The Bible and Music

I was curious about Mose in Egitto when I found it on Moodle and began to watch the videos that were linked to it. There was a series of three videos that matched the three-act opera that was written by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. The videos from the opera were very unusual to me in that the subtitles were not in English and it was difficult to follow. The opera attracted my attention because of the power in each actors voice and the pitch ranges they could accomplish. There were moments of silence that captured the audience’s attention. Some of the scenes were confusing to me, but I watched with the intent of the voices and music. This opera was based on the Exodus from Egypt of the Israelites and premiered in 1818. Another piece I was thinking about was the history this song has endured over those years and how many ears have heard this composition.

In Wednesday’s class we talked about the Exodus. I remember bits and pieces from my religion classes. In class we watched scenes from the movie The Prince of Egypt. I never saw the movie growing up but I was very fascinated to see it in action. I knew the Bible featured music, songs and chants so I enjoyed seeing them at work in the movie. I have learned about the different songs in the bible during high school. Many of the times songs are presented during the Bible, they have specific meaning and reason. I think it would be interesting to explore those reasons through an essay.

In class on Wednesday, we discussed the Exodus and Moses. We also talked about how music teaches educational lessons. Poetry in today’s society requires very little unlike earlier time periods. Rhyme made the poem easier to remember and read. Professor McGrath made the point that most of us would rather receive a card with poetry instead of some unthoughtful last minute card. This is because we enjoy things that are rhythmic and pleasing to read. People avoided rules in poetry because they decided that things that are pleasing can soon become predictable, so they knew they had to change it up freely. Classical music is just making music to make it, while romantic music shows way more emotion and feeling. People get tired of making things pretty in classical ways. Shoenburg was very unpredictable, yet music always seemed to become expected. People would always say, “Worship only one God, don’t depict God.” Aron said we ever so need beauty, but in class we questioned is beauty really needed? We are supposed to compose what is beautiful and meaningful to us, regardless of what is beautiful to someone else. Moses and Aron have 12 letters altogether- we talked about this significance in class. Lastly, film music uses the full scale and both different elements. The Bible does use music in it, which was interesting to me because I know for me and a lot of others, a book is simply read in words, not in song. I didn’t really think of the Bible with a musical connotation until the point in class was raised by Professor McGrath. A lot of things I didn’t know before are coming to the forefront in our classes. It is pretty interesting.

Our class today was mostly focused on The Exodus. To be completely honest, a lot of it went over my head, as I had to look up what The Exodus even was. One point that did resonate with me, however, was the idea that music could be used in education. I began to ponder the benefits of using music to inform about a topic which lead me to the thought, why isn’t music used more in education?

The conversation that made me initially think of this idea was when the one discussing greeting cards. Majority of us agreed we prefer the cards that contain some kind of poem inside, as it makes us happy and makes the message of the card more memorable. The same can be said of the Bible. I am aware that there are many videos out there made to educate children on the stories of the Bible. This being said, we should try to integrate this way of teaching to children in other areas outside of religion. Dare I say it, integrate it into areas of learning that will really make a difference in our future generation. There should be more songs/videos about climate change and global warming, history of the world, politics, etc. You name it, there should be a song making the material of the topic more attainable to the youth.

The Prince of Egypt example was interesting in that it discussed the hard questions in an entire animated movie. I was intrigued to see how many of my classmates still felt an attachment to the movie even in their coming adult years. They were able to sing along to it perfectly, showing the material was deeply engrained into them, illustrating the impact of music in education.

I have seen many portrayals of the Exodus story in my previous education. By far my favorite is The Prince of Egypt because despite some of the inaccuracies and deviations from the biblical text.I think the music is expertly written and carries universal messages that are not only applicable to those who follow Christian traditions. For example, in “Through Heaven’s Eyes” Zipporrah’s father sings “When all you have is nothing, there’s a lot to go around.” I think that the use of music in this film is used to spread messages of love and humanity to several different religions. Jews, Muslims, and Christians are all connected to the exodus story in some way so I imagine many children of different denominations saw this movie growing up and hopefully some of the positive messages stuck with them. This movie is just one example of biblical stories being used to make a film. The music in these films is often very dramatic and inspiring which as someone who highly values music this helps me connect to the film and the story more.

