The Bible and Music

In class today, we spent the majority of the time discussing Jesus Christ Superstar and its origin. There is a new live edition that is coming out on NBC with John Legend and Sara Bareilles that is to be performed on April 1st. I do not have a lot of background knowledge about this film and its context in the Bible, however I have heard it before and some information. One thing we discussed is how Judas, Jesus’ right hand man, has varying motives in texts and songs. There are positives and negatives that are displayed in Jesus Christ Superstar and the Gospel. A classmate discussed how he can be painted as a protagonist and villain. After watching a scene from the 2000 film of Jesus Christ Superstar for the first time, I came away thinking that Judas seemed deceitful. The scene we watched was when Judas was singing “Heaven on Their Minds,” which seems as Judas is warning and trying to look out of Jesus. However, it seemed in my opinion that Judas was mocking Jesus and doubted his works. One of the quotes in “Heaven on Their Minds” is when Judas asks, “Listen, Jesus, do you care for your race?” This question stuck with me because it is a harsh and bold one that almost reveals Judas doubt in his friend. This film and song will be debated for years to come, but the motives and actions displayed can be looked at in several ways.

Personally, Jesus Christ Superstar is one of my favorite musicals. I think the interpretation is fascinating not excluding the fact that the music is an incredibly moving rock-opera. The role of Mary Magdelene receives quite a bit of criticism because of the implied romantic relationship between her and Jesus. I actually think that it humanizes Jesus and makes Mary Magdelene very relatable. Also the role of Judas as a radical and also a close friend of Jesus is particularly moving. He is painted as having such a strong love for Jesus that he gives his all to protecting him until he is pushed too far and is too hurt by Jesus’ willingness to put the Jewish people in a position of danger. It paints Judas as both protagonist and villain all within the same story.

Over Spring Break, I visited New York City for the first time in my life. It was an unforgettable experience in a city that has so much life to offer. A city that is incomparable to any other. When I returned from my trip, my family flooded me with questions and frequently asked me to show them pictures of my encounter. The first picture and video that I always seemed to show them was of the bands that were playing throughout the Subway in the city. The chaotic environment of fast-moving trains and business people rushing to work seems to be the perfect place for music artists searching for their spot. Not a spot that relies on the dollar tips and quarters they receive for a good tune, but a spot for people to listen. With the busy schedule I had ahead of site seeing and basketball watching, I could not help myself to listen to the music and just enjoy it each day before I rode the Subway. The music seemed to flow throughout the whole underground building and people stayed to watch for a few minutes or some a few hours. The band that I particularly enjoyed utilized chanting in their music and told me they were all from Africa. Their dress attire was interesting to me and displayed the culture that their music embraced. The Subway offers so much to New York City, but the music is an experience that one cannot forget.

Romance has many different contexts, and they each have different music. We talked about different settings for romance, such as in the story of Samson and Delilah, and why different poetry like this would be included into the Bible. The media has made us associate certain instruments such as guitar and saxophone with romantic music, but that is more candle-lit dinner type whereas a big string symphony would be more of a Romeo and  Juliet type deal.

We also discussed different music making apps and websites that we could use for the final project, and I took some time to play around with a few different ones that should prove useful in this assignment.

We started class discussing the different apps we can use to create our final project. This really helped me because the only app I knew of was Garage Band. I am trying to learn more about Garage Band but I am also interested in using autochords.com. I think that that website would be very helpful in creating music for our final project.

Then we started talking about Samson and Delilah. I have heard of them before but I could not recall the story. As we listened to some music I recalled the story. The story is about strength and love. We discussed other romantic songs and poems in the bible. In this time period they seem very strange and weird. For example comparing a woman’s teeth to the whiteness of sheep wool or her hair to goats. If that were in a romantic poem now, I am pretty sure the girl would not be impressed, but back then I am sure it was a lovely compliment.

My biggest hang up with most music applications is that they really don’t have the ability to produce dynamics. Dynamics add the emotional aspect to music and without it music has a rather academic and uninteresting sound. In the past I have used a music editing app called “Audacity” which works more with music mixing instead of composing but it is interesting to think about all the ways you can take already existing songs, beats, or melodies give them a different application. As we saw in class this has been done with lots of psalms resetting them to popular music.

