The 2 rules I gave my children

Because it has become a topic of interest once again amongst all the young parents that I find in my life right now, I will recapitulate the two rules that my children where taught from their infancy. If you ask them, "What are the rules?", they will reply...

Rule number one is: "I will support you in whatever you want to do as long as you don't become a politician."

I am more convinced than ever that this was a good rule for my children. You have to sell your soul to the devil to be a politician in today's world. As it turns out, rule number two concerns a similar theme.

Rule number two is: "If you play the banjo and the accordion at the same time, it will conjure up the devil."

So really, the rules have always been about protecting my children from the devil. He is lurking in both political and musical form, so we need to stay vigilant and train our children in a similar manner.

In response to Bob Woody

The internets are all worth it if I get to interact with such a fertile mind as the one Bob Woody carries around in his skull. You can read his response to my last post here. Let me say a few things in reply.

I am certainly not opposed to technique in any sense. In fact, I try to bathe fairly regularly. I do take breaks quite often when doing creative work, except when I don't. My problem happens when we slip from observing the creative process to prescribing the creative process. I have no problem with telling a student to take a bath. It might very well work. It might just as well not work. To suggest that we have a formula is my big issue. It would be like saying that since Martin Luther had his biggest spiritual revelation on the toilet that we suggest that going to the bathroom is a proven technique for spiritual enlightenment.

I would also suggest that not as many researchers have the same sense of humility as Dr. Woody. There is certainly a problem in the way the media reports research compared to what the researcher actually says. I have a close friend who is a structural biologist. He does research on protein that relates to Parkinsons disease. When some press came out about his research, he had people calling him on the phone for a cure. I think that too often observational research on creativity becomes the same sort of thing. People look to it for a cure instead of a record. I think we can be informed by that record and should be, but it is not a cure. I also know that many researchers move toward subjects that get media attention because it gets grant money. When Bob suggests that "Any researchers worth their salt are careful not to overgeneralize or oversimplify their studies’ findings", I think he is a little more generous than he should be. That is exactly what many researchers do in order to get funding and media attention.

Ultimately, I do not disagree with any of Bob's comments. I think we are probably coming up against fundamental disagreements about epistemology. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It may be the very thing that makes me a composer and Dr. Woody a scholar. Since I tend to be a very committed anti-rationalist in epistemological matters, I tend to value wonder over scepticism. Wonder is awfully hard to measure. It's also harder to talk about than concrete things like taking a bath. So, the Ionesco in me wants to respond by asking: How long does the bath need to be? Do I need to use a certain kind of soap? Also, should I wash my hair first or last?

We really need to measure all of these things and find which kind of bath works best. Then I can make sure to take that kind of bath in the middle of my next blog post. Think of how much more insightful and creative I will be!

Creativity explained...Eureka!

Tonight, I listened to Jonah Lehrer speak about his book Imagine. It is another in an increasingly popular genre of literature that seeks to explain “creativity” to some degree or other. If you don’t already know the story, here is the Wikipedia entry on Eureka.

“This exclamation is most famously attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. He reportedly proclaimed "Eureka!" when he stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose—he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. This relation is known as Archimedes' principle. He then realized that the volume of irregular objects could be measured with precision, a previously intractable problem. He is said to have been so eager to share his discovery that he leapt out of his bathtub and ran through the streets of Syracuse naked.”

So, the reasoning in every creativity book or article I’ve read goes something like this: Archimedes couldn’t figure out the problem, so he took a bath. The conclusion is simple. If you relax, you’ll be more creative. Also, you have to not relax sometimes, but you have to relax too. If you can relax and not relax at the same time, then you’ll really be creative.

In fact, people who work to explain creativity, often run into contradictions. Mr. Lehrer, in the course of just over 30 minutes on the radio, explained that 3M employees came up with insights because they took breaks to play ping-pong and that W.H. Auden wrote great poems because he took amphetamines and was able to concentrate for long periods of time. So, while you’re relaxing and not relaxing, be sure to concentrate and take lots of breaks from concentrating.

