quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm sure that certain health, wealth and happiness outfits use ASCs in order to counterfeit the presence of God. Cessationists, however, invariably refuse to acknowledge that as a possibility. They tend to argue that ten pound notes don't exist because they've found a forgery.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
I think there is already a misapprehension appearing in this thread. Most churches do not use repetition to hypnotise their congregations/audiences.

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quote:

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Where you find the excessive exposure and repetitious music, you find hypnosis. Music is not required, but it 'helps'. Notice the words 'enhance' have already appeared in this thread--it is, by its very nature, manipulative.

There is a related issue of musical competence, but that's not the OP.

K.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
I think there is already a misapprehension appearing in this thread. Most churches do not use repetition to hypnotise their congregations/audiences.

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For the sake of argument, I'm disagreeing. I'm suggesting that all church traditions use repetition as a form of hypnosis. Most churches use some sort of repetition in their services, no?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
I think there is already a misapprehension appearing in this thread. Most churches do not use repetition to hypnotise their congregations/audiences.

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For the sake of argument, I'm disagreeing. I'm suggesting that all church traditions use repetition as a form of hypnosis. Most churches use some sort of repetition in their services, no?

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Interesting, I find traditional church jumpy, what do you find repetitious in it, unless you mean each week parallels the one before, but that's true of any ritual -- flag ceremonies etc. Is all ritual "hypnotic"?

And repetition -- it's common in folk songs. Hey nonny nonny nonny hey nonny nonny nonny hey nonny nonny nonny hey nonny nonny nay. Are folk songs hypnotic?

When I hear this complaint, I hear someone looking for an argument to diss church. Repetition is not hypnosis. Or should we refuse to reread a child's favorite story because that would be hypnotic?

Better we should ditch the TV, now that really is hypnotic to some! Even though it is not repetitious per se.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Interesting, I find traditional church jumpy, what do you find repetitious in it, unless you mean each week parallels the one before, but that's true of any ritual -- flag ceremonies etc. Is all ritual "hypnotic"?

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quote:

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And repetition -- it's common in folk songs. Hey nonny nonny nonny hey nonny nonny nonny hey nonny nonny nonny hey nonny nonny nay. Are folk songs hypnotic?

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quote:

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When I hear this complaint, I hear someone looking for an argument to diss church. Repetition is not hypnosis. Or should we refuse to reread a child's favorite story because that would be hypnotic?

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quote:

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Better we should ditch the TV, now that really is hypnotic to some! Even though it is not repetitious per se.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Long Ranger,

Some repetition is probably present in most denominations, yes, but note that I mention 'excessive' repetition and prolonged exposure. I think saying 'Lord, hear us', ten times following the intercessory prayers is not going to have the same hypnotic effect as saying "Spirit Break Out!" or some such, 80 times and at high volume. I'm interested to find out what qualifies as excessive. It's going to depend on the person and other environmental factors.

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quote:

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I don' think that it is usually deliberate in the sense of 'let's hypnotise the congregation and get them to bark like dogs or speak gibberish', but rather 'let's call on the power of God/Holy Spirit to 'fill this place' [etc.] and then, if we do it right, people will bark like dogs and 'speak in tongues'.

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quote:

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I think most people are after something good, but getting something rather different.

K.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
I believe that God can heal people, but I don't believe that people can use magic to heal people. I've seen so many of these things… most of them are induced, behavioural phenomenon.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Well Darren, the vast majority of these 'healings' an 'speaking in tongues' and 'floor time', 'drunk in the spirit', etc., ad nauseam, are induced, not sent from God. They are (and have been, many times) easily replicated outside the church/Christian context.

I believe that God can heal people, but I don't believe that people can use magic to heal people. I've seen so many of these things… most of them are induced, behavioural phenomenon.

K.

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quote:

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people who are epileptic, and that appears to function (for some of them, at least) as a form of hypnosis

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quote:

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Originally posted by maryjones:
TWADDLE!
Hypnotism suggests - to me, anyway, being under somebody else's control. Just because somebody having a seizure is not in control of their own body doesn't mean anybody else has taken over.
I suppose you might argue that the Gadarene swine were hypnotised into jumping over that cliff - but anti-convulsive drugs have come on a lot since then!

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quote:

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Originally posted by maryjones:
/tangent.

quote:

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people who are epileptic, and that appears to function (for some of them, at least) as a form of hypnosis

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TWADDLE!
Hypnotism suggests - to me, anyway, being under somebody else's control. Just because somebody having a seizure is not in control of their own body doesn't mean anybody else has taken over.
I suppose you might argue that the Gadarene swine were hypnotised into jumping over that cliff - but anti-convulsive drugs have come on a lot since then!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Please listen to the interview. Several of you are reading things that are not being argued. Repetitious music does not equal hypnosis--and that has not been argued. The context is vital; if you can't be arsed to listen to the interview for the context of the role music plays in hypnosis, then don't bother trying to discuss it.

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quote:

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I've interviewed and consulted with several hypnotists, clinical and 'stage'; all of them discuss the roles of certain types of repetition--including music. As for making animal sounds, it's been a trait of Kundalini for centuries--it's very easy to explain from a historical and psychological point. That's one of the points made in the interview (and other studies have revealed). Most of these Word–Faith charismatic phenomena can be recreated without any Christian element(s) at all--and get the same results.

K.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Fallacies: poisoning the well and guilt by association. Welcome to Freshers Week.

K.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I listened to the interview before posting anything on the thread. My concern about the interview is this: 1) the interviewer clearly has a negative a priori view of charismatic Christianity, not just "word-of-faith" type pentecostalism, 2) the interviewer asks leading questions on at least two occasions by which the interviewee refuses to be drawn.

The interviewer is coming from a cessationist position concerning the charismata. Now, I think he's right about the use of ASCs for ungodly and even possibly evil purposes in the health, wealth and happiness movement. What I don't think he understands is this: the use of hypnotic techniques and neurolinguistic programming is a method of counterfeiting the perfectly legitimate and normal work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Galilit:
Are you equating hypnotism with "an altered state of consciousness".
I don't think they are the same thing at all.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Where you find the excessive exposure and repetitious music, you find hypnosis. .

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Eh? You st\arted this thread with an OP purpiorting to ask if this sort of music could be counted as hypnosis (and the true answer is fo coruse that it can't) and ony a couple of post later you are assuming that it does?

Is that another Father Gregory style OP? Asking a question purely so you can later give away your answer?

And is this thread any more than another instance of the "lets all say bad things about evangelicals" trope so common here. Its gay-bashing over on the othe rpart of the ship but here its Evil Alien Mind Control Music Eats Your Brain!

Well, at least we've got more sophisticated in our depravity.

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
You certainly won't find the same bar, short phrase or rhythm repeated 80 or more times without alteration. . [/
QUOTE]

[ahem] Jesus Prayer. Rosary. And so on...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Komensky:
Please listen to the interview. Several of you are reading things that are not being argued. Repetitious music does not equal hypnosis--and that has not been argued. The context is vital; if you can't be arsed to listen to the interview for the context of the role music plays in hypnosis, then don't bother trying to discuss it..

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
What percentage, do you think, of barking, laughing, falling about members of the congo at, say, HTB is the result of behaviour or induced phenomenon and what percentage is of The Holy Spirit?

