Biblical Horizons 89, November, 1996
From time to time, when I’ve lectured on how to read the Bible, I’ve used art-music as one example thereof. When we listen to a simple folk song, we hear the same melody over and over again, but this is not how composers write “high” music. Let me amplify.
A composer will put out a theme (melody) clearly and forthrightly. You can hear it without difficulty. And, from time to time that melody will come back, and without difficulty you will hear it again. But what you probably won’t hear, unless you are trained to listen to music, is that the melody is being used in more ways. It may be broken down, and parts of it used in various ways in the overall piece. It may be played in the bass line, or in an alto line, underneath a more prominent second melody or theme. You’ll hear the new melody, and not notice that the old melody is being used underneath. The melody may be stretched out into slower notes (augmented), or played twice as fast (diminished). It may be used like a round (canon; ricercar; fugue), coming in over and over again on top of itself. It may be inverted (switching high and low notes), or played cancrizans (backwards). (A good listener can hear an inversion, but it takes a really good one to notice when the melody runs backwards.) The melody may be taken from a minor key to a major one, or vice versa. A composer will introduce one theme, and then another, and then play them at the same time.
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which starts with the famous four note theme (motif) “da-da-da-DAHHH,” actually uses that four-note motif and its inherent possibilities as the foundation for virtually everything in all four movements. We don’t notice it, however, until someone points it out to us, and shows us how it happens. And that’s okay. The symphony can be enjoyed either “naively” or “maturely.”
Now, the Bible is certainly written this way. We have, for instance, the theme of God’s giving Adam a garden to dress and guard, and then Adam sins and is expelled. This theme comes up again, clearly, several times in the Old Testament: at the golden calf, with King Saul, with King David, etc. The theme reaches its great climax with Jesus, who is expelled for us. But the theme is also stretched out (augmented) as the story of Israel from Joshua to the Exile, and from the Restoration to AD 70. Moreover, there are places in the Bible where another theme is prominent, but we can see this original theme also playing along.
The study of these recurring themes goes under the general name “typology.”
When I present this information, I usually get asked by someone understandably suspicious: Are you saying you have to be a musician to understand the Bible? There are three answers to that question.
Answer No. 1: No, because the basic facts of redemption and obedience are clear to any Christian reader of the Bible. Yet, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search it out (Prov. 25:2).
Answer No. 2: No, but it helps, because seeing the deeper things in the Bible, some of them at least, is like hearing music in a mature way.
Answer No. 3: Yes, because God indicates that His people are to be musicians.
Let’s ask: Does it help to be an athlete to understand the Bible? No. Does it help to be an engineer to understand the Bible. No. At least not in any obvious way.
But: Does it help to be a musician to understand the Bible? Yes, because the Bible indicates that this is so.
First, music is the God-appointed way of worshipping Him with His own words. The psalms are to be set to music and sung, and in fact a great deal of Western art music developed out of the complex ways in which psalms were set by art musicians. More than that, however, we find in the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament a whole system of pitch marks, which indicate the chanting lines for the text as it existed when the Masoretic text was produced. A French musical scholar named Haik-Vantoura has offered a decoding of these pitches, but whether she is right or not in her suggested system, there is no doubt but that the text was originally chanted in worship. Sung worship is typical of all pre-modern worship all over the world.
Second, the Spirit is given to help us understand the Word, and the Spirit is the Glorifier. He is the Breath, the sounding forth of the Word. Whenever words are said out loud, they are said musically. Your speech goes up and down, is loud and soft, is punctuated rhymically by consonants and emphasis, assumes various tones (timbres; such as rough, kind, whiny, etc.). In short, all speech is quasi-musical. The Spirit inspires music, and He is the Music of God, who is Author, Word, Music. Thus, being musical and learning about music should add to our ability to grasp the text.
Third, we find that the priests and Levites were established as the teachers of the Word in Israel; but they were also set up as the musicians in the Temple. By linking these two things, God was saying that a teacher of the Word would be wise also to be a musician. (Levites were also guards, and some familiarity with what that means is also good for a teacher/elder in the Church.)
