From: hill@spot.Colorado.EDU (Michael Hill)
Subject: Re: Re: Is music amoral??
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 00:14:36 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.154257.170@cbnews.cb.att.com> ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com
(andrew.j.whitman) writes:
>In article <107410186@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> rhm@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM
(Bob Miller) writes:
>>First, I do not agree that the only moral statement in a well-written song is
>>contained in the lyric. If I'm doing my job as a writer, the music is written
>>to specifically reinforce the lyric. The more succesful I am at that, the more
>>the music is infused with the same moral statement as the lyric. 
>
>Whoa.  This takes us right back into sin beats and demonic guitar riffs
>territory.  Do you really believe this?  Certainly music reinforces
>lyrics.  That's why people decide to become musicians instead of poets
>or Hallmark Card writers.  But I have balked, currently balk, and will
>always balk at the idea that music - a series of sounds - contains a
>moral statement.  History is full of examples of popular secular 
>melodies, including drinking songs and songs about prostitution (ever  
>hear "Amazing Grace" sung to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun"?) that 
>are borrowed and used in a Christian context.  If your argument were
>true, then the original immoral lyrical context should have "seeped" into 
>the songs we now know as "A Mighty Fortress is our God" and "Amazing Grace,"
>and the music should be permanently contaminated by the secular lyrics 
>that were originally attached to the melodies.  

Isn't it funny how, in the endless cycle of rehashings of this topic,
people keep forgetting (or neglecting) this point, and we have to keep
bringing it up again?  Yours is maybe the most elequent way I've seen it
phrased yet.

>>Now to say a 
>>genre is corrupt is probably stretching it, particularly if numerous examples
>>of the use of the genre can be found which make "good" statements. And one can
>>find such back to the earliest days of rock (calls for justice, for example).
>>On the other hand, remember the classic rock "feel like makin' love" by (??)?
>>The music under and around the hook line is basically a libidinous picture of 
>>physical sex. I can't think of anything *else* listening to that line. Put "I'm
>>livin in Gods love" on top of that music and I'm still gonna be thinking about
>>sex...and wondering about the competence of the writer.
>
>But all you're saying there is that the melody or guitar riff has a 
>strong association in your mind with some immoral lyrics.  I can buy
>that.  But I don't think that means that the melody or guitar riff
>somehow inherently fits songs about sex.  Do you honestly believe that
>if you'd never heard "Feel Like Makin' Love" then the music would
>automatically make you think "sex sex sex"?  The *lyrics* to the song
>are basically a libidinous picture of physical sex.  And you associate
>the lyrics with the music.  But that doesn't mean that that E minor
>power chord in the chorus has anything to do with fornication. 

Ditto.  I had to wonder (having never heard the song, as far as I know),
how on earth would I have "known" that, implicit in the guitar riff, was
a message about sex?  Well, slap me on mah head and call me Bertha!  (w/
apologies to JRjr!  :^)  )

>>If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears, does it make a sound? 
>
>And furthermore, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

And is the cat alive or dead?  :^>

In Him,

			--Michael

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Michael Hill   <><  Isaiah 9:6 | "Perfect peace, mountains robed in glory
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