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quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
Hmm. I'm not sure if that is contradictory. If you have been put under an voluntary induced hypnosis (or a self-induced hypnosis), is that objectively a bad thing? I don't know.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm sure that certain health, wealth and happiness outfits use ASCs in order to counterfeit the presence of God. Cessationists, however, invariably refuse to acknowledge that as a possibility. They tend to argue that ten pound notes don't exist because they've found a forgery.

---

I think almost all churches of all types use repetitive music to enhance the worship experience. Possibly almost all religions of all types do this. Even those which require silence (possibly) get people into a similar hypnotic state.

And that might not be intentional, or even a bad thing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alogon:
An obvious case IMHO is in "prayers" led while music is playing in the background. Here is someone talking to an audience while arranging for the audience to be distracted from what he is saying. This convention absolutely creeps me out, and why shouldn't it? I've encountered it from televangelists. I assume it happens in live services in some places, but have led too sheltered a life to be certain.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alogon:
An obvious case IMHO is in "prayers" led while music is playing in the background. Here is someone talking to an audience while arranging for the audience to be distracted from what he is saying. This convention absolutely creeps me out, and why shouldn't it? I've encountered it from televangelists. I assume it happens in live services in some places, but have led too sheltered a life to be certain.

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This sometimes happens in black-led churches.

The equivalent in mainstream churches, perhaps, is when the minister tells you it's time for silent prayer... and then proceeds to talk, very slowly, right over your 'silent' prayer time!
 

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Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :
 
It seems that the angels worship in very repetative ways - all those Holy's and Worthies .....
God must use very evil mind control techniques on them ....
 

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Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I'm not doubting that hypnosis happens, I just don't think it's always or even usually bad.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alogon:
An obvious case IMHO is in "prayers" led while music is playing in the background. Here is someone talking to an audience while arranging for the audience to be distracted from what he is saying.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Does the music in a movie or TV show distract you? It's meant to enhance the music, [?] and the communication.

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You probably mean that the music enhances the drama or the emotion. Of course, and I love it. (Speaking of repetition, I also have, or used to have, a weakness for disco, in its proper place.) But even when the theme or the message of a drama or movie is very spiritual and edifying, it's not the same as worship. For awhile, music was almost continuous in American films; it was a style. Perhaps people expected it because before the "talkies," organists would improvise throughout silent movies. But some critics nowadays will quickly point out when the music or other aspects of a film are "manipulative". This criticism is surely a matter of degree, it connotes cheap shots and lack of subtlety. The best dramas appeal to our minds as well as our emotions.
 

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Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
Belle & longranger, let's not confuse verbal repetition with musical repetition. And further, let's also not confuse recurrence (a motive or phrase is repeated at intervals) with repetition (the same musical content is repeated without variance or change).

In a number of religious contexts, repetition is used to invoke trance states. The Gnawa music of Morocco is one well-known example. But I'm not aware of this phenomenon occurring in liturgical Christianity. I suppose you could point to litanies and psalmody as related practices to an extent, as both of these use responsive singing and breathing to assist in entering into contemplation--but the goal is not abandonment, extasis, or loss of consciousness. It is, rather, extending consciousness.

On the other hand, as Komensky is no doubt well aware, Brian Eno has been quoted as saying "Repetition is a form of change." And let's not forget Mark E. Smith's cogent observation "Repetition, uh repetition, uh repetition."
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Alogon:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I'm not doubting that hypnosis happens, I just don't think it's always or even usually bad.

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Probably you agree with the new PC that seduction is bad if the seducer does not obtain and maintain the seducee's permission? Wouldn't it be the same with hypnosis? If hypnotists' intentions are benevolent and respectful, then they should be happy to request, and receive, a patient's permission before proceeding. Unfortunately, I'm not confident that this is always the case. A significant part of the training that Rudyard Kipling's Kim received in order to be an effective secret agent for the British empire was to recognize and reject attempts by others to play with his head in this manner. Sure enough, without this preparation the boy would soon have succombed, probably fatally, to the wiles of an enemy. It's fiction, yes-- but totally realistic.

While strong and regular rhythms are hypnotic, I'd argue that the Christian, or at least Catholic, sacred music tradition tends to eschew them. In Gregorian chant, duple and triple rhythms alternate irregularly. Chanting according to the Solesmes method introduces further complications such that "finding the ictus" is an issue in itself, with results often intriguingly at odds with the syllabic stresses of the words. Much classical polyphony was in the same spirit. They were not written with bar lines. Modern editions providing bar lines in this music are usually not authentic, and honest editors will say so.

So it is in the music of Olivier Messiaen (who was influenced by Tournemire, who was influenced by Gregorian chant a la Solesmes). In Technique of my Musical Language, Messiaen he declares that regular beats are carnal rather than spiritual and that his music rejects them in favor of more unpredictable (although often symmetrical) rhythmic motives. As evidence that Christian meditation might not be quite unique in this regard, Messiaen adopted rhythms from Hindu music.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alogon:
An obvious case IMHO is in "prayers" led while music is playing in the background. Here is someone talking to an audience while arranging for the audience to be distracted from what he is saying.

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I hear it commonly in Black churches. It's background music -- does the music in a movie or TV show distract you? It's meant to enhance the music, and the communication.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Belle & longranger, let's not confuse verbal repetition with musical repetition. And further, let's also not confuse recurrence (a motive or phrase is repeated at intervals) with repetition (the same musical content is repeated without variance or change).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:

In a number of religious contexts, repetition is used to invoke trance states. The Gnawa music of Morocco is one well-known example. But I'm not aware of this phenomenon occurring in liturgical Christianity. I suppose you could point to litanies and psalmody as related practices to an extent, as both of these use responsive singing and breathing to assist in entering into contemplation--but the goal is not abandonment, extasis, or loss of consciousness. It is, rather, extending consciousness.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Belle & longranger, let's not confuse verbal repetition with musical repetition. And further, let's also not confuse recurrence (a motive or phrase is repeated at intervals) with repetition (the same musical content is repeated without variance or change).

---

quote:

---

In a number of religious contexts, repetition is used to invoke trance states. The Gnawa music of Morocco is one well-known example. But I'm not aware of this phenomenon occurring in liturgical Christianity. I suppose you could point to litanies and psalmody as related practices to an extent, as both of these use responsive singing and breathing to assist in entering into contemplation--but the goal is not abandonment, extasis, or loss of consciousness. It is, rather, extending consciousness.

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quote:

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On the other hand, as Komensky is no doubt well aware, Brian Eno has been quoted as saying "Repetition is a form of change." And let's not forget Mark E. Smith's cogent observation "Repetition, uh repetition, uh repetition."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Twangist:
It seems that the angels worship in very repetative ways - all those Holy's and Worthies .....
God must use very evil mind control techniques on them ....

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Hi Twangist - good to see you on here again!

I've recently recorded two BBC1 programmes from NF Church of Christ the King, Brighton, "Pentecost Praise" (below) and this week's Songs of Praise - I hear there is another in the pipeline too.

Live Pentecost Praise from CCK Brighton on BBC1

Hand on heart, I absolutely love some of this music! I wouldn't call it "hypnotic" at all - rousing maybe, but what's wrong with that? If there was an NF church near me which had music like that, I would pop in now and again - my only worry would be that I might be kicked out for being a "Jezebel spirit," but I could be wrong. Would they do this, or do they welcome others from different denominations who have no intention of converting?

As I said, I wouldn't accuse this stuff of being hypnotic - which is more than can be said for some!...

