Thoughts on Post-modern music?

[VerticalLiftEnjoyer]

I don’t really interact with “meme culture” nowadays, but when I did, it was a pretty bleak place. Dark synthwave, phonk, and gloomy electronica (Little Dark Age, Memory Reboot, Crystal Castles, the like) rule, and the term for it was “Literally Me Syndrome”.

What are your guys’ thoughts on the matter? I know that nobody here really has interaction with youngin music, but that doesn’t stop your ears from making judgment. I know folks like Dr. Strange and Rev. Buchanan emphasize beauty in music, and I’m wondering if there is any left. Personally I think songs like Memory Reboot and Snowfall are beautiful, but they are all nevertheless very dark, and the young are very undiscerned about the occult and religion in general.

 

[MyCrows]

I don't listen to much music anymore, but I hesitate to say any genre or tone of music in and of itself is sinful. The lyrical content is what determines that.

I use to listen to music all the time, but most of what I listened to was contaminated with humanistic, mystical, or straight up defiant messages in the lyrics. I couldn't take it anymore.

 

[RamistThomist]

Radio broke in my car some years ago (don't buy Honda CRVs from 2008). I think the synthesized beat itself is probably "things indifferent." On the other hand, there is a reason Bach reigns supreme for these centuries while the latest fad fades.

 

[jwright82]

I like the band Postmodern Jukebox. They take pop songs and play in different old genres. The women can be dressed provocatively but its merely period clothing, so if you if you can get passed that than its definitely interesting takes on pop music.

 

[davejonescue]

Be very careful of those who try to define such subjective terms as "beautiful." Most of the time it is based on their own preferences or traditions as opposed to any biblical precedent. I echo the above; that the lyrical content is mostly what will determine a songs good or bad nature; not the harmonies or instrumentals in the background.

 

[RamistThomist]

There are mathematical structures in Bach that make it superior to everything else, but as relates to morality it depends on the lyrics.

 

[C4MERON]

I remember having a similar conversation with a brother, a number of months back, who argued that the actual arrangements of musical notes, and the instruments used to play them, could be sinful to listen to and enjoy and thats discounting lyrical content.

 

[MyCrows]

I remember having a similar conversation with a brother, a number of months back, who argued that the actual arrangements of musical notes, and the instruments used to play them, could be sinful to listen to and enjoy and thats discounting lyrical content.

How would a discerning believer be able to distinguish which instruments and arrangements were sinful?

 

[VerticalLiftEnjoyer]

How would a discerning believer be able to distinguish which instruments and arrangements were sinful?

Vibes and Himalayan salt crystals I guess. (it’s whatever conscience demands it to be)

 

[Phil D.]

There are mathematical structures in Bach that make it superior to everything else,

​

Yuko Maruyama, a Japanese organist working in Minneapolis, was once a devout Buddhist. Now she is a Christian thanks to the music of J. S. Bach. “Bach introduced me to God, Jesus and Christianity,” she told Metro Lutheran, a Twin Cities monthly. “When I play a fugue, I can feel Bach talking to God.” Masashi Masuda came to faith in almost the same way: “Listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations first aroused my interest in Christianity.” Today Masuda teaches theology at Tokyo's Sophia University.​

​

But why would the most abstract works of an 18th-century German composer guide Asian people to Christ? Charles Ford, a mathematics professor in St. Louis, suggests that this is because Bach's music reflects the perfect beauty of created order to which the Japanese mind is receptive. “Bach has had the same effect on me, a Western scientist,” explained Ford. Henry Gerike, organist and choirmaster at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, agrees: “The fugue is the best way God has given us to enjoy his creation. … But of course Bach's most significant message to us is the Gospel.”​

(Christian History and Biography, Issue 95)​

 

[ZackF]

Wasn't John Cage one of the original post modern musicians? One of his “works” was to sit in front of a piano and do nothing.

 

[MyCrows]

Wasn't John Cage one of the original post modern musicians? One of his “works” was to sit in front of a piano and do nothing.

Must have been a hyper-calvinist.

 

[Phil D.]

Bach, Music + Math: Symmetry​

 

[py3ak]

I’m wondering if there is any left.

In most areas of aesthetic endeavor at the moment, beauty is mostly found in the work of those returning to the past or drawing from it substantially. There are a lot of reasons for that, which vary somewhat based on the field of endeavor. Much architecture of the moment, for instance, proceeds from hatred of humanity. While there can be such a thing as a beautiful expression of hatred, it is very difficult for misanthropy to provide a basis for beauty.

There is beautiful music composed today, for instance, by Marco Rosano.

 

[Joshua]

Okie from Muskogee -whilst still appealing- just don’t hit like it used to.

 

[DanSSwing]

Wasn't John Cage one of the original post modern musicians? One of his “works” was to sit in front of a piano and do nothing.

That's who I immediately thought of. Absolute junk.

