Theses on: Whither Youth and ‘Classical Music?’
October 23, 2011
Once, when I was waiting tables, I ran across a young lady who played an orchestral instrument (I don’t recall which one), and she asked me, exasperated, why it is that, as she put it, ‘young people don’t care about classical music anymore.’ I don’t know that that’s really answerable, but I’m gonna give a few shots at why, and what can be done about it. Specifically I’d like to encourage anyone, young or old, who has no interest in or is intimidated by classical music to venture into the waters and also maybe gently indict friends who aid in classical’s bad press and relative irrelevancy.
Whether or not it’s true, I think many people associate a classical music with upper-class snootiness: tuxedoes, ties, champagne (in champagne glasses), glove tapping, monocle wearing, nonsense. People who like classical, the thought goes, can’t like Bruce Springsteen (I actually don’t much care for the Boss, but it’s a good blue collar example). Worse yet is when classical folk, and I’ve seen this done, get down on popular music as some form of crude, barbarous, primitive, art form. Thus there is a sense of a high price for entry into the classical world. You’ve gotta have lots of money and you need to denigrate the music you actually like.
Speaking from my experience, not having any knowledge other than a few ‘big names’ made me feel overwhelmed. Here’s this mass of music with a tradition that spans centuries, how could I approach that? If someone says that I should check out a rock artist, it’s fairly easy to find them and listen to them. If I really like them, I can get through much of their entire library, usually, without much effort. But have you seen the complete works of Bach? How do you start with that? Or what about all these fancy names for genre? What’s the difference between a fugue and a symphony? And knowing that I’d not be able to ‘get’ a composer, can be a strange and frustrating feeling.
Moreover, I long found the classical music I did hear to be rather boring and unexciting. I’d only hear it in lobbies and elevators.
It was really a combination of two forces that made me start looking to get to know classical more. 1) I felt that I was rather uncultured and wanted to grow more in this regard. So I started looking at art, reading poetry, and listening to music. 2) There were several theologians who commended classical, primarily Bach and Mozart. But whatever reason works for you is fine. I think you really should give it a shot.
In that spirit, here are a few of my recommendations.
- Realize that you’ll probably never become ‘expert’ in knowing Beethoven the same way you know the entire U2 discography. It’s just harder to do and takes a ton of time.
- Don’t be afraid to say you don’t like something. Just because someone says something is great, doesn’t mean you’re stupid or a fungus if you don’t. For instance, I’ve never been able to feel anything but contempt for Joseph Hadyn’s music. It sounds like really boring math problems making love. Maybe you don’t like Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Maybe, like me, you think John Cage is a quack rather than a genius. Whatcha gonna do, pretend to like music you hate?
- Don’t be afraid to like something. I have all six soundtracks to the Star Wars films as well as that for Braveheart, Lord of the Rings, Shindler’s List, and a few others. I like them, and I listen to them.
- Find a nerdy friend who does know more classical than you and ask them for recommendations. Not just for pieces and artists, but for recordings. You’ll find that a single piece can sound radically different among recordings due to varying interpretations or sound quality, and not all are created equal. For instance I really like ‘slow’ versions of the Debussy’s Claire de Lune.
- Realize that if you’re going to experience any music, not least potentially complex and layered pieces, you can’t just throw it on in the background. You’ve gotta sit and just listen to it. Many composers will state a theme or a melody and play off it; turn certain notes minor, make unexpected shifts in emphasis. I sometimes took this to be merely vague repetition, but it’s more than that. It’s a game.
- Trust and distrust authorities. As I said, don’t be afraid to say you don’t like something. But also realize there are reasons that some consider Bach’s Mass in b minor or Mozart’s unfinished requiem to be great works. You can’t really do the ‘indie’ thing of liking ‘underground’ acts very well if you’re only just starting. Hit the big names first. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, etc…
- Find instruments or styles you like. I like pianos, organs and choruses, symphonies, sacred music, and fugues, for instance.
- Don’t denigrate popular music or John Williams soundtracks. Not only can you find genuinely creative pop music, but John Williams is the man.
- Make sure you make your kids take music lessons and music appreciation. If you want them to like it, then make sure they’re exposed to it. Take them to concerts too.