The Occult in the Church (discernment video)
 

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Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :
 
I wonder if there is a sense that the individual has to participate in the 'letting go', hence it is hard for anyone who is unused to the style to be hypnotised by it.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Never mind the discussion about hypnosis. I think you first need to spend a lot more time discussing the nature of music. ALL music.

Because the entire freaking point of the stuff is to affect us. Whether it raises our heartbeat or lowers it, makes us more aroused or less aroused. The GOAL of music is to alter our consciousness.

To see something particular in this respect about 'worship music' is to miss the wood because you're staring really hard at a tree you don't like.
 

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Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Never mind the discussion about hypnosis. I think you first need to spend a lot more time discussing the nature of music. ALL music.

Because the entire freaking point of the stuff is to affect us. Whether it raises our heartbeat or lowers it, makes us more aroused or less aroused. The GOAL of music is to alter our consciousness.

To see something particular in this respect about 'worship music' is to miss the wood because you're staring really hard at a tree you don't like.

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quote:

---

originally posted by Eutychus


Where I think a lot of charismatic worship has gone wrong (and indeed contaminated a lot of non-charismatic worship) is with the appearance of the "Worship Set". This name betrays the slavish copy of any secular band's set. It puts the musicians centre stage, makes the congregation an audience (and thus more susceptible to manipulation) and removes the spontaneity that characterised the movement in the early days.

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Originally posted by Komensky:
To acuse me of projecting taste into the matter is a fallacy as well. Not all music is good--nor does it need to be. Remove yourself from thinking about 'worship' music for a moment and think about how music and repetition work in other circumstances: especially advertising. You cannot have it and not have it. Do you believe that children can learn how to count or spell more easily by using songs? Yes! But then the same people will deny that music can communicate negative ideas or even violence. I'm drifting into Tipper Gore territory here…

This conversation is not, per se, about musical style but about musical materials, composition and competence. Art music animates and occupies the intellect--but only if something of the vocabulary -- melodic, harmonic and rhythmic structures-- are understood. You cannot ask a 10-year old to read and understand Joyce or Stravinsky, they must work their way up, progressively, through better and better literature. The democratisation of 'taste' demands that anything, absolutely anything, is as good as the next. And so, what then gives mass and duration to a musical composition created by someone with little or no idea of how the smaller ideas can form part of a larger structure? The answer, in the context of worship music, is excessive repetition. Usually motifs of about 1-2 bars long, with no modulation are repeated over and over and then there is a chorus is similar materials, then again and again. That's it. The school that produced it is already in love with pop culture and so the similarity with music for adverts or TV is an ideal model. The people who write and sings these songs are not out to deceive people--they're merely following the paradigm of their church: imitate pop culture.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
The whole divide between 'high' and 'low' forms of music is one that would have been completely unrecognisable to anyone before about 1850.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
The whole divide between 'high' and 'low' forms of music is one that would have been completely unrecognisable to anyone before about 1850.

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You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.


K.

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Oh, right, fine, that's settled then!
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 
I don't even know where to start. Let's start here: the issue of high and low music is not the subject at hand. Two, the admission in intellectual culture that peasant music was even something worthy of discussion or analysis in the context of musical study didn't emerge until after the middle of the eighteenth century (it was not uniform across Europe). Scholars and musicians certainly did recognise high and low musical types certainly by the second half of the seventeenth century. Taruskin is repeating old stories and polemics, he's not a revisionist.

K.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Let's start here: the issue of high and low music is not the subject at hand.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I note that the only brief part of the interview that I heard talking about music merely referred to the music mirroring body functions, such as being at the right pace for a heartbeat.

Which is entirely aligned with what I've heard elsewhere. But that says precisely nothing about the genre of music. Classical music that is at the 'heartbeat' pace will have the same relaxing impact.

I certainly don't hear the interviewee saying otherwise. He makes passing reference to praise & worship because of the context/angle of the interview.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Ahh, I see where this going now. [snip] What complete and utter elitist twaddle.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Ahh, I see where this going now. [snip] What complete and utter elitist twaddle.

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Ah, the shrill refrain of the philistine.

K.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Ahh, I see where this going now. Those evangelicals with their crappy, low brow music and their congregational singing aren't really experiencing God whereas us Anglo-Catholics with our high-brow aesthetics and sophisticated orchestral arrangements are truly in touch with the divine.

What complete and utter elitist twaddle.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

Finally, I've not been in a trance-like state outside of church, so I don't have much to compare it with. But I have several times in church. These did not involve endless repetition - indeed, it is hard to specify exactly what triggered the effect in me, but I'd point to a combination of expectation, noise, space, atmosphere etc.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Ahh, I see where this going now. [snip] What complete and utter elitist twaddle.

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Ah, the shrill refrain of the philistine.

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quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Ahh, I see where this going now. [snip] What complete and utter elitist twaddle.

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Ah, the shrill refrain of the philistine.

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Yeah, because when Jesus returns he'll head straight for the cathedral to discuss the finer points of ecclesiatical music over post-mass sherry and nibbles.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky
I've also been in touch with colleagues with remarkable success with using musical therapy to treat brain injuries as well as dementia and alzheimer's disease. So there is material there, but the cause-effect relationships are not always clear.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Ahh, I see where this going now. [snip] What complete and utter elitist twaddle.

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Ah, the shrill refrain of the philistine.

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Yeah, because when Jesus returns he'll head straight for the cathedral to discuss the finer points of ecclesiatical music over post-mass sherry and nibbles.

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Be fair, I doubt if he'll be drinking dodgy coffee and chatting about Matt Redman and [insert name here, buggered if I know who's writing this stuff now] either.

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What the hell are talking about man? You know as we'll as I do that Jesus will go to HTB.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
That talk about baroque music avoiding excessive repetition... what the heck is a chaconne, then?

EDIT: Or a passacaglia. Take your pick. Composers seem to have done sometimes...

[ 16. October 2012, 12:45: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
That talk about baroque music avoiding excessive repetition... what the heck is a chaconne, then?

EDIT: Or a passacaglia. Take your pick. Composers seem to have done sometimes...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
That talk about baroque music avoiding excessive repetition... what the heck is a chaconne, then?

EDIT: Or a passacaglia. Take your pick. Composers seem to have done sometimes...

---

In those cases you have a the ostinato (repetitio) and the other part(s) variatio. I'm alluding to exact, more or less, repetition of single musical ideas. Many chaconnes or other forms based around ostinati also modulate.

K.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
That talk about baroque music avoiding excessive repetition... what the heck is a chaconne, then?

EDIT: Or a passacaglia. Take your pick. Composers seem to have done sometimes...

---

In those cases you have a the ostinato (repetitio) and the other part(s) variatio. I'm alluding to exact, more or less, repetition of single musical ideas. Many chaconnes or other forms based around ostinati also modulate.

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
That talk about baroque music avoiding excessive repetition... what the heck is a chaconne, then?

EDIT: Or a passacaglia. Take your pick. Composers seem to have done sometimes...

---

In those cases you have a the ostinato (repetitio) and the other part(s) variatio. I'm alluding to exact, more or less, repetition of single musical ideas. Many chaconnes or other forms based around ostinati also modulate.

K.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alogon:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I'm not doubting that hypnosis happens, I just don't think it's always or even usually bad.

