine." However, perhaps we are more prone to be discerning about it than about "Christian" music, which could make the influence of bad Christian music more subtle and therefore more destructive, perhaps.
Kimberlee-
Of course I believe that there is an absolute standard of beauty. I don't really see how one can believe in the God of the Bible without knowing that He must define every standard, including that of beauty. I also don't think that one can look at the world that He has created without getting some vague idea of what His standard is. Fallen as we (and it) are I don't think we ever get the full picture.
I think that as a result, there is some commonality in human perception of beauty (which is why cathedrals and paintings which were done years ago are still popular places to visit). Kind of like there are similar standards of morality all over.
When YOU think of beautiful music, is rap the first thing that comes to mind? (I'm not saying that there isn't any beauty in it. Just that it seems less beautiful than other types.)
Those are thoughts pretty much off the top of my head, so don't tear me apart too much. :)
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