The Bible and Music

Yesterday, we discussed the final project and the expectations for what we need to turn in. I am still a bit confused on where to even start and I think that is because I am not that familiar with stories in the Bible. Although I went to church when I was younger, my mother never required us to read the Bible so I only know little things the pastor would discuss during the sermon. I was always into children’s books so I think I want to start there and find Bible stories and then try to fit them into some of my favorite songs and see what I end up with. It scares me to think about this project because I don’t want to do it completely wrong. I winder how this is going to go, we shall see!

I finally found a song that I jumped right into the lyrics and had a connection to the Bible right away. It was not intentional because I was just laying in my bed listening to music. I knew I wanted a song that was in a genre that I admired and from an artist that had my respect. I chose “Blessings” by Chance the Rapper because it already had a biblical foundation, even though I plan to alter nearly all the words in the lyrics. The Bible story that I picked is from Psalm 107 and the central message is thankfulness after being in the darkness, which is one of the messages in Chance the Rapper’s song. I have already began modifying the lyrics and looking at the sheet music to find the most ideal beat and where the emphasis should go on the words. Hopefully I can keep rolling with it!

In class today we discussed our final project. I have not started anything on this yet, as it is so terrifying to me that I am just trying to push it off until I have to face it. Anyways, I think I will end up putting an existing song with the words from the Bible. I have no musical experience and have never been in a church before, that is how foreign religion is to me. I will do my best and I hope the results shock me in a good way 🙂 Paraphrasing the Bible into smaller chunks, the fact we do not have to actually sing, and turning Biblical texts into song lyrics are some things we discussed which will make this whole thing much easier for me (at least I am hoping).

After completing the scavenger hunt last week, it astounded me how many songs have Biblical allusions.  Popular songs that I listen to every day and had never noticed before.  This class has really made me realize how many Biblical references and allusions are involved in everything around us, everything we hear, everything we listen to.  It’s truly incredible.

Today’s class, was very helpful. We went over the due dates and guidelines for the final. We also were able to ask questions about what we were wondering about and wanted to know more about. I found this very beneficial, because I was a bit unclear before today. This class, also made me feel confident that I am the right track, for the final and am ahead of the game. I feel much better after today. We then got out early!

Today in class, we spent the majority of our time together discussing the requirements and make up of the final projects that are due in a few weeks. Some people have not started and some are already finished. I am in the boat where I am still brainstorming final ideas. In the beginning, I downloaded GarageBand and attempted to play with the app to create my own melody. With my lack of experience and background in writing and playing music, I decided to take the route of changing the lyrics of an existing song to a biblical story. I am glad we talked about the final project today because I had some questions about what we needed to do and suggestions aided me. I am anxious and also excited to see my final project. I am not confident that my work will be appreciated, but it is more about enjoying the process and learning from the outcome.

Not gonna lie, I’m not feeling too good about this final project. Considering I have no attachment to Christianity and no musical inclination, it seems the odds are working against me. Talking in class today definitely helped me to begin to think about what will be included in my project. I’m thinking of going with the creation story, as it is the story I know the best of the Bible. I found it interesting was Prof. McGrath said about the musical artist Hopsin and the way he alluded to the creation story in his work. I may end up alluding to his music and relate my personal feelings on religion with what he says.

I wrapped up my piano lessons with my roommate this week and am glad I chose to expand my comfort zone to try something new. I am not capable of playing a wide variety of instruments, actually not any instruments prior to these lessons. We had around six or seven informal lessons and reflecting back on the process has been interesting. It was frustrating at times when I was learning the skills to read music notes and learn the keys for the piano. There were several mistakes and questions along the way! I am not an expert by any means at playing the guitar now, however I can play a few simple songs. I recorded each lesson in a Word document that acted like my journal and my progress made was noticeable.

Yesterday, we discussed our scavenger hunt findings. I was a little worried that there wouldn’t be anyone that knew the music I had chose, but there were people that had some of the same songs. It was interesting to see how much in common that I have with some of my classmates because we do listen to the same types of music. I loved hearing about the different songs that have biblical allusions, I think this has been one of my favorite discussions in class so far. I was shocked to hear that even some songs that I had chosen there was more than one allusion that I hadn’t paid any attention to. For some reason, I spent a lot of time even after class yesterday looking for more music and I can’t wait to post more of those to the blog and see if other people knew about any of them. Artists that I wouldn’t even think knew about or read the Bible had biblical allusions in their music and I was completely shocked. This was a great project!

In class today we listened to some of the songs we found for the allusion scavenger hunt. We discussed the multiple layers of the songs and how some songs have more than one allusion. We talked about possibly researching some of the allusions and writing a paper about it. Some of the songs contrasted with the Bible story. For example, the song we listened to in class “Samson”. In the song it said that Samson and Delilah were not mentioned in the Bible, but obviously they were or we would not be able to find the allusion for class.

I had found one or two of the songs myself, but it was very interesting being introduced to new songs and new artists. I was surprised by some of the songs I did know and their allusions because I did not realize them at all. For example the Coldplay song we discussed and “We Are the World”.