---

Probably you agree with the new PC that seduction is bad if the seducer does not obtain and maintain the seducee's permission?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:

In a number of religious contexts, repetition is used to invoke trance states. [...]. But I'm not aware of this phenomenon occurring in liturgical Christianity.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
Check out this remarkable example of how someone changes completely. What is interesting about this example is that the music is already familiar to him.

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quote:

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There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a blessing rests. One is where a priest or an organist, himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own (aesthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and coarser fare than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief) that he can thus bring them to God. The other is where the stupid and unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to music which he cannot, or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it somehow glorifies God, and that if it does not edify him this must be his own defect. Neither such a High Brow nor such a Low Brow can be far out of the way. To both, Church Music will have been a means of grace; not the music they have liked, but the music they have disliked. They have both offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense. But where the opposite situation arises, where the musician is filled with the pride of skill or the virus of emulation and looks with contempt on the unappreciative congregation, or where the unmusical, complacently entrenched in their own ignorance and conservatism, look with the restless and resentful hostility of an inferiority complex on all who would try to improve their taste – there, we may be sure, all that both offer is unblessed and the spirit that moves them is not the Holy Ghost.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
That talk about baroque music avoiding excessive repetition... what the heck is a chaconne, then?

EDIT: Or a passacaglia. Take your pick. Composers seem to have done sometimes...

---

In those cases you have a the ostinato (repetitio) and the other part(s) variatio. I'm alluding to exact, more or less, repetition of single musical ideas. Many chaconnes or other forms based around ostinati also modulate.

K.

---

This sounds awfully like "your repetition = bad, my repetition = good". No live musical repetition is exact, and modulation, improvisation and many other such musical devices are hardly unknown to worship bands. As I pointed out before, the dominant motif is of progression, not stasis.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
I refer my learned friend to the post above of my Kentish friend. (Or should that be person of Kent?)

I'm far from arguing that there are no differences between musical genres (though I would argue about their extent), merely that those differences do not equate to value, in anything but a personal perception of such value. What you might find extaticly moving might well leave others cold, and vice versa. I don't see how we can avoid the issue of taste in such a subjective landscape.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
What percentage, do you think, of barking, laughing, falling about members of the congo at, say, HTB is the result of behaviour or induced phenomenon and what percentage is of The Holy Spirit?

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:
An obvious case IMHO is in "prayers" led while music is playing in the background. Here is someone talking to an audience while arranging for the audience to be distracted from what he is saying. This convention absolutely creeps me out, and why shouldn't it? I've encountered it from televangelists. I assume it happens in live services in some places, but have led too sheltered a life to be certain.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:
As for a blissful state before worship, which works best? 10 minutes of modern praise or Sanctus from Mass in B minor? ... for me it has to be the Bach.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
What percentage, do you think, of barking, laughing, falling about members of the congo at, say, HTB is the result of behaviour or induced phenomenon and what percentage is of The Holy Spirit?

K.

---

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. So that's what goes on at HTB, thanks for informing me. Have you ever been to HTB?

On no occasion has there been any barking, laughing or falling over when I've visited HTB. So 0% for both.

As for a blissful state before worship, which works best? 10 minutes of modern praise or Sanctus from Mass in B minor? Despite not being in the style mentioned in the link, for me it has to be the Bach.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Belle & longranger, let's not confuse verbal repetition with musical repetition. And further, let's also not confuse recurrence (a motive or phrase is repeated at intervals) with repetition (the same musical content is repeated without variance or change).

---

Why not? Because it doesn't serve your point?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger {italics mine}
Anyway, that we have part of ourselves that is affected on a level below the rational seems incontrovertible. And that this part can be suggested to without the rest of us knowing is, or appears to be, (to me) a proven fact.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
WTF does that mean? I have trouble reading it in any way which doesn't make you sound really, really vile,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
WTF does that mean? I have trouble reading it in any way which doesn't make you sound really, really vile, and I'm sure you didn't mean it like that.

---

quote:

---

The Jesus Prayer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
The central difference is not style at all, but rather of literacy and competence. How can we discuss how music works if you don't know how music works? Easy, you just argue that there are no differences and all music in the same and any differences are merely taste.

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
The central difference is not style at all, but rather of literacy and competence. How can we discuss how music works if you don't know how music works? Easy, you just argue that there are no differences and all music in the same and any differences are merely taste.

K.

---

I think it only fair to ask you at this point what literacy and competence you have in 'worship music'.

The reason I argue that there are limited differences is precisely because I have knowledge of Classical music, pop music, church hymns and chorus-style church worship. I'm not making comparisons from a lack of literacy, I'm making comparisons from decades of experience with all of the above. I make no statements about jazz because I know very little about jazz.

Your argument is completely filled with put-downs of others, and frankly it's really irritating. You basically spend your time asserting that either other people in this thread or performers of this hypnotic style of music lack musical literacy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:

No, because they're not the same thing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
Orfeo,

This is an unfair characterisation. I've never once mentioned "the hypnotic style", nor do I think such a thing exists. I have repeatedly (here I go again!) reminded you and others that musical practices associated with hypnosis etc., are not limited or even primarily occupied by worship music. It seems to me that you are projecting your own anxieties about musical style (or at least what you perceive of it) in church onto this argument.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
Having just (finally!) send a recent book to the publisher I am thinking of new subject areas. One thing that interests me is the role (or possible roles) that music can play in various types of hypnosis. Here is an American radio interview with a former Word–Faith 'healer' from the UK where, among other things, he discusses the role of 'worship music' in helping creating the right atmosphere for hypnosis. Do you recognise what he describes at your church or a church you have visited? I certainly do. I think what he describes as a hypnotic state is what most worship leaders call 'effective worship'.

K.

---

quote:

---

The issues of competency and literacy are important because we had started to discuss notions of repetition and structure. That's it. Do you really want to pretend that knowledge is not necessary for analysis?

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
The central difference is not style at all, but rather of literacy and competence. How can we discuss how music works if you don't know how music works? Easy, you just argue that there are no differences and all music in the same and any differences are merely taste.

K.

---

I think it only fair to ask you at this point what literacy and competence you have in 'worship music'.

The reason I argue that there are limited differences is precisely because I have knowledge of Classical music, pop music, church hymns and chorus-style church worship. I'm not making comparisons from a lack of literacy, I'm making comparisons from decades of experience with all of the above. I make no statements about jazz because I know very little about jazz.

Your argument is completely filled with put-downs of others, and frankly it's really irritating. You basically spend your time asserting that either other people in this thread or performers of this hypnotic style of music lack musical literacy.

---

Orfeo,

This is an unfair characterisation. I've never once mentioned "the hypnotic style", nor do I think such a thing exists. I have repeatedly (here I go again!) reminded you and others that musical practices associated with hypnosis etc., are not limited or even primarily occupied by worship music. It seems to me that you are projecting your own anxieties about musical style (or at least what you perceive of it) in church onto this argument.

The issues of competency and literacy are important because we had started to discuss notions of repetition and structure. That's it. Do you really want to pretend that knowledge is not necessary for analysis?

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Having moved from classical piano training to working in worship bands, the idea that I moved from 'skilled' music to 'unskilled' or 'less skilled' is just complete nonsense. The worship music needed skills every bit as much as the classical piano I'd been learning for years. It needed quite different skills, ones that I'd previously had no use for, and ones that I had to learn.

Ironically, they included the ability to improvise and create variation rather than rely on the printed page to tell me exactly what to play. Skills that would have been used by any musician in the baroque era (hello, figured bass), but which were utterly lost in the later 'art music' tradition.

