Skip to main content

Music - traditional v. contemporary

One of the greatest mysteries of life to me is how there can be so many different tastes in music.  Leaving secular music out entirely, and just concentrating on religious/sacred/gospel music, I am constantly amazed at the difference in preferences .
Our youth director at church and I go "round and round" about this all the time, in a friendly teasing way.

I can appreciate that the difference can be accounted for probably 50% generationally, maybe 40% by what we listened to in our growing up years, which are highly influenced by the music we listen to, and that leaves 10% to be put in the category of just "taste" or "preference".

I understand all this, I can even wrap my mind around it, but just for listening pleasure, for the life of me I can't imagine anyone taking pleasure from anything except what we call southern gospel.  The instrumentation, the lyrics, the harmony - it just doesn't get any better than southern gospel.

I find contemporary Christian music to be a cacophony of miscellaneous loud sounds and beats, with the music drowning out the words, and with very little, if any, melody or harmony.  I could never worship with that, although I realize many people do.

Which brings us full circle to my original question, why is that kind of music appealing to some?  I don't know.  It cannot be all generational, since I know many young people who sing and play southern gospel professionally, and countless more in that age group who love to attend the concerts, and buy the CDs, etc.

I write this as I listen to Sirius radio on our satellite TV station.  It is the gospel music station and is worth the price of the humongous monthly cost we pay.

Whatever my mood, be it sad, or happy, despondent, grieving, questioning God's work, I can always find an answer in southern gospel music.  It just meets  my needs.  What more can I say?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Passion

  “Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age”..  (James Joyce) I’ve often been accused of being too passionate, of caring too much about certain things.  But I believe that  passion, also defined as fervor or zeal, is  one of the essential core values of human life, along with the Apostle Paul’s Biblical list of the virtues of faith, hope and charity.  Passionate people have strong opinions and usually articulate them very well.  We are also perfectionists, and we don’t handle incompetence in the public arena very well, all of which tend to preclude us from being the most popular person in the room.  I long ago accepted the fact that I won’t have the largest funeral in Lebanon, nor will my obituary make the front page. But not everyone seems to care that much about anything other than their own lives.  T.S. Eliot once said, “It is obvious that we can no more explain pas...
Post a Comment
Read more

COMMUNION ON THE MOON

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. (Melody Beattie) Americans need a day dedicated to gratitude. I have noticed that in the lineup of most of our holidays that Thanksgiving is perhaps the one least given over to secularism - the one we still observe in a traditional fashion. We need it to keep our focus clear and to teach our children what it means to be thankful for family, friendship and faith. We need a time to gather around the table with extended family and enjoy turkey and dressing and gravy, two kinds of potatoes, cranberries, hot rolls, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and whipped cream. We need it, not for the calories, but to create an awareness that there are those who don’t have those blessings, because in the hectic pace of our everyday lives we tend to forget those in need. Family and food are important, but above all else, Americans need a rededication to our faith. Faith brought the pilgrims to the ne...
Post a Comment
Read more

LIQUID PRAYERS

I'm often asked why Tears fall from my eyes When my prayers ascend to the throne; It's so easy for me To shed tears, don't you see; That's the way I make my needs known. For the tears that I shed In the prayers that I've said Have all been kept by Him In a bottle rare; He has placed them there He has never forgotten them. For every tear Is a liquid prayer That waters the seed that we sow. Through the good times and bad Whether happy or sad The tears help our prayers to flow. Feel a tug in your heart? Then let the tears start When you take to God all your cares. He knows what you need; He hears when you plead; For tears are just liquid prayers. Written by Joan Rowden Hart 12.17.01, based on Psalm 56:8, “Thou tellest my wanderings; put thou my tears into thy bottle; are they not in thy book?”   This poem was inspired by my dear friend, Betty Shanks of Farmington , Mo , who coined the phrase “liquid prayers” after I had preached a sermon ...
Post a Comment
Read more