Up From Below: On non-Orthodox Music

[Justin2]

They should do a charity fundraiser, buy a bunch of them, and air drop multiple copies on the next outdoor concert at The Gorge! :mrgreen:

[Justin2]

I must admit, I'd read the first draft, I think, so this time I mostly skimmed over the writing. However, the points were well taken, and I'd like to print it out and keep a copy, to highlight key points. This sort of thing is extremely important to me, coming from a very punk-rock/subculture background. I went through a lot of my music last week, deciding what to discard and what to keep, and I found that some of it was actually very edifying, and put my spirit in a positive, upward direction, even if it was little fast and loud :mrgreen: A lot of it, though, I came to understand as very negative and soul-destroying, and I've decided to cast it away. Oh, and the part about "you probably won't turn into a pillar of salt..." was very funny, and I apologize if it wasn't meant to be. I think that the word "probably" added a sweet hint of how we must all be vigilant. Now, if I could just be vigilant, heheheh...

[Elijah]

I had this question answered a little bit ago. I simply talked to my spiritual father about it. He said that I shouldn't listen to any music besides classical and Orthodox church music. This is because the lyrics in the music of today have so many bad undertones. Even if you don't think you can hear something bad there very well might be and it is imbedding itself into your sub consciousness every time you listen to it. And think about it....Most if not all of the modern music artists out there are singing of sadness and the passions. What you are hearing is the screaming out of a lost soul. Do you really want that in your head, and in your soul?

[??????]

As a songwriter and performer of secular music I would like to say that the rough draft was good, however, you should not forget that not all secular music is bad (the rough draft did mention that). A lot of the music, like mine, is written from the heart, from personal experiences, and should be treated as such. I think that a lot of people listen to music, and make up meanings for it that were never supposed to be there in the first place. I am not saying that there is no satanic music because everyone knows there is, however, not all music is like that, and personally, I don't think that even the majority is like that.
Just a question to you guys, what do you think of Christian Rock? personally, I don't like the fact that there are bands that come out and pray through rock music. I think that making prayers into a festival is incorrect. Please tell me what you think.
Andrey

[Natasha]

I have to agree, "Christian Rock" does not sit well with me. I think it is inappropriate.

Also, we should not forget that classical music also has the same range of emotion (sadness/passion) that other more "modern secular music " has...for that matter, great literature also has similar themes...however, I personally don't think the answer is to narrow your choices to one or another...I think you can be a good Orthodox Christian and still participate in such worldly things..

[Julianna]

Dear Sister Ioanna,

In reading your last letter again, I see that you asked me a question that I have not answered. I shall try to do that now. If you notice that I do not answer questions, please do not think I despise the question - it is simply because in my weakness I have nothing useful to say!

You asked what I think is the distinction between greater art and lesser art, the distinction which Elder Nectarius of Optina hints at. I have thought a lot about this fascinating question over the years, and I cannot pretend to have come to any certain conclusion. But, for what they are worth, these are my thoughts.

I think art can be good in two ways: either as being a very exact expression of the emotional thoughts of the artist's mind, whether the content itself is good or bad, profound or superficial; or because the content itself is good rather than bad, profound rather than superficial. The two ways are linked, because if an artist does not succeed in expressing the content of his mind, we shall never know whether that content was good or bad. But if the expression is successful, then we can begin to judge whether what it expresses is also good. Moreover, exact expression has a moral value in itself, because it is telling the truth about oneself, and the process of expressing an emotion changes that emotion itself, in a sense transfiguring it. For example: if I feel angry, and then write a poem about my anger, the process of trying to analyze and express my anger in words actually changes the nature of that anger, masters or controls it in a certain sense. As Shakespeare put it in Sonnet 77 :

Look what thy memory cannot contain

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain,

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

In this sense the process of artistic creation is a little like the confession of sins. Only in confession we do not not simply express or control our sins; confession is not just psychotherapy. We also sorrow over them and judge them in the sight of God, so that He may destroy them and therefore change the content of our souls.