- Don’t be a judgmental jerk.
- Consider that maybe much of the abstract, abrasive, narcissistic ‘art for art’s sake’ of ‘modern classical’ is an adventure in ego stroking. If classical isn’t actually connecting with people, then it might not be attentive to the spirit of the people. Music should speak to people.
- Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d minor – You’ll recognize the opening organ lick surely, but the whole thing is a masterpiece. As James said, Bach’s fugues are an adventure in the infinite.
- (Many of these links, btw, are to reliable interpretations by a gentleman who also uses visuals to help you ‘see’ what is going on. I’ve genuinely found his graphics helpful in visualizing pieces. He’s got over a hundred videos and you can trust that they any of them are worth hearing.)
- Bach’s cello suites are all great, but the first one – in six parts total- is probably his most famous.
- Eventually look at Bach’s Mass in b minor, his Brandenburg Concerti (sample here), and his fugues. There’s a reason that he’s considered one of the best.
- Beethoven’s fifth and ninth symphonies and his own “Great Fugue” is shockingly ‘modern’ and very powerful.
- Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Arabesque #1 are a great place to start.
- Among the small group sometimes called the ‘Holy Minimalists,’ I find particularly wonderful John Tavener and Arvo Part. For Tavener, see his The Lamb, Song for Athene, God Is With Us, and Funeral Ikos; For Part, Beatitudes, De Profundis, from Missa Syllabica, the Sanctus, and his organ music, like this.
- For more sacred music, Tchaikovsky’s Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrystostom is an absolute must. It truly proclaims the Gospel.
- There’s much more to add. For instance Chopin’s nocturnes and preludes, Rachmaninov’s own Divine Liturgy and Vespers, and his Prelude in c sharp minor, and others. But I don’t want to make this too long.
- Finally, if you’re on the music program Spotify, I’ve got a few classical lists that you can check out. Just search for Tony Hunt.
Live at Radio City by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Part 2 [Theological Liner Notes]
August 24, 2011
Read Part 1
“Don’t Drink the Water,” a song which evokes images of both the South African apartheid and the persecution of Native Americans, is Matthews’ moving indictment of oppression and empire. The song is narrated by the oppressor who possesses the other’s land with confidence:
“I have no time to justify to you/ fool you’re blind / move aside for me.”
Toward the end, Matthews breaks into the first verse of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” and then ends the song, still singing as the oppressor, who now explains how it really is with a disturbing clarity that deserves to be quoted at length:
“This land was made/ And I’ll build heaven and call it home/ And I’ll live with my justice, and I’ll live with my greed in me/ live with no mercy/ and I live with my friends at feet/ and I live with my hatred/ and live with my jealousy/ oh I live with the notion I don’t need anyone but me/ Don’t drink the water / There’s blood in the water”
These lyrics expose the poverty of the oppressor himself, who drives away, and crushes, and burns all others, so that he is finally consigned to a kind of hell—living with himself alone.
Implicitly, this song critiques wide swathes of Christianity that are historically responsible for going along with, and in many cases providing the ideological backbone for, oppression, and imperialism. The condemnation is complete whether we are talking about the Dutch Reformed church of apartheid, the pietistic Protestants behind American expansionism, Catholic “missionary” activity among the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, or Anglicanism which “held the coat” for the British rape of several continents. It is a crushing indictment of all those who believe they can build heaven on the backs of the poor and the dispossessed.
But the song is not without a subtle note of hope. “Don’t the water/ There’s blood in the water” is surely a reference to the terrible slaughter of innocents that was the result of South African and North American apartheid. These lyrics also make the historically accurate point that through brutality, the oppressor poisons the resources he fights so hard to take. However, I believe there is a biblical allusion in these lyrics. Blood in the water references the Exodus narrative when God plagues Egypt for refusing to end the oppression of the Israelites. So, Matthews evokes—perhaps inadvertently—that great story of liberation, how God freed the Israelites from slavery, how through Christ God “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” [Luke 1:52] and how, in the final shakedown, God will vindicate the oppressed and the downtrodden.