The contradictions happen because the category is wrong. In Classic, Romantic, and Modern, Jacques Barzun explodes the old scholarship on Romanticism in much the same way. If you pick any characteristic that is supposedly “Romantic”, it is fairly easy to find one of the paragons of Romanticism that doesn’t follow the characteristic. The only way to tackle the problem is to look at the specific output in its entirety instead of approaching the genre with preconceived characteristics.

In other words, take any specific technique that someone uses in his/her creative work, and I will guarantee you that I can find a prominent creative artist who does just the opposite. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk about this stuff. I’m just saying that you can’t bottle it and sell it. My good friend Guy Trainin said to me once when we were discussing the subject, “I think I might be able to measure it, but it is so discipline specific that I’m not sure it would be transferable in any way to another subject.” That may be the best way to think about it.

The results that Mr. Lehrer and his ilk get will always be contradictory because people are contradictory. Techniques are good and useful, but they don’t always work. This is why sometimes you have to play ping-pong and sometimes you have to take the amphetamines. Each artistic problem demands our whole self, and are whole self is not reducible to techniques.

I bet if Mr. Lehrer had me on his MRI, he could tell me which part of my brain I was turning off and on to write this. In the meanwhile, I’m writing some lovely 8 part counterpoint. I’m going to try to do it using all the good parts of my brain and not the ones that I’m not supposed to use.

The Thing: a cautionary tale

On the morning of the first day, I awoke to a slight discomfort. It was just the slightest sensation that the family jewels may have been bumped around a little. On the morning of the second day, the pain had managed a crescendo to a relatively stable mezzo piano. I began to suspect that the boys in the basement might have been in a scuffle. On the morning of the third day, I awoke to an entire symphony of pain. It felt like someone had tightened a vice grip onto my left nut – or at least what I imagine that such a thing would feel like. I was beginning to have difficulty walking in a proper fashion. I thought to myself, "I should like to die rather than limp around with a vice grip on my left testicle. I’m calling the urologist.”

I walked - or rather - waddled into the office and signed in. I gingerly placed my aching gonads in a chair, and glanced around. The waiting room was full of old men who were clearly having problems with erectile dysfunction. Their wives stared back at me with pity. The empathy in their eyes was palpable. Their faces all said, “He’s so young, and he’s already having problems. How sad.”

After waiting in pain for thirty minutes, a nurse called me back to a room, but the room wasn’t empty. When she discovered her error, she turned to me and said, “Wait in here.” She opened a door that led to a small closet that had been converted into a waiting area. The closet had a chair and a desk that was full of pamphlets on erectile dysfunction. I sat at the desk and waited for another twenty minutes. Having nothing to do, I began to peruse the pamphlets.

I looked in vain for a pamphlet entitled, “What to do if you have a vice grip on your left nut.” Not finding it, I began reading, “What to do when your soldier is no longer able to stand and salute properly.” I found that a considerable amount of ingenuity and resourcefulness has been given to the issue. There are a cornucopia of cures for appendage problems. Modern day DaVinci’s have developed all manner of medicines and machinations for lethargic erectile tissue.
One solution proposed a reverse balloon technology whereby a device was used to create a vacuum. As soon as the balloon was filled, you had to tie it off with a special piece of elastic that your doctor could prescribe. The cure that really fascinated me was the pump. Two balloon devices could be inserted down each side of your member. These were connected to a valve and a little "testicle" device that you could squeeze. When the “third testicle” was compressed, fluid would fill the two empty balloons and provide instantaneous results. The valve could then be switched to the “off” position, and the fluid would rush back to its poly-orchid home. I attempted to maintain an air of scholarly disinterestedness when the nurse found me engrossed in the pamphlet. I’m not sure that it fooled her. She was simply added to the list of wives in the waiting room who felt pity for the young man with problems so early in life.

When meeting a urologist, I always want to have a clear plan of attack. We both know that we are getting ready to do something intimate, but I’m never sure who is supposed to make the first move. There is a brief period of courtship, but it always smacks of dishonesty. He makes a little small talk, but I know he’s just trying to get me to drop my pants. The signal for the end of the courtship is when he moves to the short little stool that all urologists have. The stool always makes me uncomfortable. This time, he went for the stool early. “Wait!” I thought, “You just learned my name, and your already going to do that! How about a little chat first?” My mind was racing. I tried to act calm. “Make small talk,” I thought. “Talk about something he likes to talk about.”