---

Quite. Technical difficulty in music is in the eye of the beholder, anyway. I have just started seeing a top conservatoire cello teacher. He has decided that I need to relearn my basic technique from scratch ( ) and I have consequently been spending *hours* playing open strings (for the non string-players following along at home, this is the most basic thing you can possibly play on a cello).

Meanwhile we have also started adding classical instruments to the praise band at my church. We're pretty much using strings to replace what would otherwise be played on a synth, which means lots of long held notes. My co-cellist looked at the score and went "oh how boring, this sucks". She's wrong . As I am in the process of learning, playing prolonged single notes well takes far more technical proficiency than people generally imagine. (I looked at the score full of minims and breves and thought "awesome, I can practice my technique. Twofer.")
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I could say more but suffice for now to make the observation that I think the debate about high/low art-forms etc is obscuring the point to some extent - which is surely whether altered-states or hypnotic effects in worship are desirable irrespective of which end of the candle we are and what our own predilections are in terms of musical style.

Is it ever acceptable to flap like a fish, fall over, roll around on the floor etc etc?

I'm not saying it is or isn't but I think I may start a new thread on those particular aspects.

I'll need time to think it through first ...
 

---

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Maybe it is all fake: maybe the strange state I was in at a HTB-style service was fake. Maybe the feeling of elation I got at a performance of Messiah was a fake. Maybe the warm fuzzy feeling I got was a fake.

Maybe it is all faked, suggestive, non-manipulative wishful thinking.

Where does that get us?

And if it is not all fake, how can we determine the fake from the non-fake when the results appear to be so similar? That is the question I'd be interested in discussing further.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Maybe it is all fake: maybe the strange state I was in at a HTB-style service was fake. Maybe the feeling of elation I got at a performance of Messiah was a fake. Maybe the warm fuzzy feeling I got was a fake.

Maybe it is all faked, suggestive, non-manipulative wishful thinking.

Where does that get us?

And if it is not all fake, how can we determine the fake from the non-fake when the results appear to be so similar? That is the question I'd be interested in discussing further.

---

ISTM that the Holy Spirit works through stuff, like music, aesthetics, words, rituals and so on; rather than impacting us in an unmediated way. If this is the case, then perhaps there is no 'fake' or 'genuine' as such. What we need to guard against is manipulation, whereby people are unwittingly steered towards certain behaviours and thoughts.

So, to use something I've mentioned before that I don't like... Giving messages (claimed to be) from God in KJV-style language grates on me because I pick up the unspoken message that because this isn't the person's usual communication style it therefore must be from God.

It's a fine line, I think. Aesthetics are important, especially to some people. But when people are being steered to respond in a certain way, I think the efforts to create an environment 'conducive to the moving of the Holy Spirit' have gone too far.

And maybe we can't really determine the fake from the genuine, or the God-produced from the human environment-produced. Maybe all we can do is give people the freedom to respond how they wish. No pressure to 'perform', as it were, or not to perform for that matter. As long as order is maintained, though I know we'll all have different views on exactly what that looks like!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger {italics mine}
Anyway, that we have part of ourselves that is affected on a level below the rational seems incontrovertible. And that this part can be suggested to without the rest of us knowing is, or appears to be, (to me) a proven fact.

---

I would say other than, rather than below

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
Well, we're on a tangent--I am not going to argue in this context about music and value. Orfeo, try this experiment. Think of the best worship leader you know. Ask them to learn, say, the Sibelius violin concerto. Then take the last violin, in the second violin section of even a middle-of-the-road professional orchestra, and ask them to learn to play the guitar on 'How Great is Our God'. I would guess that the average worship leader would need at least ten years and the average, run of the mill, rank and file violinist may need as much as a day or two. The levels of technical skill required are not even on the same page.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
You want to believe that all art is equal and repeat the morning-tv philosophy of 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
I was delayed in getting to the airport a few weeks ago to catch my flight back to England. As I was running to get on the plane I grabbed a Snickers bar from the machine near the gate. I was very hungry and after my mad dash it tasted delicious. What if there had been lobster or sea bass or even a caesar salad in the machine? There's no doubt that those are healthier foods and, to anyone beyond their teens, better tasting too.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
K - firstly, I think the violinist, if he's never touched a guitar before, is actually going to take rather longer than that to get used to changing without losing rhythm and avoiding fouling strings. It's not that easy. Secondly, can this not dramatically good second violinist play the Sibelius concerto himself?

Thirdly, there is the point that contemporary non-orchestral music makes a lot of use of improvisation. You can probably learn a basic accompaniament to a simple song like that pretty quickly, but to play it as an accomplished rhythm guitarist would do, with embellisments, moving bass part, choice of chord shapes, alternation between strumming, partial strumming, picking, finger work and all the rest, might take rather longer. Indeed, one can imagine putting things even into something like this (not that one usually would, but one could that might indeed take a decade to master.

It's not as black and white as you paint it.

[statement of interest: classical organist and choral singer, folk and rock guitarist, folk singer]

---

I haven't denied that different skills are required. Both a benefit and hinderance of classical music (since the early 19th c. anyway) is that it relies so heavily on notation. I grew up as both a classical musician and a jazz player too--so I am often baffled by the inability to improvise found in so many classical players. I can only speak from my own experience of worship bands, but I've played with some of the 'big names' in the 'scene' and they are musically illiterate and have almost no idea whatsoever how functional harmony works. As a result, they have spend a lot of time figuring things out on their own. It was very instructive to see them try to arrange hymns for the band because no-one had every played music that modulated or that changed harmony so many times per bar. As a result, everything had to be simplified. When they are in their own element, playing Radiohead-style worship music, they are excellent--but then the bar is so much lower. So, yes, different skills are required, but they aren't very comparable.

K.
 

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Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :
 
I'm into Shanties, which are as rough and ready as they come. I would think that a classically trained singer would have trouble performing them as well as some of the old sailors.

Why? It isn't just about skill level, clearly an opera singer is much more skilled than an untrained sailor. But in another sense, they've limited themselves by using their musical skills in a certain way.

And I totally dispute this idea that you can only (and perhaps should seek to) enjoy the higher skilled arts above the lesser skilled ones.

I like ballet and orchestral pieces too, but in a totally different way. Why should I be forced to choose between them?
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Radiohead? THAT'S your 'low' style?



Good God. Even my father, who barely listens to any pop music past the early 1970s, understands how skilled Radiohead is. He recorded a concert for me off television once, and while he didn't really grasp all the details of what they were doing and he didn't particularly like it, he could tell that they were damn good at what they were doing.

Oh, look. Just go and watch the movie Ratatouille and come back to me when you're done. Brad Bird explained it better than I ever could.
 

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Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
My experience of most organists and church choirs is pretty much the same. You're not comparing like with like.

You present most classical choirs with syncopated contemporary music and they're as stuck as any worship band is with modulation and block harmony.

[ 17. October 2012, 10:55: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Utter Rubbish. I just don't want to believe that all the good music is found in the same section of the music shop.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Utter Rubbish. I just don't want to believe that all the good music is found in the same section of the music shop.

---

I never said that and I certainly don't believe it.

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Radiohead? THAT'S your 'low' style?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Radiohead? THAT'S your 'low' style?

---

I never said that. Are you ten years old?

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
People who play music in church are not great musicians. Is this news?