Today we talked about how music changes over time accordance with the general population’s tastes as well as in order to serve different purposes throughout time. I don’t know much about music and had never considered the structural rules that define musical eras. I believed that there were a set number of existing notes and musicians simply put them together however they wanted; and different eras of music differed only by the tempo and/or the order in which the notes were put. I had never thought of music as having rules or being in any way connected to mathematics. My favorite song example shown today was “Wade In The Water” and it seems I should watch “Prince of Egypt” sometime soon. I still find myself a little lost when discussing religious context. For example, I know of moses parting the red sea, but I never really knew why; and I’d heard the word ‘Exodus’ and know it is associated with the Bible, but never knew that the parting of the red sea was included in this Biblical section/chapter/story. I’m looking forward to becoming more educated about religion, because even if I am not a religious person I still believe it is important to at least gain exposure and a basic knowledge of the topic.

This class was focused around the Exodus. We discussed how music can help relay historical events. Schoolhouse Rock was bought up because so many of us have learned historical events through those songs. We also looked at some slave pieces, such as “Wade in the Water”. These songs were meant to relay messages of escape or messages to freedom. Music, has been relied on to transmit history from generation to generation.

This idea made me think there is some room for error. Sometimes, from year to year, some of the original messages can be altered or changed. This could be part of the reason why there are so many different versions of history and differences in what some believe happened. I find it interesting, though, that we can learn through song. Because I want to me an elementary school teacher, I will keep this idea in mind. Maybe I can try and implement song into my classroom to help children learn.

In the beginning of class, we started out by briefly talking about The Exodus and Moses. Following this discussion, we were asked our view on poetry and why it is so appealing to listeners around the world. We broke it down by mentioning varying components like rhyme and consistency. One of the main reasons I read poetry is because I enjoy the simplicity of the work in most poems I read and it is easier to follow along. Poems that display stories seem to connect more with me and I can depict the theme/meanings in a deeper way. We followed the idea of poetry by looking at the song “Wade in the Water.” This song has connection to the Exodus, yet some of these connections are often misunderstood.

Listening to different pieces of Arnold Schoenberg, I noted the variety of instruments that he implements in his music and what intensity it brings. Schoenberg is known for breaking the musical scale and even leaving out the third act in Moses und Aron, like I mentioned last post. Some of Schoenberg’s music was compelled by his imagination and he produced a song that was designed for a silent film scene. I listened to a portion of Moses und Aron before class today and there were sounds that were very interesting to me. We listened to a part of Die Jakobsleiter in class and some of his melody was similar to Moses und Aron.

Today we discussed a lot, but what stuck out to me was listening to Schönberg – Pelleas and Melisande. We discussed the difference between classical music and romantic music.  Classical music is more focused on the creation of music and following the rules, and essentially creating standard music, whereas romantic music is made to make you feel certain emotions and connect to the music on a deeper level.  This was something new I learned, and it made me question what kind of music I listen to; classical or romantic.

I find it amazing the amount of information I didn’t know about what was going on in the Bible. I believed I had plenty of knowledge on religion but there are so many details that have been left out. Makes me question why somethings are talked about in church and others are not. I had heard a bunch about David, but for some reason never heard the story of David and Bathsheba. The portion of the movie we watched also provided me with much more information. The directors may have had a lot of room for making their own decisions since it really wasn’t discussed much in the Bible. It was interesting to see a woman portray herself in such a submissive way, but she also knew exactly what she wanted from David and wasn’t afraid to tell him. I want to ask my mom why we never learned about this in church and why she felt it wasn’t necessary to teach us as children. It seems to me now that when they teach the Bible, they try to make the people in the Bible perfect when there’s no way they could have been. They had to have made mistakes and broke the rules so that we could learn from them today.