As he began to roll toward me, I blurted out,

“So, I’ve been reading your pamphlets on erectile dysfunction.”

“Are you having problems?”

“No, no. I was just in the closet. I was waiting for a room, and there was nothing else to read.”

“Oh. Drop your pants for me.”

My pants hit the floor like a four year old had grabbed them and shanked me in an Albertsons grocery store.

“I was particularly fascinated by that pump thing.” I said, “Does it all really go on the inside?”

To my horror, my small talk plan completely backfired. The good doctor, finding a subject upon which he was well versed, began to explain the whole procedure.

“Well, first we insert two balloons here along the shaft of the penis.”
I looked down to see him indicating the insertion points on my body with his fingers!
“Next we place the valve here.”
He actually moved my junk around and used his other hand to point out the location of the valve. He then continued to describe the entire operation in great detail by pointing out all the various parts of my body.
All the while my brain was screaming, “I WANT YOU TO USE YOUR WORDS! DON’T USE YOUR HANDS TO EXPLAIN IT! USE YOUR WORDS!”

“But all this is really a last resort for people who can’t make anything else work. Are you having problems?”

“NO! I’m not having those kinds of problems! I just feel like there’s a vice grip tightened down on my left nut!”

“Let’s check you out.”

He formed his hands into a cupped shape and felt around while I became suddenly fascinated with the whiteness of the walls.

“You’ve definitely got something going on back there,” he said.

“Great,” I thought. “I had to go to the doctor to learn that.”

“Let’s get you up on the table and take a look,” he said.

I climbed into a chair that was not unlike the stirrup chairs that ob/gyn doctors use. He whipped out a disposable razor and started dry shaving me. Normally, I would expect an announcement or a request for permission before a shave, but urologists tend to have few hang-ups about social mores. A quick gel application later, and I was experiencing my first sonogram. I had witnessed others getting a sonogram. Now, I was watching the insides of my nads crawl around on a screen while a strange man I didn’t know was moving the camera. I started scanning the image for something that looked like vice grips. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable and awkward again. I decided to make another attempt at small talk.

“Um, do you like your job?”

“It’s really a shame. I was trained as a surgeon. I like to work with my hands, but I spend all day dealing with urinary tract infections.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.” I mumbled.

The probe continued in silence as I reflected in despair on my two failed attempts at casual conversation with a urologist. Finally, the electronic exploration was completed, and he broke the silence.

“You’ve got epididymitis.”

“Epididi-what?”

“Epididymitis. It’s a bacterial infection in your epididymis.”

“I didn’t even know I had one of those. What is it?”

“It’s a little tube that attaches to the back of your testicle and carries spermatozoa to the vas deferens. A bacterium managed to find its way there and you’ve developed an infection. It’s swelling and putting pressure on your testicle.”

“Well, how did it get there? I desperately want to cease whatever action I did that allowed this bacteria and its ball crushing might into my body.”

“We don’t know how it gets in. Some think that heavy lifting may cause some urine to go backward and carry bacteria in to the epididymis, but no one really knows.”

“What can I do to make it stop hurting?”

“I’ll just prescribe some antibiotics for you, and it should clear up in a couple of days.”

“Is that it?”

“That should clear it up.”

I walked over to the front desk and signed out. I walked past the old women in the waiting room and drove to work. When I arrived, I wandered in to talk my department chair, Terry. Terry is one of the most astute observers of anything aesthetic that I have ever encountered. He also, as I found that day, has the ability to notice peripatetic problems in his faculty.

“Kurt, are you alright? You look like you’re walking kind of funny?” he said.

“Well, …um…I’ve got this thing. It’s called epididymitis.”

“You’ve got THE THING! Oh no! I had THE THING for the first time last year.”

“Really!” I said. I was excited at the possibility of finding someone else who had contracted the rare and powerful gonad “racking” bacteria.