 

[LittleFaith]

That's who I immediately thought of. Absolute junk.

Unless you're high out the wazoo on shrooms, in which case I'm sure it's a life-alteringly profound experience.

Coincidentally, Cage had a lifelong obsession with mushrooms. Maybe he forgot to tell the good and bad kinds apart.

 

[LittleFaith]

I remember having a similar conversation with a brother, a number of months back, who argued that the actual arrangements of musical notes, and the instruments used to play them, could be sinful to listen to and enjoy and thats discounting lyrical content.

The ancient Greeks agreed (sort of) with your brother, and actually theorized that playing "bad music" in battle could weaken an enemy. Curiously absent from their speculation was any advice on how to blast your enemy with "bad music" while somehow not hearing it yourself.

 

[Andrew35]

The ancient Greeks agreed (sort of) with your brother, and actually theorized that playing "bad music" in battle could weaken an enemy. Curiously absent from their speculation was any advice on how to blast your enemy with "bad music" while somehow not hearing it yourself.

On a related note, I can't work out while listening to Classical. Makes me feel too reflective and contemplative, which utterly ruins the mood.

 

[LittleFaith]

On a related note, I can't work out while listening to Classical. Makes me feel too reflective and contemplative, which utterly ruins the mood.

That's because you are listening to the wrong Classical. Try working out to the first movement of Mahler 6, or the first movement of Bach's 3rd or 5th Brandenburg concerti.

 

[Andrew35]

The ancient Greeks agreed (sort of) with your brother, and actually theorized that playing "bad music" in battle could weaken an enemy. Curiously absent from their speculation was any advice on how to blast your enemy with "bad music" while somehow not hearing it yourself.

On a related note, I can't work out while listening to Classical. Makes me feel too reflective and contemplative, which utterly ruins the mood.

That's because you are listening to the wrong Classical. Try working out to the first movement of Mahler 6, or the first movement of Bach's 3rd or 5th Brandenburg concerti.

I could try. But even energetic Classical has a complexity which seems to draw my brain off track.

 

[No Other Name]

I could try. But even energetic Classical has a complexity which seems to draw my brain off track.

I agree. I once was lifting to Halidon's classical workout mix and a trainer came over and warned me that I was inserting lots of jerks and twitches in my motion and I find it was completely related to all the multi-part energy of a full symphony. Even when the strings go soaring through a simple melody, the horns or woodwinds or others are filling it out with the energetic theme of the whole piece and my arms react to that.

 

[greenbaggins]

There is still beauty in modern music. Try a few of these on for size:

 

[DanSSwing]

The ancient Greeks agreed (sort of) with your brother, and actually theorized that playing "bad music" in battle could weaken an enemy. Curiously absent from their speculation was any advice on how to blast your enemy with "bad music" while somehow not hearing it yourself.

Reminds me of this classic Monty Python sketch in which the British attempt to write a joke that is so funny that the German enemy will die laughing when they hear it:

 

[No Other Name]

The ancient Greeks agreed (sort of) with your brother, and actually theorized that playing "bad music" in battle could weaken an enemy. Curiously absent from their speculation was any advice on how to blast your enemy with "bad music" while somehow not hearing it yourself.

I imagine several merchants were happy to sell "authentic" wax pieces for the ear - the same type and quality Odysseus and his men used!

 

[VerticalLiftEnjoyer]

I'm noticing only classical seems to be considered beauty. Would things like this:

or this:

be considered beautiful? I haven't really established a standard for beauty yet

 

[davejonescue]

I'm noticing only classical seems to be considered beauty. Would things like this:

or this:

be considered beautiful? I haven't really established a standard for beauty yet

Its like I mentioned above; be weary of those trying to objectively define beauty. It will almost always be people claiming their preferences are the definition of it. While I listen to classical sometimes when I study; I also enjoy binaurial beats, lofi, boom-bap, funk, jazz, dubstep, and deephouse. I would consider all of those beautiful. The reality is, peoples preferences differ. No use in trying to convince some; as they will not relent until they convince you why theirs is the best. But I will make one observation, every generation thinks the generations music after them is garbage. Sometimes its hard to separate tradition from truth. The truth is, beauty is subjective. And while some things are almost universally considered beautiful, there is a big difference between that and defining something not that as objectively ugly. Raised in the city, I think the concrete jungle is beautiful; while others dream of hills and prairies; let every man be convinced in his own mind. Just because I prefer graffiti, grit, and the sounds of horns and sirens; doesnt mean I cant appreciate the beauty in fields of flowers, and the solace a surrounding of silence brings. Because I prefer the one, doesnt make the other ugly. If you think Bach is the only thing we will bump in heaven, I think you are sadly mistaken. The God of the Waltz is also the God of Breaking.

 

[Physeter]

There are some modern instrumentals that are pretty, but I lean more toward classical and easy listening instrumental music. I am old fashioned when it comes to music tastes.