I'm not sure I understand the point: which appears to be that because they're objectively crap musicians therefore they're more likely to cause hypnosis?!?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
Has anyone argued for this?

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Radiohead? THAT'S your 'low' style?

---

I never said that. Are you ten years old?

K.

---

Well help me out then. What exactly are you saying about people who play music in church like radiohead? I don't understand your point.

In India I visited a church where a very basic rhythm was beaten on a single drum. Are you saying that somehow is not proper worship?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Radiohead? THAT'S your 'low' style?

---

I never said that. Are you ten years old?

K.

---

quote:

---

When they are in their own element, playing Radiohead-style worship music, they are excellent--but then the bar is so much lower.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Ok so you've taken back this idea of 'higher' and 'lower' forms of music?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
there is value in bad music. I love the music of the Clash, for example-- and also Neil Young. The latter cannot play the guitar or sing in tune, but there is a striking honesty and authenticity in his performances,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
there is value in bad music. I love the music of the Clash, for example-- and also Neil Young. The latter cannot play the guitar or sing in tune, but there is a striking honesty and authenticity in his performances,

---

[TANGENT]
Young can play guitar and sing in tune (though it can be whiney.) Listen to the After the Goldrush album. Lots of folkey/country style songs well played and sung in tune. Then there's Southern Man. Deliberate dissonance in both guitar and vocal. It helps put the emotion of lyrics such as 'Swear by God I'm gonna cut him down" beter than anything tuneful would.
[END TANGENT]

Back on topic.

I have been listening to Mass in B minor. Sanctus alone lifts me into what some would call the presence of God, a receptive state, without the rhythm, repetition or peer pressure of a large congregation and worship songs. In fact it works better for me than modern praise music, just the opposite of what you seem to be suggesting. Or are you going to class JSB in with the modern stuff?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
there is value in bad music. I love the music of the Clash, for example-- and also Neil Young. The latter cannot play the guitar or sing in tune, but there is a striking honesty and authenticity in his performances,

---

[TANGENT]
Young can play guitar and sing in tune (though it can be whiney.) Listen to the After the Goldrush album. Lots of folkey/country style songs well played and sung in tune. Then there's Southern Man. Deliberate dissonance in both guitar and vocal. It helps put the emotion of lyrics such as 'Swear by God I'm gonna cut him down" beter than anything tuneful would.
[END TANGENT]

Back on topic.

I have been listening to Mass in B minor. Sanctus alone lifts me into what some would call the presence of God, a receptive state, without the rhythm, repetition or peer pressure of a large congregation and worship songs. In fact it works better for me than modern praise music, just the opposite of what you seem to be suggesting. Or are you going to class JSB in with the modern stuff?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Gorecki's Third Symphony.

Discuss.

---

Ha, ha, ha! This thread needed some levity…

K.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
It's not exactly light music.

It is, however, highly repetitive. I mentioned 'holy minimalism' before but I don't believe you responded.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I think you guys are talking past each other. Komensky has included The Clash and Neil Young in his musical canon.

That's good enough for me ... I recognise a fellow soul mate.



I think the problem isn't with 'pop' forms of worship music in and of themselves, but the way they become a form of spiritual elevator-music. The same thing happens in the more liturgical traditions to some extent. I've heard some dreadful RC music for instance - as well as some that sounded heavenly.

It could sound patronising but I would argue that there is something more real, raw and authentic in, say, black-led church worship or working-class Pentecostal worship in South Wales or The Potteries than there is about the soft-rock HTB/New Wine style.

But perhaps that's another value-laden judgement ...

I think, though, to return to the topic, that it's axiomatic that music does affect us and that it does play a role in creating emotional responses - but it doesn't do so in isolation. I would suggest that what generally causes the kind of response that Komensky has identified - the rollings on the floor and barking and so on - is down to a sense of expectation that this sort of thing is going to happen - it's suggestibility taken a few degrees further along the spectrum.

The music style in such cases shouldn't be seen in isolation but as part and parcel of the overall group-values and sense of expectation and what is seen as a desirable outcome of some kind.

I may start a new thread on this ...
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 
One of the clinical hypnotherapists I spoke with recently highlighted music as one tool used to bring about the state of hypnosis (which he was quick to discern from stage hypnosis). He also mentioned speech patterns ('vocal rolls', lighting and temperature). He said that some patients do not need music at all.

He knew 'something' about music (he didn't have a degree or special training, but could read music and composed folk music himself) but seemed confident that important factors were that it was uninterrupted (that is, once it started, it kept going at the same pace and volume without a break) and rhythmically simple and repetitive. There was no discussion of style. I mentioned earlier that at least one study, on music and the cardiovascular system, suggested that style was barely a factor.

My suspicions are that because non-musicians listen with their non-dominant hemisphere (usually the right side) they are therefore more prone to hypnosis through the experience. One of the central processes (among others) that takes place during hypnosis is a shift to the non-dominant hemisphere. This does not happen as a rule, but it is the pattern in the overwhelming majority of subjects.

K.
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
It's not exactly light music.

It is, however, highly repetitive. I mentioned 'holy minimalism' before but I don't believe you responded.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
It's not exactly light music.

It is, however, highly repetitive. I mentioned 'holy minimalism' before but I don't believe you responded.

---

"Holy minimalism Batman!"

K.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
It's not exactly light music.

It is, however, highly repetitive. I mentioned 'holy minimalism' before but I don't believe you responded.

---

"Holy minimalism Batman!"

K.

---

Interesting. Every time I mention 'art music' that is highly repetitive, arguably 'hypnotic' and that was named partly in recognition of the similar qualities it has to worship music, you're either silent or flippant.

Very informative.

---

Oreo, you've long ago stopped engaging with the issues at hand. The example (which wasn't an example at all, but rather an oblique compositional device) you have was the chaconne or passacaglia. I answered that. What is your question about Gorecky's Third Symphony? I think it's sentimental, but it does not exhibit the relentless type of rhythmic repetition that I've refereed to here. I like his string quartets more…

There, is that good enough for you?

K.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Doesn't exhibit relentless rhythmic repetition?



(One per movement)

I'm sorely tempted to engage in the kind of patronising remarks you've engaged in on this thread, but I'll confine myself to saying: go and listen to it!!!!!!

EDIT: No, wait, heck. EVERYONE go listen to it, then come back here and laugh with me. I'll see if I can find some links.

First movement

Second movement

Third movement - this is the one to go for if you pick just one

Not rhythmically repetitive. Oh my aching sides.

[ 17. October 2012, 13:08: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

Not rhythmically repetitive.

---

This is difficult for you, isn't it? Having to try to read and understand analytical terminology that you don't understand. To quote Walter in The Big Lobowski: "you're out of your element". You are an ignoramus who can't be bothered to read and understand. You see the word 'repetition' and fly into a blind rage. Do you know the word 'relentless' means? I am no more going to try to engage with your childish bullshit than I am going to discuss the wines of Bordeaux with a cat.

I don't know what, exactly, you are trying to prove--apart from proving that you are a musical lightweight who struggles with basic English comprehension. Stop derailing the subject at hand!

K.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
No, no, please don't stop.

Anyone can now follow those links and compare what their ears hear to your statement about the piece not being rhythmically repetitive, and can judge for themselves just how deeply your prejudices are ingrained.
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
No, no, please don't stop.

Anyone can now follow those links and compare what their ears hear to your statement about the piece not being rhythmically repetitive, and can judge for themselves just how deeply your prejudices are ingrained.