“I actually woke up in the middle of my kitchen floor staring at the refrigerator grill. I had passed out from the pain. You know David’s had the thing, like, three times. Hold on…”

He disappeared for a moment and returned with another professor. When the office door was closed, Terry looked at David and said, “Kurt’s got THE THING.”

David turned to me in pity saying, “Take care of yourself. I had a reoccurring episode, and I kept asking the doctor, ‘Why is this happening to me?! What did I do to deserve this?!”

“I woke up on my kitchen floor,” repeated Terry.

David absquatulated saying, “I’m serious, take care of yourself.”

Terry encouraged me to go home and get rest. I waddled out of his office a little bewildered at the fact that they too had had THE THING. I had never heard of THE THING before. I mean, no one ever told me about THE THING in health class. My dad never pulled me aside and said, “Son, I have to warn you. There is this THING you can get that will make your left acorn feel like it was hit with a hammer.” Before, I was suffering alone. Now, I had two comrades! I was in a secret club. I began to ponder whether this particular affliction was something that singled out musicians.

After going home for some rest, I went to choir practice at church. I was slowly perambulating through the fence when Bill called to me. Bill was an eternal spring of South Carolinian humor and anecdotes. I limped toward him to hear one of his stories.

“Kurt, are you alright? You look like you’re walking kind of funny?” he said.

“Well, …um…I got this thing. It’s called epididymitis.”

“You’ve got THE THING! Oh no! I had THE THING back in ’76, and I can still feel a bit of pain when I think about it. You take care of yourself. Hold on…David come here.” A different David than the one mentioned above walked over.

“David, Kurt’s got THE THING!" Bill said.

David turned to me in pity, saying, “I’m serious, take care of yourself. I remember when I had the thing. Hold on…” They proceeded to call all the rest of the men in the choir over and the mantra resumed.

“Kurt’s got THE THING.”

“I’m serious, take care of yourself.”

“I remember when I got THE THING.”

“Me too. I still think about it sometimes.”

“You take care of yourself.”

I have written this cautionary tale as a warning to those men who have not heard the news.
There is a bacterium of momentous evil in this world. Should you get THE THING, it will subject a testicle of its own choosing to its horrible, compressing jaws. At times, you will be tempted to emasculate yourself to end the pain. Don’t do it! There is help. There is a secret club. You cannot gain admission by an application. THE THING chooses you. You do not choose it. Once you are “in,” you have the sympathy and support of us all. You can hear the stories of when we came through the ordeal and emerged victorious on the other side. If you find that you have become an unhappy member, I would simply say to you, “I’m serious, take care of yourself.”

Bach shock again - that guy is always bending the rules

Once again, I have been confronted with the wild and bold choices of JSB. This time, it's from BWV 172. I was accompanying this yesterday and was shocked to see that fourth measure. (You can expand the picture by clicking on it.)

That's right. Over a pedal G, the choral parts expand the V7 by going to a IV(7 9)??? and then back to the dominant. I would never allow a student in harmony class to write this.

Gigging stories: how I became a composer

Part of my prize in the Florida Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition was the opportunity to perform the third movement of the Ravel G major Piano Concerto three times with the Orchestra. We were to play two “Coffee Concerts” and one evening concert. Each concert was given in a different performing arts center in the tri-city area. Aside from the thrill of being a young performer playing with a professional orchestra, I had a handsome check in my bank account.

The “Coffee Concert” is something that has largely vanished from the concert scene. Budget cuts have necessitated the scaling back of orchestral performances. Back in the day, some orchestras had concerts that were not part of their masterworks series that happened in the mornings. The idea was that if you were going to listen to orchestra music in the morning, you needed some coffee first. The music for the “Coffee Concert” was the light and fluffy spinach omelette of the repertoire – because no one should have to suffer through Wagner before they are fully awake and cognizant of what is happening to them. It wasn’t a pops concert, but you also weren’t likely to hear Mahler.

The audience for the “Coffee Concert” was made up of two distinct castes. The minority faction was peopled with wealthy, aged ladies who like to spend money on the orchestra. Most of them didn't like music that much, but they liked the idea of liking music that much. The larger portion of the audience was drawn from the elementary school children who were bussed in for the furthering of their education. Principals, were encouraged by their music specialists to send the kids to the orchestra. The principals got a breather for a few hours as the violins sawed away at the children’s musical ignorance.