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As a self-identifying agnostic who writes lyrics replete with Christian and biblical themes, you would expect Matthews to insert a healthy dose of skepticism to his songs, and he indeed does. In “Eh Hee,” in addition to that faith in love mentioned in part 1, we a find a deep suspicion of religious leaders and teachers:
“Be wary of those who want to try to convince you/ that they know answer no matter the question / Be wary of those who believe in a neat little world/ Cause’ it’s just fucking crazy, you know that it is.”
Could you ask for a more succinct and devastating critique of the Truth Project? These lyrics comprise the warning label that every postmodern would put on the products of modernity, especially the Christian products of modernity. These are the lyrics that keep Dinesh D’Souza up at night.
Of course, Christianity does not have to be that way. Making truth claims, as the Church most certainly does, doesn’t mean you have to be an ass about it as some in the Church most certainly are. It doesn’t mean we have truth completely figured out, nor does it mean that we’re the only ones who posses truth in our faith tradition.
“Praise God who has many names…”
There is such a thing as absolute truth, but there are also truths that bend, truths that are not always true for everyone at all times (There, Baby Boomer generation of Christians, that wasn’t so hard, was it?). Matthews lyrics call us, the Church, to stop focusing on being right and start focusing on overcoming evil with good (love).
Continuing with songs where Matthews directly engages with Christianity, we come to the “Save Me.” In an imaginative retelling of Christ’s temptation in the desert, Matthews casts himself as encountering a man in the desert (Jesus), and becomes his “tempter;” he offers Jesus food and drink—a perfectly humanitarian thing to do, but he refuses:
“No, my faith is all I need.”
To which Matthews replies,
“Then save me/ Mr. walking man/ If you can.”
As the song progresses, Matthews role as the Adversary who dares Christ to save him morphs to a humble person who wants to believe, who wants to be saved, but can’t figure out how, and wonders if it even still possible:
“You don’t need to prove a thing to me/ Just give me faith, make me believe/…Save me, Save me/ Stranger if you please/ Or am I too far gone/ to get back on?”
Expressed in these lyrics is a real sense of longing, of wanting to find faith in God, but coming up short. In the video recording of the Live at Town Hall concert, a totally hammered Matthews introduces the song in an interesting way: ”This song is a comedy…song. Maybe, no, maybe it’s tongue in cheek. I don’t know, maybe it’s a plea for help from the heavens. I don’t know. You decide.”
By the end of the song a third voice enters,
“You might try saving yourself.”
In this fractured soteriology, then, we have a God who doesn’t have time for sinners such as Matthews, we have a satan who cries to God for faith, and we have a Pelagian who tells the penitent to save himself.
There is a danger in the Church to write off such people as the narrator of this song. Sometimes the attitude is that if you don’t simply have faith in God, if it doesn’t come easy, then there is no room for you in the Church. But faith doesn’t always come easy. Who hasn’t felt abandoned by God? It’s not that Matthews didn’t have faith before. He asks if it’s too late to get back on. Matthews the agnostic and many like him are having an extended (permanent?) Dark Night of the Soul. The Church should not only welcome these folks, and encourage them, but we should also welcome their voices and opinions, and let them challenge our own over-confidence, our own self-assuredness. Maybe we are afraid of them because they threaten to expose our own doubts and frailties to the members of our community and to ourselves.
Part 3 (coming soon, including some notes on the song, “Bartender”)
Live at Radio City by Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, Part 1 [Theological Liner Notes]
August 22, 2011
I am pioneering a new sub-genre of theological writing, here. Maybe Tony Hunt would care to follow suit with some of his hipster indie music, or even Shawn Wamsley with some his angry music (if he can find some that isn’t of the devil).
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At first glance Dave Matthews may seem like an unlikely source for discourse on Christian spirituality. He grew up a Quaker, but in a 1998 interview Matthews spoke of how the death of his sister led to the losing of his faith, “I’m glad some people have that faith. I don’t have that faith. If there is a God, a caring God, then we have to figure he’s done an extraordinary job of making a very cruel world.” In 2001, he indentified himself as an agnostic. However, in some ways he and his music are natural places to turn. His songs are filled with theological references and biblical allusions; he is undoubtedly the heir to a long, venerable folk-rock songwriting tradition, which includes Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and others, and which is deeply conversant in Christian scripture, theology and spirituality.