In class today, we started off by discussing more apps or tools for our final project that we found. Some that were suggested by my peers were autochords.com, Medly, and Mixcraft. These were in addition to the other ones from last class. To be honest, I am really nervous for the final project because I am not musically or artistically inclined at all. I am more of a pen and paper take a test or write a paper kind of person rather than something so out of my boundaries, like making music. I am dreading this project, but I think I can find a way to do it well.

The Romantic Era started with Beethoven. This whole era was about emotion over form. Everyone wanted to play on people’s emotion rather than sound “professional” or “classical.” The instruments that the class said were used a lot in romantic music were the saxophone, violin, piano, and acoustic guitar. The Song of Songs was something we discussed a lot. It is also referred to as the Song of Solomon. It has a lot of love poetry (Professor McGrath also called it erotic poetry, which was true when we looked at the poem). It doesn’t sound like a conventional poem or something a woman would really want to receive. Then again, words and music are up to personal taste. We also defined an allegory which is the use of a commonly known thing to relate another topic to. The love theme uses romantic era music, called leit motif, which is like a character’s theme, for example Darth Vader’s. This was ominous and daunting to listen to and picture, even though I have never personally watched the Star Wars movies, you can tell a lot from someone’s theme song. In Samson and Delilah, of the many versions we listened to, they all have the same lyrics which are just portrayed differently from one another.

In class on March 5, we discussed creation a lot. Not only within the Bible, but also within our own musical project. Music for the creation would be described as happy, light, soft, mystical, uplifting, and with a powerful build-up. “Creatio ex nihilo” means creation out of nothing. This was interesting to learn because I personally am not very good with roots and other languages besides English and Spanish, haha. The Tiamat was comparable to a hydra in the Enuma Elish. I remember reading Percy Jackson books when I was younger and the hydra was a monster in Greek mythology. This was always a big monster with many heads that kept regenerating, even if the head was severed. I always thought they were one of the stronger monsters in the series, as they have an immortal capability.

For our project, we dove deeper into how we can create our projects. We said that plagiarism is associated with originality, you cannot copy chords but you can use the same words if you change it up and make them your own. If the order or meaning is different, it is okay. Improvisation uses familiar chords to make something new. A few resources we discussed was Auxy, GarageBand, and apronus.com. These will be very helpful in creating my final project.

Today in class we talked a little bit about our upcoming project, which requires us to create our own music and/or song. In class it was said we could either create music using some kind of app, such as garageband or autochord or medley, or possibly write the lyrics to an original song. I’m not sure which scares me more honestly. I’ve never created any kind of music and had to check to see if I even had garageband on my laptop. Listening to old romantic songs was interesting. While in modern times I’m not sure many women would want their hair and teeth compared to sheep, when you think of it in context, during a time when there weren’t many things for comparison, it is kind of nice that someone would take the time to think of such a simile. Also, I did not know that Anakin grows up to be Darth Vader! I thought it was very telling how much attention and detail the creator put into something as small as the character’s themes. That kind of detail and intricacy is why the star wars franchise is so big.

The first talking point in class today was over the topic of the beginning of the Romantic period in music. This era came after classical music and Beethoven marked the shift of conveying emotion in music. We discussed the truth about how music always is connected with emotion and people use this emotion to display their inner feelings. Following this conversation, we listened to “Dark I am Yet Lovely” by an Irish singer named Sinead O’Connor. O’Connor’s song has reference to biblical words and stories from the bible.

Romantic music has been popular since it has been created, one large part due to people’s basic need for love and the metaphors/allegories that are included. In “Song of Songs,” I found it that it is also known as “Song of Solomon.” This piece of music also displays love poetry. One key factor you have to consider when listening to romantic music is that it differs throughout cultures and the interpretations from the listeners. It definitely can change with the time frame of the composing music too. For example, in “Song of Songs” there is a line that says, “Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing.” Who would say this to their girlfriend now? Nobody. Although “Song of Songs” produced plenty of imagery, modern audiences may depict the words different. The last interesting part of this piece was how they have two speakers and it is evident when it changes. Many older texts and songs in Hebrews that embraced love had more than one speaker.