Author: rtompos

Over the weekend, I realized I was listening to a religious song that came on the radio, called “Faith” by Kendrick Lamar. He continuously raps about his struggles with alcoholism and trying to find his purpose, and tells a story about him talking to God. I thought about this class when I heard it and… Continue reading Religious song

An allusion, by definition, is an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference. It is meant for a stimulating experience to its viewers when they make the correlation with what the piece is referencing. Smart artists put them in their lyrics and artworks all the time.

Tonality in music is the guideline of getting sorted out melodic pieces around a focal note, the tonic. For the most part, any Western or non-Western music occasionally gets back to a focal, or central, a tone that displays resonance (tonality). All the more explicitly, tonality alludes to the specific arrangement of connections between notes,… Continue reading Tonality

We have talked multiple times about how much music is affiliated with the Bible, it is pretty much our entire class. I was curious to see exactly how much music was actually in the Bile, so I looked it up, and a surprising 43% of the Bible is solely music. A fact that is very… Continue reading How much of the Bible is actually music?

Arnold Schoenberg’s Jakobsleiter is a work that we looked at in class about his wrestle with humanity, religion, himself, and finding meaning. The music correlated with his store in a way that made it seem like a never-ending battle between him and these interesting theories and ideologies that he was battling with. The song was… Continue reading Jakobsleiter

Today we talked about how musical creation, whether amazing or poorly constructed, is worth it because what is important is that we are being creative. It is more important to step out of our comfort zone, and maybe even do something embarrassing, than stay in our comfort zone and never try. What we realize is… Continue reading Musical Creation

It is interesting to think that we would purposefully create a lack of harmony among musical notes, but we do it in order to create a feeling and emotion attached to the song. Composers also use it in music to create a sense of urgency. Dissonance can be used to create a deeply moving piece… Continue reading Dissonance in music

In class today we watched a couple different clips of the crucifixion of Jesus, and it was interesting to see how unique each of them was and to also think about how unique each of our own perceptions of the events that unfolded is. We all interpret the events that happened differently in our own… Continue reading Perception vs. Reality

We talked about how meaningful the death of Jesus is, but how the actual significance of it isn’t actually clearly interpreted in the Bible. So why does one of the most, if not the most, events in the history of Christianity not have a clear interpretation? We know that Jesus died for our sins, but… Continue reading The meaning behind the death of Jesus

Prophecy basically means the foreknowledge of future events, though it may sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memory, and to present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of reason. A prophecy is a message that is delivered by a prophet, that usually involves some kind of revelation… Continue reading Prophecy in the Bible