Focusing on songs from his seminal 2007 RCA release Live at Radio City which Matthews recorded with long time collaborator, Tim Reynolds, I want to explore some themes in the lyrics of Dave Matthews’ music which speak about Christian faith and practice, and to experiencing—or more accurately, confronting—God in surprising and authentic ways. Some of these themes are bluntly critical of certain aspects of Christianity, while others seem to document an authentic search for God, who appears in the music almost as an unrequited lover to agnostic Matthews.
Don’t expect to find anything systematic about theology a la Dave Matthews. We’ll be relying on two sometimes-competing hermeneutical principles. Sometimes Matthews makes overt references to God and the Church, several of his songs are directed at God specifically as agnostic prayers. These we will interpret in a straightforward way, relying on authorial intent. Other songs, however, allude to scripture or use theological language to speak about human relationships and experience without trying to say anything about Christianity or the divine. In these cases, we veer toward a hermeneutic of audience created meaning, reading God and the Church in where Matthews probably did not intend. If this methodology irks you, you should be reading Justice Scalia opinions, not this.
As an example of these two hermeneutical methods being used together in a single song, I will briefly look at one of my favorite songs on the album, “Two Step.” The song itself is about two lovers celebrating life in all its bitter-sweetness. The chorus offers this:
“Celebrate/ Celebrate we will / ‘Cause life is short, but sweet for certain/ Hey, we climb on two by two/ to be sure these days continue.”
“We climb on two-by-two” references the animals boarding Noah’s ark. By alluding to Noah’s mission of repopulating the earth after the flood, Matthews seems to be suggesting that it is our God-given duty to live, and enjoy life, and make babies. So we arrive at a two-liner theology of sex that isn’t too far away from where Matthews intended to go.
Within the same song we find these lines:
“Hey, my love/ You came to me like wine/ Comes to the mouth/ Grown tired of water all the time/ You quench my heart…”
Here, Matthews is obviously making no allusion to God or the Divine at all, but that doesn’t mean I am not free to rip it from its context and find in it a wonderful bit of Eucharistic poetry. Doesn’t Christ come to us, like wine in our mouth? I certainly grow weary of the blandness of a watered-down, purely symbolic understanding of Communion, and I certainly find my heart sated in taking the Eucharist. It’s a completely unintended interpretation—Matthews would probably be appaled by it—but still provides an accurate and poignant theological reference point.
So, you’ve been warned. I will play loose and free with lyrics.
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It is almost cliché to say that much of Matthews’ music is about love and sex (almost as cliché as it is to say that much of Matthews’ concerts are about pot). Many songs are very simply rhapsodies in praise of having sex with beautiful women (i.e. “Two Step” above). While some might find these conjugal hymns shocking, there is, with a few notable exceptions, nothing in the lyrics that explicitly denies biblical sexuality. In fact, they are a site of resistance, an oasis of refreshment for those of us who have grown up dealing with the puritanical, and quite simply repressive body-hatred of certain parts of Evangelical church culture.
On the whole, love for Matthews is a keystone thematic principle that transcends sex. Love is the only sure thing; the bedrock of life. For example, “When the World Ends” is a song about two lovers who will endure the end of the world in each other’s arms. Typical lyrics include:
“When the world ends/ Passion rising from the ashes,”
and
“When the world ends/ We’ll just be beginning.”
Matthews makes a bold claim here that love transcends catastrophe, even apocalypse. In the song “Oh,” we find a similar theme, but this song is written not about lovers but Matthews’ grandfather:
“The world is blowing up/ The world is caving in/ The world has lost her way again/ But you are here with me/ But you are here with me/ It makes it okay.”
Love makes anything bearable; disaster and suffering lose their finality in the presence of a beloved one.
In a third song from the album, “Eh Hee”, Matthews makes the claim that, “with the love that my mother gave me/ I’m gonna drop the devil to the floor.” Here love is martial. Love does not simply make evil bearable, love destroys evil. Back in the chorus of “Oh,” we discover that this love is intense, unstoppable, and gratuitous:
“I love you oh so well/ Like a kid loves candy and fresh snow/ I love you oh so well/ Enough to fill up heaven/ Overflow and fill hell.”