Thus, we see that God programmed music into the minds and hearts of those set apart to interpret the Bible, and into the minds and hearts of all those in Israel who would encounter the text more generally.
In sum, if we want to train people in understanding the Bible more fully, it is good to train them in musical understanding. Music should be part of the educational preparation of anyone engaged in Biblical study and hermeneutics.
Why isn’t this done today? Because of the influence of Western rationalism, especially through the “science ideal” of the Enlightenment. Poetry, which used to be sung, is sung no longer. Many people don’t realize that even post-Renaissance poetry should be read out loud; it should be heard, if not actually sung. (I have a lot of hope for what may eventually develop out of rap music, despite its sorry beginnings today; it moves toward a restoration of the original form of poetry.) We read silently. We no longer sing or whistle while we work. Philosophy, which is contemplative rather than active and liturgical, has influenced theology and Bible study way too much.
Thus, we don’t live in a social and ecclesiastical context that would enable us to read and understand the Bible as well as we might. Restoring music to our lives will help.
How very Schenkerian. As a music graduate, I certainly think that the tools of analysis and composition in music have helped with Bible study.
Dr. Jordan,
These comments are a good starting point — I was quite amazed at the negative reaction I received by some when I suggested in this post that a man shouldn’t be a Bible teacher in the church without being able to read music. Our present seminary system lends itself to misunderstanding the Bible and teaching generations of folks everything but that which they need to properly interpret and use the Bible.
Musical training is not just an option for those gifted but it ought to be seen as a requirement for every Christian in childhood and even through to adulthood. The singing of God’s praises is something we will do even when we cross over to the other side, unlike soccer playing and whatever else we spend our time with as we plod along day by day. We should be well-practiced at music in order to spend a life glorifying God in the church and in the home–living life to the fullest and thereby preparing for eternity.
But you are right that musical training helps us to understand texts and especially the biblical text. There is so much here that I fear only those who have been trained in music can fully appreciate what you are saying. It is not a matter of merely being helped to understand this or that particular aspect of Scripture but musical training and more importantly musical participation in the singing of God’s people helps us to live, move, and have our being in the Spirit and with our God. We are, after all, his people and He is our God.
BTW, it might be helpful to add the thought that the Bible was written in languages foreign to our own and learning music very early on makes learning the languages of the Bible easier and helps you to think in ways about language that simply go well beyond the sort of modernist scientific approach typical in today’s amateur attempts at Greek and Hebrew exegesis.
Quote:
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which starts with the famous four note theme (motif) “da-da-da-DAHHH,” actually uses that four-note motif and its inherent possibilities as the foundation for virtually everything in all four movements. We don’t notice it, however, until someone points it out to us, and shows us how it happens. And that’s okay. The symphony can be enjoyed either “naively” or “maturely.”
Unquote
As far as I know this is incorrect. Rather, Beethoven’s 5th is better known by the first movement being a perfect example of the Sonata-Allegro form.
The technique known as the Leitmotif is more frequently associated with unifying a large composition by recurring melody. Wagner is perhaps the best known example of using this technique which he did extensively in his operas.
Better examples of the various melodic transformation techniques mentioned would be Bach’s Musical Offering of Art of the fugue.
As far as hearing these things, it’s important to realize that people didn’t have radios or ipods or tape players. The only way they had to hear music was to go to a concert or to play it themselves. So they could perhaps hear some of these things in a first performance but more typically they looked at the music and analyzed it, thus noticing the various surprises as they dissected it in both performance and analysis.
Elizabethan England was perhaps the most musical society. Singing madrigals was a favorite pastime and if you didn’t know how to read music, you were considered to be a very uneducated person. Waiting rooms typically had a box full of musical instruments which could be played.
>>As far as I know this is incorrect. Rather, Beethoven’s 5th is better known by the first movement being a perfect example of the Sonata-Allegro form.<<
Incorrect? From what I’ve read, there are differing opinions on whether Beethoven purposely employed that four note rhythmic motif throughout–so I don’t know you that you can simply declare it incorrect. In the tapes I listened to from the Teaching Company, “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music,” Dr. Robert Greenberg also suggests it was done purposefully.