I waited in the wings that morning while the orchestra played Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite. As I was listening, I reconsidered the morning concert. It was actually quite lovely to start the day by listening to a live performance of Ravel. I thought of the elementary school children in the audience. I remembered when I was bussed down to the theatre to hear The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra at that same age. I had managed to smuggle a McDonalds straw in my pocket. I chewed up my program bit by bit creating spitball munitions which the straw sent through the air towards students of other elementary schools as Peter was capturing the Wolf.

The Mother Goose Suite ended, and I prepared to take the stage during the applause.
One of the two stagehands delayed my entrance saying, “Wait a moment. We have to raise the piano.” I noticed as I glanced at the backstage monitor that the piano was positioned in the pit. The pit was in the lowered position, ten feet below the orchestra. I should have been alarmed immediately because the stagehands were the wrong type. The normal profile for a union stagehand is someone who found him/herself not quite talented enough to be in the spotlight. Not having the capacity to do, they become experts on how to do. They even seem to know more than the people that actually do and develop a pretentious attitude toward anyone who might slight them. They retain their connection to theatre life vicariously through operating the spotlight that they wish enshrouded their own body. They usually retain their artistic haircuts and black turtlenecks.

I have found that it is best to stroke their egos with some symbolic gesture when preparing for a concert. A public compliment will go a long way. Asking for permission or help for some detail of set-up can also work. If one of the tech people decides that they don’t like you, they can ruin a show. They will turn off your monitor so that you can’t hear. They will adjust your position and claim that the lights won’t reach you where you would like to be placed. The two stagehands at this coffee concert were clearly non-union. Instead of turtlenecks, they wore flannel shirts. Instead of the usual black pants, these two wore the creepy kind of polyester pants with the button that is slightly to the side. If they had made a previous attempt at a career in theatre, it would have had to occur more than sixty years before.

An uneasiness about their competence began to grow in my belly as they began to work toward getting me on the stage. One of the men fumbled in his pocket momentarily. He pulled out a small flashlight and turned one of the ends causing the bulb to shine. He walked over to a wall about ten feet away in a manner that stirred up childhood memories of watching Tim Conway playing the part of an old man on the Carol Burnett show. With his feet dragging, he inched his way ever closer to a box on the wall where his flashlight revealed two large buttons. I remember something awkward about the way he stretched out his thumb and mashed the top button. Instead of extending his arm, he used his waist as a fulcrum and bent his upper body to depress the circle labeled “up.” A dialogue between the two men began, and I had to reconsider if they had ever attempted a career in theatre. The lines sounded like something from a previously undiscovered Ionesco play.

The man with the flashlight turned toward his friend who was watching the monitor and asked, “Is the piano coming up?”
“No. It’s not coming up.”
“Is it coming up now?”
“No. It’s not coming up. Are you pushing the button?”
“Yes, I’m pushing the button. Is the piano coming up?”
“No. It’s not coming up. Are you sure your pushing the button?”

“Yes, I’m pushing the button. Is it coming up?”
“No. It’s not coming up. I bet someone turned it off underneath.”
“Is it coming up now?”
“No. Are you pushing the button?”
“Yes, I’m pushing the button. I’ve got my thumb on it.”
“I bet that’s what happened. I bet someone turned it off underneath.”
“Is it coming up now?”
“No. It’s not coming up. Are you pushing the button?”
“Yes. You may be right. Someone could have turned it off underneath.”

While this interchange might have been amusing in the proper context, I was beginning to experience great anxiety as their conversation kept catching in the same groove. I was also reaching the conclusion that “someone had turned it off underneath” and that another “someone” should probably be called to “turn it on underneath.” This same conclusion, however, did not seem to occur to the non-union stagehands. Fortunately, the stage manager from the orchestra had reached a similar conclusion, and he appeared next to the monitor watcher and picked up a phone. While we waited for the apocalyptic piano to rise up from the pit, I turned my attention to the stage.

