"What
do
you
believe is the spiritual significance of music?" Guitar Jams Faith and Worship Index PB's Metal Music I wrote the following article for the book THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MUSIC The myspace page for the book is HERE I grew up as a teenager in the 1980s—you know, the BIG hair, spandex, guitar-god… and oh yeah, the “secular vs. Christian” days. If you were around back then, you remember all the hoopla that was made about “backward masking”. And there were all these groups that were very critical of anything that sounded or looked “like the secular world”. They would say things like, “Hey, I know this group exalts Jesus, and people seem to be encouraged, and even drawn toward a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, but darn it, they have long hair…” or “…their music has that rock beat” Crazy eh? I don’t know… there could be something to it. I mean, I’m not saying it’s time to chuck your metal cd collection… not at all! Crank it up buddy! Rock for the ROCK! Bang your head for Jesus! I’m all over that. However, those critics of the late 70s and 80s were right in recognizing that music has a spiritual dimension to it. Music absolutely affects our spirit. Remember the story of David playing his harp before King Saul? 1 Samuel 16:23 says, “Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” Something spiritual is definitely going on there! And then, check this story out. It’s taken from the article “The Spiritual Significance of Music” by Dr. Pam Blosser. It’s about Monks, and Gregorian Chants. Dr. Blosser writes, “Several years ago, in response to Vatican Two, a Benedictine monastery in France stopped its practice of Gregorian chant. The six to eight hours of chanting could be replaced with other activities, they thought. A period of time passed and the monks became lethargic. Upon noticing this, they had a meeting to try to identify the cause of their fatigue and propose a remedy. They decided to go to bed earlier. This change only brought additional weariness to the monks. They invited a nutritionist who upon investigating their diet declared, ‘These men are starving. They need more food.’ So the monks abandoned their vegetarian diet. As a result they became even more lethargic. Their life was becoming more and more like the life of those living outside the monastery. Dr. Alfred Tomatus, a French neurolinguist, was asked for his expert opinion. After investigating the lifestyle of the monks and examining them, his prognosis was to reinstate the chanting. As soon as chanting was reinstated, the monks revived and became more alert. As a result the monks were able to go back to their former monastic practices. What Dr. Tomatus discovered as a result of researching the effect chanting had on the well-being of the monks was that there are certain frequencies within sounds that recharge the brain. When we hear a sound it’s not just one vibration or tone. It’s many many different vibrations. The collection of these combined vibrations is what creates the richness of the sound. Scientifically these vibrations are called overtones or harmonics. The overtones are not usually recognizable to the human consciousness. What Dr. Tomatus discovered is that the higher frequencies are the ones that feed the brain energy. The human voice is rich in these overtones. That’s one reason why it is healthy to sing. My choir director in high school once told us at a class reunion, “Your math teachers don’t know what it’s like to have this wash of music flowing over you all day long.” I believe that it was not only the beauty of the human voice and the music selected that he was referring to but these overtones that recharged his brain during the day, leaving him refreshed rather than drained.” Man, I just think that’s very cool. God designed us. He created our brains, our ears, and our spirits… all of it. And he created all of it in such a way that “vibrations” could enter our physical ears and have an impact on our spirit. Wow! What an awesome God we serve. So, music in general, has a spiritual dimension and power to it. But beyond that, I truly believe that the spirit of the artist creating the music has a greatest impact on the overall affect it carries. This is a very subjective thing, and it’s really difficult to put into words, but generally speaking—dark hearts produce dark music and vise versa. Hearts that are filled with God’s grace and love produce music that reflect that. It’s amazing to me—especially in the genre of music I’m most familiar with—metal-- how there are only a handful of chords and scales that most artists use. Whether they love Jesus or not—metal artists use the same power chords and scales to produce their music. And vocalists use the vocal chords they have (that are neither secular or sacred) to belt out the vocal parts. There’s nothing inherently good or evil about any of that. What makes the difference is the faith (or lack thereof), the spirit and the attitude out of which the music is produced. And of course, the lyrics will reflect those things as well. So music is a powerful tool. It’s an awesome gift of God—one that without question possesses spiritual power. My hope and prayer is that every note I play and sing will bless those who listen, and bring glory and honor and praise to our great God! Blessings, pb |