All three of these songs are speaking of human relationships with lovers, grandfathers and mothers; yet in each, Matthews’ images of love are couched in eschatological and theological language, leaving an opening for us to apply these ecstatic visions of love to God and to Divine love. When St. John writes that God is love, and when St. Paul writes that nothing can separate us from the love of God, did they mean to go as far as Matthews goes? Can the imagination of the Church keep up with Matthews’ imagination when trying to understand the unfathomable love of God? Does God’s love for all of us “fill up heaven, overflow and fill hell?” Some Christians’ definition of hell is precisely that place where God and his love end. And yet Matthews’ love for his grandfather transcends that boundary, as did St. Paul’s love for his kinsmen (Romans 8). If God is God, can his love for his children be any less?
When applied to love that God’s children are commanded to have for each other and the world, Matthews’ vision of love certainly stands in contrast to some prevailing notions in the Church. Whereas, like St. Paul’s, Matthews’ concept of love overcomes evil, some in Christianity at least appear to believe that love is optional and that hateful rhetoric, militarism and the tea party will somehow conquer evil and end suffering in the world. Can Matthews’ lyrics call the Church back to a place where indefatigable love for all people is truly our bedrock; where we stop striving with the weapons of this world and rely on the self-sacrificing love of Christ to transfigure everything with which it comes into contact?
Part 2 (coming soon, with reflections on “Don’t Drink the Water,” “Save Me,” “Eh Hee” & more!)
Middleduction (Belated Introduction)
June 7, 2011
“But what about earth and all the people on it?”
“Tut, tut. We can’t let mere sentiment intrude. This is Science.” K.W. Jeter Infernal Devices
I do not hate science or technology. I am not a Luddite (hell, the Luddites weren’t even Luddites according to the contemporary usage of the word). While I am attracted to the “no-shiny-object” policy of some members of the anabaptist tradition, I utterly fail at that discipline. Despite what some of my friends and family may say (e.g. “You’re the youngest 87 year old I know” ”Why don’t you join the 21st century” ,etc.), I am a product of my generation. The point of the preceding and proceeding posts is not, then, to utterly denounce science and technology, but rather to show in various circuitous ways that science and technological advancement have lost their anchoring in the seafloor of wisdom–that is culture, history, literature, and religion–and are floating about looking for some place to safely moor. Some of these posts will be more serious than others, but none are meant to be exhaustive. They are more like little flash-rants; too short to be called essays, too long to be written on a cardboard sign for a doomsday prophet to hold while standing on the street-corner.
It should be noted that during the course of the history of western civilization guardians of certain areas of wisdom have acted rather unseemly both toward science and to their own fields of study. Burning or even threatening to burn scientists at the stake is not usually the way to win friends or influence people. And, getting lost in the cobweb-filled labyrinth of 20th century literary theory, has not exactly given the study of literature the credibility and stature it needs in order to properly temper the more lucrative practical sciences.
So we find ourselves in a world where the academic study of humanities is all but dead. Art, music and literature programs are the first to be cut from public schools. Scientific and technological progress have either become ends to themselves, or they are the means of much more insidious and destructive forces, which seek to harness these advances for the purposes of greed and power-lust. And yet science and technology already do much to decrease suffering, and make the lives of all humans better. The potential to advance in this capacity is great, but science and technology cannot and will not do it alone.
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Part of a (Long) Series of (Short) Posts about Science and Technology
The Tragic Irony of Technology Coltan, cellphones and being connected
Singularity, Progress, and Darwinian Common Sense Artificial Intelligence and Sciencism
Middleduction A post that would have made a nice introduction
Science Fiction as Prophetic Witness or Scientific Gospel? (coming soon)
Technology and Language u r n 4 a gr8 time, lol (coming soon)
Creating the Problem in order to Fix It (coming soon)
More on Sciencism (coming soon)
Kierkegaardian Dread (coming soon)
Lonesome Dan Kase
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia.