---

I did not say that it wasn't rhythmically repetitive you stupid little man.

K.
 

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Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :
 
I know what relentless means. Relentless is Ravel's Bolero (which I certainly find a bit hypnotic) and Holst's The Planets (particularly Mars).
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
No, you said it wasn't relentless. If I keep posting for 17 minutes (the length of the 3rd movement I believe), let's see if that's not 'relentless' posting.

Oh yeah, also, I'm going to try out with people who know me the idea that I'm a 'musical ignoramus'. THEY don't deserve to miss out on the laughter either.

Okay, I'm done here. Bye!
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 

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Originally posted by orfeo:
No, no, please don't stop.

Anyone can now follow those links and compare what their ears hear to your statement about the piece not being rhythmically repetitive, and can judge for themselves just how deeply your prejudices are ingrained.

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Stop projecting your own anxieties onto my posts; and stop derailing the fucking thread!

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Bullshit. I've tried to talk about music and hypnosis and several posters became obsessed with notions of style. I repeatedly tried to deflect discussion away from style and 'worship wars', but with little success.

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Oreo, for some reason, wants to talk about Gorecky's Third Symphony. Perhaps he felt it was like the New Age music for mediation that I mentioned. I mentioned that I didn't particularly like the piece, it's sentimental, but Orfeo wants to insist that it follows the same unchanging and relentless repetition of New Age meditation music. He hasn't followed the discussion, nor has he engaged with the arguments, but produces one red herring after another.

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I give up, let it die a death. It's not important here; these things can be better discussed at conferences, etc. It's a pity, because I thought that some Christians might have a perspective, which some clearly do, but one person can fuck up the whole thing with persistant digressions and without attention to detail.

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I'm too impatient of a person to have to explain things at that level. Not even my undergraduates are as thick as orfeo when it comes to following an argument and understanding meaning of words. It really beggars belief!

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
You've not talked at all about why hypnosis might be considered to be bad, why you think certain styles are hypnotic and others are not, nor why you think certain music used in church is hypnotic. In short, you've not shown any interest in discussing your original post at all.

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Why is it unreasonable to say that this piece of music is hypnotic?

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Why is a discussion of the hypnotic nature of music not part of this thread?

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Other than repeatedly asserting that this music is not repetitive and unchanging enough to be hypnotic, what have you actually added to this discussion?

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Fine, fuck off then. Don't expect anyone to want to discuss anything with you again, you arrogant bastard.

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I don't know about anyone else, but I have two postgraduate degrees. I also have a brain and an ability to understand complex arguments.

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As far as this thread goes, all you've done is supply a video from a disputed source and then refuse to discuss aspects of the hypnotic nature of Christian worship. What actually did you want to discuss?

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Originally posted by Komensky:
try this experiment. Think of the best worship leader you know. Ask them to learn, say, the Sibelius violin concerto. Then take the last violin, in the second violin section of even a middle-of-the-road professional orchestra, and ask them to learn to play the guitar on 'How Great is Our God'. I would guess that the average worship leader would need at least ten years and the average, run of the mill, rank and file violinist may need as much as a day or two. The levels of technical skill required are not even on the same page.

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Originally posted by daronmedway:
Komensky. The OP didn't give the impression that you wanted a super high-brow discussion about the technical aspects of ecclesiastical musical composition. It suggested, via a link to a crappy radio interview, that health, wealth and happiness ministries use repetitive worship music to induce ASCs which counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit. The implication of your OP being this: 1) repetitive charismatic worship songs are hypnotic, 2) spiritual experiences during charismatic worship are therefore result of hypnotism, not the Holy Spirit.

Now, is this actually what you think? Or is this emphatically not what you think? And are you prepared to help a musical layman like myself understand what you are saying, or do you just want to show off your learning until everyone stops trying to engage with the OP?

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Originally posted by Komensky:


That simply isn't true. For starters, you are confusing the word 'style' here. Some styles are more prone to certain organisational tendencies than others. That assertion was met with open hostility and cries of snobbery.

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I've tried to discuss the complex nature of the issue and the materials. I thought the interview was interesting because it projected what we know about hypnosis and music onto worship music. That's where I asked an open question to the forum. You committed a logical fallacy (or two) by refusing to engage in what the interviewee said because of the station that broadcast it. I can't do much about that.

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Why is it unreasonable to say that this piece of music is hypnotic?

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I never said that it was or wasn't.

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Why is a discussion of the hypnotic nature of music not part of this thread?

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Good question.

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Other than repeatedly asserting that this music is not repetitive and unchanging enough to be hypnotic, what have you actually added to this discussion?

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Well, I've given some examples and results from studies relating to music and physical reactions and also mentioned how music is employed in hypnosis (or hypnosis-like states) in other traditions (musical and otherwise).

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Do you recognise what he describes at your church or a church you have visited?

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I certainly do. I think what he describes as a hypnotic state is what most worship leaders call 'effective worship'.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think the fallacy here is to think that on the one hand there is a genuine, other-worldly Worship Experience™ and on the other an Evil Plot to Deliberately Manipulate People Into False Religion™.[/QB}

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[QB]To me it's much more a question of intent, degree and respect.

Where I think a lot of charismatic worship has gone wrong (and indeed contaminated a lot of non-charismatic worship) is with the appearance of the "Worship Set". This name betrays the slavish copy of any secular band's set. It puts the musicians centre stage, makes the congregation an audience (and thus more susceptible to manipulation) and removes the spontaneity that characterised the movement in the early days.

I suspect that ultimately, this trend is driven by the christian music industry's desire to sell records (or whatever one sells these days) and that this should be of greater or equal concern than any desire to hypnotise people*.

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But I can't say I'm surprised in a country where hustling reigns supreme.

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*Most moving recent worship experience: hearing Widor's Toccata in F as the introduction to a service in a Lutheran church in Strasbourg with a massive old organ. Should I move over to Ecclesiantics or seek counselling?

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But I'm not sure what you're implying here. Widor's toccata is an unusually repetitive, and therefore perhaps hypnotic, piece as organ music goes-- proto-minimalist, and in that way years ahead of its time.

I've only skimmed the debate between Orfeo and Komensky around who said what when. But the discussion seems to ignore the fact that soloists or members of small ensembles can improvise, but large groups (e.g. congregations when they sing, or even choirs) must follow a script. Improvisateurs are necessarily functioning in a relatively soloistic role.

It has also been claimed (and then denied) that some music is better than other music. I would submit that any denier won't get very far as a choir director, because it follows from his philosophy that rehearsals are a waste of time.
 

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Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 

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Originally posted by Komensky:
[You have ruined every chance this thread had of producing a good discussion with your own bewildering sidetracks. Time after time after time you write that I make such and such a claim, when I clearly didn't. I'm begging you, little man, read what I have written. Stop projecting your own anxieties onto my posts; and stop derailing the fucking thread!

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Originally posted by the long ranger:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:

No, because they're not the same thing.

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Do you mean they're not the same thing in the sense that (you assert) they're not even potentially hypnotic or in some other sense?

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Originally posted by Boogie:
Can anyone agree with me that there is nothing wrong with the hypnotic whether in worship, music or therapy? Like anything, it has the potential to be misused or abused, but in and of itself is harmless?

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Originally posted by orfeo:

Anyone who thinks that 'Radiohead-style' is a lower bar hasn't ever sat down and analysed the astonishing rhythmic deception at work in Pyramid Song, to pull out an example off the top of my head.

