The Bible and Music

As I approached the final, I began a little confused and worried that the piece I was tasked with creating had to be able to play as an audio file. But after talking with Dr. McGrath, I learned that this was not an essential part of the assignment. I was so relieved because one of my hesitations was that I would have to learn how to work a software, which could have limited what I was able to do for my project. I was scared that if I had to learn a software I would turn in a project that didn’t meet my own standards.

However, I am pleased and proud of what I was able to accomplish. After some back and forth, I ended up selecting Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen to set a biblical text to. I chose this song because I think it is similar to 5 songs in one, due to all the tempo changes. This made for a really fun process of working with the text to play off of the emotion from the different sections. My original idea was to set the story of Moses, found in Exodus, to the music, but I wanted to tell the story in chronological order. This proved to be not a simple task, and I ended up changing my idea. Instead, I set the Book of Esther to Bohemian Rhapsody, and I think I am prouder of this end result than I would have been with Exodus.
I was able to include all the key players and events of Esther’s story in my song, although I wish I could have included more of Esther turning in Haman to the king. I think this happened simply because I ran out of music. I still have a line where Esther holds her banquets, but I do not have the king sentencing Haman. I think that this choice still tells the whole story through music, but it does not include the detail that I read in the text.
Overall, I am very happy with how Esther Bohemian Rhapsody turned out, and if I had to do this project again, I think I would still choose Bohemian Rhapsody to put a biblical text to.