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Post by slb2 on Apr 30, 2007 10:40:14 GMT -5
There's a great musician, Rodin Rodino (he pronounces it Roh-dan Roh-dino) www.rodinrodino.com who I've reviewed and interviewed and gotten to know over the years. Not surprisingly, if you were to read my story, he's decided not to play a certain type of music. He grew up a preacher's son (I think) and his father wasn't in favor of him playing sousouk type music (from the Congo). The music is amazing stuff and Rodin can dance like nobody's business. Well, I'm chatting with a big-name art institute and recommending some musicians for an installation they'll be doing in November (with a sort of preview this May), and I know Rodin's music is perfect for what they are looking for, but alas, Rodin just called me and confirmed that he's not performing that sort of music any more. So, here's what I'm wondering, and it's only tangentially related to this thread, but when is music inappropriate? When are certain types of music inappropriate? Why do some beliefs have a problem with music and/or dancing? Enlighten me. (I'm cutting and pasting this whole post to a new thread.) |
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Post by Jane on Apr 30, 2007 16:22:16 GMT -5
Oh, who knows? I once worked with a couple of woman who regretfully gave up listening to Yanni because they found out he wasn't a Christian. Now, any reason to stop listening to Yanni is a good one in my book, but that seems rather difficult. Does that mean you have to agree with every artist in order to enjoy his work? I'm not religious, but I enjoy a rousing Messiah as much as the next guy, and I love gospel even though the sentiments it expresses are about as far from my personal beliefs as possible.
On the other hand, hip-hop and rap and gangsta....Interesting discussions right now as to where to draw the line. Personally, I think that music is dangerous and demoralizing, but, hey, that's just me. I have a much harder time deciding what to do about it. Fortuneatly, it wasn't around when my kids were teenagers although my sweet Elisabeth did listen to the Sex Pistols when she was fifteen. I didn't forbid it, but we talked about it. It passed.
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Post by joew on Apr 30, 2007 20:43:34 GMT -5
A couple of thoughts.
Music can be degrading either because the lyrics sung to it encourage bad behavior or because the music itself becomes so associated in the listeners' minds with bad behavior that it encourages bad behavior even apart from the words. It can also be degrading when it has little artistic value and draws people away from really good music — when it is auditory kitsch. Listeners (or their parents) do well to decide to spend little or no time listening to it,
Then there is music which the performer has decided is bad in one way or another. So the performer rightly stops performing it. For example, Ethel Waters' rendition of "Stormy Weather" was much admired and enjoyed. But after she became a Christian, she was convinced that the feeling it expressed was so contrary to the true state of her soul once she had come to know the Lord, that she could not perform it: she would in her mind be denying her salvation. So she delighted in singing "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."
Then there was the conductor Eugen Jochum. He was a guest on "Morning Pro Musica" on WGBH in Boston, along with his pianist daughter Veronica. The program host, Robert J. Lurtsema, remarked that there was no recording available of a certain Mahler symphony (the 3rd, as I recall) conducted by Jochum. He replied that he did not conduct it; and his daughter confirmed that he would never conduct it. Lurtsema asked why such a great conductor of Mahler's music would not conduct that single symphony. He said he had his reasons, and when Robert J. persisted in asking about it, Jochum said he would tell him off the air, in confidence. I can speculate that it carried some painful personal association for him, but there is also at least the possibility that he was aware of some inherent meaning of the symphony which was contrary to his principles.
I can understand not listening to Yanni if one thinks that merely hearing or buying the music somehow advances a neo-pagan New Age philosophy. (I would not have anything to do with music by performers who were glorifying Satan.) But I think it takes it too far to require that all musicians and artists and writers one patronizes must share the patrons theology.
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Post by slb2 on Apr 30, 2007 22:59:13 GMT -5
Help me here, but do you mean Robert J. Lurtsema as in Bob Lurtsema, former benchwarmer Minnesota Viking?
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What's the problem with Yanni and Christianity? I like Yanni. I love his theatrical presence. I love how his uses jazz violins and other string instruments.
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And ya know, hip hop in most other countries is most often social commentary and political, hot driving political admonition.
All that crappy rap that degrades and blames and abuses is not hip hop. Well, I mean that hip hop is more than that rotten rap.
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Post by joew on May 3, 2007 10:51:54 GMT -5
Help me here, but do you mean Robert J. Lurtsema as in Bob Lurtsema, former benchwarmer Minnesota Viking? -------- "Our" Robert J. was fairly short (I think) and rotund. He started in radio no later than 1970. So if "your" Bob Lurtsema was on the small side for a pro footballer and warmed the bench in the '50's or the '60's, it is possible. IOW I don't think so. My speculation is that jane's former co-workers identified his music so closely with "New Age" that they couldn't reconcile listening to him with their faith. |
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