As the applause for Mother Goose withered, the conductor of the orchestra found himself in an awkward position. While stalling for time is part of the natural repertoire of musicians who play in clubs, orchestra conductors are on very unfamiliar terrain when traveling that particular path. He was walking across a dark room toward a light switch knowing that his toe was going to get stubbed.

“Um…OK…I, um, see that the piano isn’t up yet…um, well…I know we have some elementary schools with us here today…um, can we, maybe, bring up the house lights a little…and, um, what schools do we have here today?…Hi, yes…what school are you from?…Azalea Elementary, wonderful…and, OK, you…what school are you from?…The Nina Harris Exceptional Student Education Center, wonderful…and, what?…one of your students has a question…sure, what’s your question?” He seemed genuinely relieved that someone else was providing the material for filling dead space. “…will we play a song for you?…well, um…the orchestra is not generally in the habit of taking requests at our concerts.” Momentarily, it seemed that allowing others to provide stalling material had become a rather pyrrhic victory, but with the piano still in the pit, he had few options. “well, um…what song did you want to hear…really?…you know, the orchestra knows that song…let’s all stand.” He turned, the audience and orchestra stood, and they launched into the national anthem. It was as good a stalling song as any, and probably the only tune that all eighty members of the orchestra could play from memory together. By the time the bombs had burst in red air, the piano had made its sinister climb from the abyss. Now, clearly very relieved, the conductor easily said, “I see the piano is ready, and now we will bring out our First Prize winner from the young artist competition, Kurt Knecht.”

The Ravel G major is a piece that musicologist say is “jazz influenced writing.” It’s not the sort of jazz that we as Americans think of as jazz. It’s jazz that has been julienned and braised with pearl onions in cabernet sauvignon by a French chef. The buoyant rhythms and jaunty gait of the tune fly on incessantly as soon as the conductor fires the starting gun. Pianistically speaking, there are some passages that require the hands to be placed in very awkward overlapping positions. There are also scalar passages that can only be mastered by persons willing to play them for hours on end until they become as automatic as breathing. The final difficulty is maintaining coordination with eighty other people who are also tearing off virtuosic passages on their own instruments. Maintaining concentration can be extremely challenging. It was especially challenging on that morning because one of the orchestral soloists had played a solo passage one bar early. The premature entrance required all of us to ignore what we were hearing and steadfastly believe that the other seventy-nine of us were actually with the conductor. One confidently wrong musician can throw an entire ensemble to the ground.

As I bounced along through one of the more difficult passages, I heard something I had never heard at an orchestra concert before. There was clapping in the middle of the piece. I couldn’t be sure my ears were bearing true witness at first, but it continued. Someone was clapping along to the beat as I pulled sound out of the instrument by the sweat of my brow. “Who in the world would clap along to the Ravel Concerto?” I thought. I soon realized that it was one of the students from the school for exceptional children. It was, perhaps, the single most beautiful performing moment I have ever experienced. There was a child who lived unencumbered by the social morays that hold back the non-exceptional. We were playing together so well that we could make a mental handicapped child clap along to the beat. He was responding with an enthusiasm that couldn’t be contained by the proscribed audience behavior.

The event was a cathartic moment for me. When I had finished the evening concert later that night, I was finished with the piano in some sense. I remember thinking, “OK. I’ve done that. Now what else can I do?” It wasn’t that I was going to give up the piano or stop practicing altogether. It was that I wanted to become a musician. I started practicing the organ vigorously after that concert. I also decided that what I really wanted from my musical life was to be a composer. Instead of practicing for three or four hours a day, I started focusing on being a composer first and a pianist second. It seems odd at times that my first big success as a concert soloist was the basis for studying composition in earnest. The thing was, I had to learn something that was more valuable to me than playing the piano.

After that morning, I knew two things. I didn’t want to play in places with non-union stagehands, and I wanted to learn how to write music that could make mentally handicapped children clap.

Question for my theorist friends

Chorale #183 in Riemenschneider







Would you let your students write this bit that happens over the 2nd barline? The key signature is G major, by the way.