Toward the end of my time at North Central University, which is located in downtown Minneapolis, MN, I began to frequent a nearby coffee shop/music venue/art space called E.P. Atelier (this wonderful place closed closed down awhile back). It was there, that I was introduced to a young blues musician named Lonesome Dan Kase. It was a Saturday evening, and business was slow for the coffee shop, I was the only customer. Lonesome Dan began to sing, and stomp, and play his 1938 Gibson guitar. It was the first time I had heard the country blues, and I was transfixed. Later, I wrote an article about Lonesome Dan for The Northern Light (the venerable student newspaper of North Central):
The music he plays hasn’t been heard (at least by most) in 70 years. It is captivating music, full of raw and throaty vocals, and intense finger-picking guitar work. It’s foot-stompin’, knee-slappin’ music of a bygone era; nostalgic music that takes you back even if you’ve never been there before. When you hear it, it makes you wish you had a name like Lonesome Dan, or Reverend Gary Davis, or Sleepy John Estes, riding from town to town on a freight train and playing the country blues on your old beat up guitar.
Back in the ’20s and ’30s the country blues was called “race music.” Back in those days it the popular genre of African America, and you can trace the development of modern rock, blues, R & B, and rap back to those gritty voiced black singers who got their start and their sound during the Great Depression: Mississippi John Hurt, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson (Eric Clapton’s muse), Son House (Jack White’s muse), Blind Lemon Jefferson, and the Reverend Gary Davis. The best word to describe the music of these men, and of Lonesome Dan is genuine. One man, a guitar, sitting on stool, in a bar or a road house, (back when such places were still filled with the smoke of cheap cigarettes) singing of love and religion, place and tradition, agriculture and crime and racism. These men lived the life they sang about, and it was not a glamorous life, either. They did not own mansions, or drive Escalades. They were many times homeless, and rode freight trains (Lonesome Dan ran away from home and hopped a freight train when he was eighteen…or so the legend goes). They didn’t lip sync their concerts or use computers to edit out their mistakes and correct their voices. The country blues is some of the most authentic music every made, and that’s why when you hear it, it makes your heart ache. It calls you to the open road, it makes you want to pack a knapsack and head for the train yard. It gives you nostalgia for a way of life you’ve never lived.
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Nostalgia is a yearning for authenticity, for a time when things were simpler, more real; but it is often a paradoxical yearning. These days, nostalgia has been commercialized, plasticized and outsourced. We’re flooded with cheap Elvis clocks, and Betty Boop commemorative plates that are supposed to remind us (well, actually our parents) of a better a time, back before suburban sprawl and big box stores, back when Americans actually manufactured things. So much for authenticity.
It is in this culture so filled with hype, with mind-controlling advertising, with disposable everythings, that the search for authenticity becomes urgent. My generation wants authenticity so badly–almost as badly as we want the new I-phone. And ultimately, that’s the problem, our search for authenticity always seems to get sidetracked, co-opted, packaged and sold back to us. But, good, raw, real music keeps on calling us back to the search, to the road…even if that music gets played through ear-buds.
A Girl, a Boy, and a Graveyard
May 8, 2010
A graduate from my alma mater who is rocking the music scene of my city. (And perhaps yours… he’s selling out shows in Chicago and New York now) Buy his new album here and pay whatever you want for it.
Steve Earle – Country Prophet
January 19, 2010
Who says country music can’t be beautiful, authentic or theologically inspired?
I woke up this mornin’ and none of the news was good
And death machines were rumblin’ ‘cross the ground where Jesus stood
And the man on my TV told me that it had always been that way
And there was nothin’ anyone could do or say
And I almost listened to him
Yeah, I almost lost my mind
Then I regained my senses again
And looked into my heart to find
That I believe that one fine day all the children of Abraham
Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem
Well maybe I’m only dreamin’ and maybe I’m just a fool
But I don’t remember learnin’ how to hate in Sunday school
But somewhere along the way I strayed and I never looked back again
But I still find some comfort now and then
Then the storm comes rumblin’ in
And I can’t lay me down
And the drums are drummin’ again
And I can’t stand the sound
But I believe there’ll come a day when the lion and the lamb
Will lie down in peace together in Jerusalem
And there’ll be no barricades then
There’ll be no wire or walls
And we can wash all this blood from our hands
And all this hatred from our souls
And I believe that on that day all the children of Abraham
Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