All good art must be the exact, truthful expression of a content; there must be no insincerity or mauvaise foi . But if the content is trivial, then the art is can be no more than good - good, but trivial. Good art becomes great if the content is deep or complex, and therefore the effort to express it accurately is great.

Sometimes the content is so powerful or obscure as to break the bonds of the artistic medium, as it were, which decreases its value as art, for the form must be adequate to the content to produce beauty. Sometimes, on the other hand, the expression is accurate, and the content is deep, but that content is satanic .

As an example, let us take the operas of Wagner, or Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring . Great art, pure genius - but extremely dangerous spiritually. Speaking, of course, very schematically, we could say that Wagner is Nazism in music (which is why Hitler loved it so), just as The Rite of Spring is Bolshevism in music. (Lenin's favourite music was Beethoven's Appassionata sonata. But he thought it was not useful, because it made one want to stroke people's heads!)

I think much of modern pop music is also satanic in origin. Fortunately, however, it is also bad art, so it has less influence on those who love good art - which is one very good reason for educating people in good art. However, bad art of this kind can still influence people at a subconscious level, because it introduces the demons. We are seeing terrifying examples of this in the West today.

I remember the story of an American missionary in Africa whose children played pop music with the window open. Soon the local witch doctor visited the missionary and asked him: "I did not know that you had renounced your God, Christ." "But I haven't." "But the music you are playing is the music we use to call up our gods..." The missionary immediately went and destroyed the records his children were playing.

Sometimes even the most "spiritual" of music can be corrupting. Take, for example, Mozart's Requiem . Everyone agrees that this is great, profound music. But the emotion it conveys, to my ear, is that of a lost soul facing death and hell - and Mozart died while composing it. We know that Mozart did not live a good life, and that his last opera, The Magic Flute , which was composed just before his Requiem , was actually a Masonic opera. So he had good reason to fear death and what awaited him after death. So the emotion is deep, and the expression of it perfect, as we would expect from such a master. But is it good for our souls to experience feelings of despair, even if they are artistically controlled and mastered?

Another composer who used exactly Mozart's musical language, and was just as capable of expressing tragic emotion, was Haydn. But he always managed to transfigure his music with hope. And Beethoven, who in his last sonatas and quartets went still deeper into tragic feelings, also always managed to lift the soul of the listener rather than drag it down...

All this, of course, is still in the realm of the soul, not of the spirit, of grace . I do not know whether any western classical music can be said to be truly grace-filled. Handel claimed that his Messiah was dictated under the direct inspiration of God, and in England it has always been the custom to listen to the last "Alleluia" chorus standing up . But when we come to true Orthodox music we enter a different, higher sphere.

I remember my first Pascha in the True Church. The music was Russian, not Byzantine, and so Byzantinists might say that it was not the pure music of Holy Tradition (although by no means all Russian Church music is operatic). Nevertheless, I have no doubt at all that it was inspired by God , and God was in the music. The music of Orthodoxy - and the words of Orthodoxy, too, as in the marvellous canons of St. John of Damascus - induces a feeling which no other music can induce - a feeling of quiet, joyful contrition .

Also, it unites one with everyone else in the church in a way that never happens in the concert-hall. In the concert-hall, you may be deeply moved, and your neighbour may be moved, too, so that you both communicate in a certain sense with the soul of the composer. But the communication with the composer is one-way; and you do not communicate with other listeners. Orthodox art, however, is much more than one-way communication; it is living communion , making the hearts of the listeners one both with each other and with the Divine Composer. That is why Orthodox music can have such a profound therapeutic effect. We remember, for example, how David

[Valentina]

I heard of this book. I really wanted to read it and by the sounds of it, it seems really interesting. I am too trying to have a change in my listening. I am starting to love classical music more but I still tend to listen to 70s and 80s rock and 50s and 60s "rock n roll." Does anyone know where I could order this book..whether form a monastery or something? I am putting an order to the Glorious Ascension Monastery because I am buying some books from there but maybe they do have that book, and I just missed it. Can anyone else recommend and more good Orthodox youth books or just any Orthodox book? Thank you!

God Bless