The Bible and Music

During class on March 21, we participated in a class activity in which we added beats to some text from the Bible as a way of making music out of it. For me, it’s always been fairly easy to come up with a sort of beat for something fairly quickly. The only downside is that a lot of the beats I make up are very similar in that they are faster beats. It will definitely be a challenge for me to come up with a beat that would go with something that’s much slower than I’m used to but I also know that there is a lot of importance in how long notes are held out and how much rhythm is changed from the speaking rhythm to something more musical.

I have been practicing however I am still struggling on fluid chord changes. I am also still working on the strumming patterns. It is a lot at once but I am confident if I keep practicing, I will get better. The song “You are my Sunshine” is much more cohesive and fluid. I have started to learn the chord order for “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and “Hallelujah”. I am trying to start slow with songs and also do practice exercises for changing chords and strumming. I have been doing the exercises given to me in the video and slowly I am getting better. I have more chords and their placement memorized than I did before.

On Wednesday we had two guest speakers. It was very nice to have a change of pace in class. It is always exciting when we have guest speakers. I enjoyed learning more than the basics about the composer Arvo Part. It music was very interesting to listen to as was his life. I liked how he invented his own technique in composing. I found it very interesting when one of the professors said that he played a Bach piece backwards in order to “unplay” Bach. I thought that was strange but a cool concept. Although I do not understand why he would want to “unplay” Bach. Overall, I enjoyed listening to his music and even looked some up afterwards. I think it could be great music to study to or relax to.

The first day of my piano lessons required all of my attention and challenged me at times, however it was a great experience. My roommate is a Jazz major and is currently playing the trumpet, but is taking a few piano classes at Butler. He is extremely knowledgeable about music, how to read it, and how to properly play it. The first part to the process that we started with when dissecting what makes up the piano is the pedals on the bottom. We used a Yamaha 88 key piano that is in the basement of Residential College and my first curious question was about the three pedals. The next step we took together was learning about the keys and distinguishing between each one. This was mainly new information for me, because I do not have much background knowledge on pianos. Other pieces that we discussed included octaves, sharps, and how to position your hands properly. We finished the lesson by looking at reading music and started with simple notes and songs. I wrapped up by learning how to play “Mary had a Little Lamb” on the piano. This simple nursing rhyme was a song that I could play one handed and I hope to learn a few more as each lesson progresses.

Over the weekend, I went home for Easter. My family and I watched The Passion of the Christ. In the past, my mom and I have watched Jesus Christ Superstar. Thinking about these two films, there are things that are similar and things that are different. For one, they are both portraying the same story. The main difference, though, is the prominence of music. Each film has a different way of making the music of the film important. The Passion of the Christ, has very subtle background music but the film would not be the same without it. Jesus Christ Superstar, is a musical, so the music is truly told to tell the story. I enjoy both of these films. The Passion of the Christ is much more powerful and emotional. Both are classics for the Easter season.

After our class on Arvo Part, I decided to go home and listen to some more of his pieces. I found myself more engaged in the suspenseful pieces because I could envision a lot of things happening on a stage. His pieces give you a sense of time but also allow for a lot of imagery to take place. As a theater major, I always imagine putting things on a stage and watching them come to life and I could see many of his pieces contributing to that vision. I haven’t had this same experience with some of the other composers we’ve talked about but I am hoping to get these same ideas with more in the future. I’m excited to see what’s in store!

Wednesday’s class we learned about Arvo Part from two professors. I love when people are able to come together to speak 0n the same topic; we were able to get some different information from both speakers. I learned that Part  was the most performed living composer as well as the most soundtracked composer, these are both very honorable. It was shocking as I have never heard of this man before this class but it was interesting to hear his style of music and about his life. When listening to him speak in the video we watched, it kind of reminded me of the song playing in the background when we entered the class. He was very soft spoken but mesmerizing at the same time; the song we heard was also very soft but it grabbed your attention.  I would definitely like to learn more about theology and the human condition as we don’t talk about those much in class.

In class on Monday, we discussed the dramatization of biblical stories. Some of these include Jesus Christ Superstar, Noah, and The Bible. To some, the dramatization of these biblical stories can be seen in bad taste. Many strict followers of Christianity object to how these dramatizations have to fill in the gaps, formed from the Bible, with their own artistic take. However, we have seen this happen before and people do not like when directors take liberties on stories from the Bible.

It is difficult to direct a film that is 100% true to the Bible. So many minor details get left out of the text as to show what is important. Some of these minor details end up adding up to a much bigger problem of authenticity. Nonetheless, dramatizations of the Bible help to educate people on the basic theme of some Biblical stories. Since I do not know much from the Bible, seeing these dramatizations help me to better understand the story we’re talking about. Simply telling me and assuming I know does not teach me much. Seeing it play out on screen gives me a better view of what was going on.

From: March 26, 2018

For spring break, my mom, my brother, and I decided to visit Prague. I had always been curious of Prague, as it was a city I hadn’t heard much about, and what I saw blew my mind. The city itself was so gorgeous, with buildings dating back to the 14th century, entangled with the modernity of life there today.

While there, our tour guide explained to us that approximately 70% of the population of Prague identify as “non-religious.” The 30 Years War (1618-1648) demonstrated conflict between the Protestant and Catholic states, which turned many away from religion as a whole. Later on, communism consumes Prague where, if they even had a religious preference, they were unable to freely practice it. These two factors together have let to the lack of faith in religion.

Now, I’m sure you are wondering why I am writing about this for my Bible and Music class. Well, this statistic gets more interesting when I go to visit the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral. Upon walking into the outstanding cathedral, I was amazed by the great hall, spanning approximately 400 ft, with stained-glass windows adorning the walls on both sides. As I looked around, eventually turning around so my back faced the hall, I was shocked that there was no great organ greeting you at the front as you walked in. After talking to my tour guide, I found that the cathedral was taking donations in the hope of raising $60 million for the new organ. That amount of money seems astronomical to me, but in the eyes of the people that come to partake in the religious practices of the cathedral, music in service is just that important.

I immediately began to think about this class and our various discussions of how music is used in the church. My tour guide further explained that they rely so heavily on music in their service because of the lack of religious values found in the population. The church hopes that with the purchase of the organ, they will allow themselves to become more relatable and prevalent in the population’s eyes.

From: March 23, 2018

Along with our discussion of the creation story in class on Monday, we explored the idea of originality in the music world today. I found the parallel between these two ideas to be interesting, considering we collectively agreed there is no real original music anymore. Everything we hear is just a new way that an artist has decided to arrange the chords that make up all of the music we listen to. I attempted to counter this argument with the example of “Sleeper” by Snarky Puppy. Although the example is different from most modern music, it is not completely original. There are elements of it that are similar to those heard before. This started me thinking about songs with eerily similar sounds. As discussed in one of my previous blog posts, “Big Lie” by Post Malone and “Love Lies” by Khalid sound too much alike for it to be a coincidence. Some other examples of this include “Baba O’Riley” by The Who and “Best Song Ever” by One Direction as well as “Under Pressure” by Queen and “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice. With them sounding so similar, it could be easy to question how this continues to happen. The answer lies in the fact that chords can not be under copyright. They are the meat of the music we listen to, so must treat them as such.

From: March 7, 2018