Your other musical examples are good, too. I think Jim was just using one that practically everyone–regardless of music education or lack thereof–has heard before.
What happened to Pastor Meyers’ post on music?
https://biblicalhorizons.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/music-singing-in-life-liturgy/more-98
I pulled it. I need to work on a better way of expressing what was in that post.
>>…so I don’t know you that you can simply declare it incorrect.<<
I didn’t. I said, “as far as I know”. The question is did he employ the four note theme in every movement of the symphony? I don’t think he did. I could be wrong but that’s what I think at this point.
I see the Wikipedia discussion of the 5th contains this good analysis.
I like Mr. Jordan’s admonition for Theologian’s to learn music. In fact, I think everyone should learn more about art music. But I am a bit biased.
Listen to the third movement for starters. The four-note motif is plain, in 3/4 time. It’s more hidden in the second movement, coming at the end of the long melody. In the fourth movement, we begin with a virtual inversion of the opening of the first.
With Angie, I recommend Greenberg’s treatment.
Mahler opens his own 5th with the same motif, though as a funeral march.
FWIW.
Pastor Meyers…i thought it was quite good! :-)
it sounded too harsh to some, i suppose??
but from where i stand, former charismatic, now reformed, it was perfect. i thought it had just the right tone for those who needed to hear it. but that’s me i guess.
we just attended a local reformed church this last Sunday and they tried to do “soft rock” contemporary P & W, with a band. it reminded me of a cheesy 70’s sitcom.
where are the reformed churches, of any type, that do excellent and majestic music? most of the churches up this way (Mid-Michigan) that do great music are liberal in doctrine. any that are Biblical in doctrine have mainly gone to a “seeker”, ccm type of music. is it too much to ask for both?
Sam,
Try the CREC, there’s several in Michigan:
http://www.crechurches.org/
Here’s a question that occurred to me as I thought more about this. In addition to the various compositional techniques that Mr. Jordan describes here, composers of the past were typically great players themselves. Bach, Mozart, and Beethovan were great keyboard players while both Bach and Mozart also excelled at the violin. Not only so but they were also great improvisers. My opinion is that one might well make the case that Bach was the greatest improviser of all time. No doubt pieces like The Musical Offering were formalized examples of extended jam sessions (to use a modern phrase) of which there are numerous accounts. That is to say, Bach probably used many of these compositional techniques in an ad hoc manner during the course of an improvised session.
So the question is, was there any equivalents to improvisation among the Levites and other teachers of the Law in the OT? When they spoke in public, did they use any of these techniques? Does this have any bearing on how Pastors should speak or teach today?
Bobber, both of your notes are spot-on. It’s true that people could not listen repeatedly to, say, Beethoven’s 5th, but that really does not change what Beethoven may have put into his 5th. You’re right that Art of the Fugue, or the variations on Passion Chorale in St. Matthew’s Passion are more ear friendly. Wagner’s leitmotiv did not come from nowhere, as I imagine you know: Long before, Berlioz had employed the same notion in Symphonie Fantastique.
As for improvisation: I think that anyone who delivers sermons for a living, or teaches, gradually gets better and better at extempore delivery. I don’t know why someone would still be memorizing or reading a sermon after 30 years (or 3 years) in the pulpit, unless that is just what he himself really prefers to do.
When it comes to improvisation in music, by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, or any of the French symphonic organ school, well that is all perforce instrumental music. It’s pretty hard to imagine a choir of singers doing anything improvisational. The text would prevent that. So you are right to move to speaking rather than to singing for an analogy.
As for Biblical evidence, it seems clear that Jesus’ taught a lot of the same things in different words in different places, like any speaker would. Hence, the parable of the talents is much like the parable of the pounds, but they are not quite the same. This probably reflects the kind of sophisticated self-conscious improvisation that compares with what really good classical music improvisation can be like.
Oh to get back those lost days of education….
I know this is an old post, but I’ve been reading various articles here about worship. I am appalled at what passes for music in churches today, and I totally agree with Sam (comment #10). We have the same problem here in the Denver area. (Nearest CREC church is one hour away.) Indeed! Is it too much to ask for both Biblical doctrine and great music?
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