Draft: framework for my lecture on the history of Christian music

When we talk about the history of Christian music, we are immediately confronted with difficult terminology. What exactly do we mean when we say “Christian music”? Do we mean – in the rather unorthodox parlance of the modern evangelical movement – that there was an F sharp that one day went to a tent meeting somewhere in Alabama, heard a particularly moving sermon, and walked down an aisle to invite Jesus into his little F sharp heart? (Ironically, F sharps are boys while G flats are girls.)

If the notes themselves don’t have any specific religious commitments, what do we mean when we say that there is such an animal as "Christian music”? Do we mean that the words, the lyrical content is Christian and the music may be having it’s own secular thoughts? So, the words have gone to the tent meeting in Alabama, but the music has been out at a club somewhere all night. The music wakes up with a bit of a hangover, and the words wind up sharing a cab with the music back to the airport. The words are talking about Jesus, and all the while the F sharp is thinking about the really cute G flat that he met last night?

In some ways, this is an excellent paradigm for viewing the history of Christian music. While untangling the thorny, Gordian knot of what “Christian music” may actually be is extremely difficult, taking a look at the actual musical artifacts is fairly easy. It should be noted, however, that this uncomfortable cab ride to the airport has been part of the story from the beginning. In the late 390s, St. Augustine mentions the problem in a famous passage of the Confessions. He says,

“I see that our minds are more devoutly and earnestly inflamed in piety by the holy words when they are sung than when they are not. And I recognize that all the diverse affections of our spirits have their appropriate measures in the voice and song, to which they are stimulated by I know not what secret correlation. But the pleasures of my flesh--to which the mind ought never to be surrendered nor by them enervated--often beguile me while physical sense does not attend on reason, to follow her patiently, but having once gained entry to help the reason, it strives to run on before her and be her leader. Thus in these things I sin unknowingly…Sometimes I go to the point of wishing that all the melodies of the pleasant songs to which David’s Psalter is adapted should be banished both from my ears and from those of the Church itself. In this mood, the safer way seemed to me the one I remember was once related to me concerning Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who required the readers of the psalm to use so slight an inflection of the voice that it was more like speaking than singing. However, when I call to mind the tears I shed at the songs of thy Church at the outset of my recovered faith, and how even now I am moved, not by the singing but by what is sung (when they are sung with a clear and skillfully modulated voice), I then come to acknowledge the great utility of this custom. Thus I vacillate between dangerous pleasure and healthful exercise. I am inclined--though I pronounce no irrevocable opinion on the subject--to approve of the use of singing in the church, so that by the delights of the ear the weaker minds may be stimulated to a devotional mood.”

St. Augustine is worried that his congregation will be more drawn to the beauty of the creation, the music than to the beauty of the creator. For the sake of “weaker minds”, however, he decides that he’ll allow them into the cab to listen to the F sharp and the word having a conversation on the way to the airport. In the end, that conversation produced some earth shaking results that have transformed the very way we conceive and think about music. Indeed, it is hard to think of music - any music - apart from the results of that conversation.

The Christian Artist: More on the divided existence

In my last post on the divided existence of the religious artist (which you can read here), I began discussing the struggle that many artists face between their religious and artistic lives. I found a lovely passage in Wolterstorff's Art in Action today that further clarifies the issue.

"The work of the high-art artist may be an expression and affirmation of the convictions of some religious community - Rouault, Messiaen, Penderecki, Eliot, are examples. But that is fundamentally irrelevant to his acceptance and position as artist. What counts is simply his contribution to the community of his fellow artists. In that way the institution of high art, for all its residual mysticism, is a profoundly secular institution - with the result that the artist who identifies himself deeply with some religious community will constantly have the experience of being a divided self living in two worlds. The institution of high art is a jealous god!"

Wolterstorff is a wonderful thinker from the Reformed tradition who has helped me to clarify many of my own thoughts. I think that he very accurately describes the problem here. I still wonder if this has to be the only paradigm. That is, there was a time when the Church was the institution of high art.

If I safely assume that the world has always been a "profoundly secular institution" and the Church as the "institution of high art" was sending it's message out through art objects, was the artist still "a divided self living in two worlds"? Maybe. Maybe we are also coming into some of the underlying paradigms of the Reform tradition where there is a very clear delineation between the sacred and the secular. I'm sure my Reformed friends will take me to task and clarify my thinking.