Musical Object Lesson Part Two
Scroll down to part one if you haven't read it yet, or if you don't feel like it I'll just recapitulate. My basic problem was I wanted to figure out what it was about certain songs that I liked and songs that I didn't like, for the purpose of shortening the period of time it takes me to decide if I like the artist singing the song enough to invest $14.00 on a cd. I found the solution when I noticed unity in the people who wrote the songs.
So it was that My friend Todd and I went to see "Oh Boy!", a local Jazz/Funk/Prog trio that we are friends with. Now I had seen them play once before at an open mic night and they played a few jazz standards I believe, but this time they played all originals and I was actually impressed with the compositions. Nothing incredible but very enjoyable. Now, the previous evening I played the album Dog By Mike Keneally for Todd and he flipped out over it, and since Oh Boy and some of Mike Keneally's stuff kinda sound similar he said something to the effect of, "I liked their set but there is something missing that Mike Keneally had."
"Mike Keneally is a genius," I said without missing a beat. I went on to explain that he was making the same mistake that I used to. He was simply looking at the art and not the artist.
On my way home that night, a thought popped into my head "Isn't it just like us humans to focus on the creation and not the Creator?" Just like St. Paul said, "...They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator..." Rom; 1,25, ESV.
And then I realized something else. Ever since Nietzsche declared "God is dead" men have tried to make gods of themselves to larger degree than ever before in the history of mankind. This, I believe, has had two major effects that are relevant the subject at hand. One, since we were no longer obligated to follow any divine mandate, that nonsensical statement "You can be anything you want to be when you grow up," began to corrupt the minds of children that would grow up to write some of the worse songs of all time. Two, since life had no ultimate value and things only had the value we attach to them, there was no such thing as a bad song it was just a song that you don't like.
There is some-other stuff about this I wanted to say but I forgot what it was because I'm not a professional writer or philosopher. I never even went to college!(except for one semester). But it'll come back to me and I'll try to write it down so I don't forget it again.
So it was that My friend Todd and I went to see "Oh Boy!", a local Jazz/Funk/Prog trio that we are friends with. Now I had seen them play once before at an open mic night and they played a few jazz standards I believe, but this time they played all originals and I was actually impressed with the compositions. Nothing incredible but very enjoyable. Now, the previous evening I played the album Dog By Mike Keneally for Todd and he flipped out over it, and since Oh Boy and some of Mike Keneally's stuff kinda sound similar he said something to the effect of, "I liked their set but there is something missing that Mike Keneally had."
"Mike Keneally is a genius," I said without missing a beat. I went on to explain that he was making the same mistake that I used to. He was simply looking at the art and not the artist.
On my way home that night, a thought popped into my head "Isn't it just like us humans to focus on the creation and not the Creator?" Just like St. Paul said, "...They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator..." Rom; 1,25, ESV.
And then I realized something else. Ever since Nietzsche declared "God is dead" men have tried to make gods of themselves to larger degree than ever before in the history of mankind. This, I believe, has had two major effects that are relevant the subject at hand. One, since we were no longer obligated to follow any divine mandate, that nonsensical statement "You can be anything you want to be when you grow up," began to corrupt the minds of children that would grow up to write some of the worse songs of all time. Two, since life had no ultimate value and things only had the value we attach to them, there was no such thing as a bad song it was just a song that you don't like.
There is some-other stuff about this I wanted to say but I forgot what it was because I'm not a professional writer or philosopher. I never even went to college!(except for one semester). But it'll come back to me and I'll try to write it down so I don't forget it again.
posted by Geoff at 9:40 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home