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Does Thom Yorke sound a bit like Neil Young on that - or has this thread hypnotised me?
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
try this experiment. Think of the best worship leader you know. Ask them to learn, say, the Sibelius violin concerto. Then take the last violin, in the second violin section of even a middle-of-the-road professional orchestra, and ask them to learn to play the guitar on 'How Great is Our God'. I would guess that the average worship leader would need at least ten years and the average, run of the mill, rank and file violinist may need as much as a day or two. The levels of technical skill required are not even on the same page.

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But you're talking about practical complexity, not the quality of the Art. You're talking about one type of technical skill, and there are many skills that are needed beyond that one.

I'm sorry, but it all reeks of snobbery to me too. The fact that you can say that you like the Clash, but that it's still "bad music" shows that. No, it's good music too. But good in different ways.

In my tastes I'm not in the same place as you Classical lot. I like alternative music, rock, metal and rap (though I have come across some classical music that I like). But the principles are exactly the same. Musical genius isn't just about technical ability. It's about texture, intuition, juxtaposition, poetry... and more...

You seem to keep saying things, then saying that that's not what you're saying. But if that' the case, then I too have no idea what you actually are trying to say. You can say it's not about "higher" and "lower" forms of music, but your actual arguments appear to assume it. Same with what you keep saying about "repetitive music".

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Originally posted by Boogie:
Can anyone agree with me that there is nothing wrong with the hypnotic whether in worship, music or therapy? Like anything, it has the potential to be misused or abused, but in and of itself is harmless?

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Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Except that The Jesus Prayer is a personal prayer - it isn't part of the liturgy.

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Originally posted by Komensky:
my point about the Sibelius concerto was directed at the person who asserted that there was no difference in technical demand between more and less formal styles.

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Having moved from classical piano training to working in worship bands, the idea that I moved from 'skilled' music to 'unskilled' or 'less skilled' is just complete nonsense. The worship music needed skills every bit as much as the classical piano I'd been learning for years. It needed quite different skills, ones that I'd previously had no use for, and ones that I had to learn.

Ironically, they included the ability to improvise and create variation rather than rely on the printed page to tell me exactly what to play. Skills that would have been used by any musician in the baroque era (hello, figured bass), but which were utterly lost in the later 'art music' tradition.

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Barnabas62 wrote:
The "contemporary argument" points to the undoubted facts that in many contemporary worship bands (e.g. in my own local church) there are some very fine musicians with classical training, whose gifts are a great asset but who have had to learn to cope with, and thrive in, the extempore dimension.

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I agree with this, but it feels like the "learn to cope with" element implies a degree of dumbing down or reluctant accommodation that isn't necessarily the case.

In my own very modest experience, I was taught classical piano to a reasonable standard (which I have let slide), and self-taught myself guitar. I play with some groups who are "follow the dots" and others who are "here's a chord sheet, let's see where it goes". Since starting with the latter I have had to seriously up my game, and have developed my grasp on theory, scales, modes and so on, as well as "how to play in a band", far more than previously. It has made me a better musician*.

I also sometimes have the joy of playing with someone who is a professional violinist. This person is very gracious, and mucks in with everyone from pros to numpties, and will happily follow the dots or go off piste as the occasion demands. However, the one thing they've repeatedly said in conversation is how much they enjoy the occasions where it's just a chord sheet and 'make something up that fits the moment'. Because that's not something they get to do normally. And in that extempore playing, they bring to bear all of the knowledge, touch, sensitivity and skill that they would if playing a formal piece.

Generally I think people who scorn formal training because "I just play in the Spirit, man" need a smack upside the head. However, extempore playing is, ultimately, just a different way of doing it, rather than a lesser one**.

I've probably just violently agreed with you

*Lest there be any doubt, I'm still not a good musician. I'm too busy, and too lazy, so learn just enough tricks to get by in the context I operate, and trust to playing with other good people to cover the gaps.

**And of course, the more you play with a particular "extempore" style group, the more you realise that actually it's not that extempore at all. There are patterns and figures that pop up at certain moments almost like clockwork, and ultimately it boils down to the old adage that "you have to practice really hard to be spontaneous" - it's only by rehearsing a lot, knowing your band mates well, and thus where they're likely to take things at any given time that the 'spontaneous' playing gels, by and large.
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 
I think the idea of technical requirements and achievement may need another thread. As for the post about organ improvisation--I quite agree that it can occupy the mind in what seems like a hypnotic way, but my inclination is that so long as there is a certain balance between repetition and variation you are still, to varying degree, occupying both side of your brain.

I think it would be a foolish idea to say the improvised music is, ipso facto, more repetitive (of the sort that might related to hypnosis techniques) than notated music. The musical vocabulary (how to create melodic periods, how to modulate, how to handle inversion, figuration, contrapuntal devices, etc.,) used by a trained organist is going to be, in general, more sophisticated than your average worship leader. It's not a matter of intelligence, they simply have a larger palette to work with. I think we're in danger of some kind of 'contest of styles' here, which I think will yield little productive discussion. I can see how the construction of materials is often related to style, but in the context of how music can be used for hypnosis or other suggestive states, I think the central issues relate to stasis: non-modulation, regular rhythmic patterns that are repeated frequently (with little or no change), constant flow of sound... and others as have been mentioned.

Nevertheless, I still think that overemphasis on 'style' (in this context anyway) leads us away from the musical characteristics (compositional ones--be they improvised or notated) that overtake (for lack of a better work) the right hemisphere and are more prone to suggestive states or even some kind of hypnosis. I'd be curious to learn how someone, for example, improvising a fugue, divides the various aspects in their brain: organisation, creativity, listening enjoyment and so on.

When I talk to hypnotists the first word out of their mouths regarding their uses of music is 'repetitive'--but that can only be part of the picture. They tend not to know too much about music and have some kind of CD of 'hypnosis' music. You can hear samples of these with a quick Google search.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
"Dumbing down" strikes me a a value judgment which carries its own assumptions, Snags.

As does the issue of repetition, Komensky. I'm thinking, for example, Beethoven, who having uncovered a great theme (e.g slow movement, 7th symphony) will extract every last bit of emphatic, creative juice from that theme, with profound and marvellous effect. But if one is not "in tune" with the great composer, if one does not "get" what is going on, the effect may come across as very repetitive. There can be a kind of "blindness" to the power of the genre.

I came across another kind of blindness (and maybe I was blind too), during an attendance at the Proms, a lot of years ago. Second last night, Beethoven's 9th, final choral movement. I'm not a classical musician, but there I was, standing with the rest of the promenaders, and personally completely "transported" by the experience, awash with this glorious music. Then I hear this "tut, tut" and discover, for the first time, this other promenader a few yards away from me. Score opened, following the performance. I suppose from his perspective, something was "not quite right". I realised the difference between us is that I was a completely engaged participant, he was at least to some extent a critical observer. Or at the least, a participant who felt the need for critical monitoring of what went on.

To be honest, I thought at the time that he'd missed the point of being there. No doubt if we'd had a conversation, he'd have thought something similar about my emotional philistinism!

There are some quite profound issues about what we judge when we judge, and why we do so. These seem to me to underlie the powerful reactions stirred by this thread. Maybe they are worth considering in greater depth?
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 
That sounds sensible enough, Barnabas. One thing that fascinates me is how music is processed differently in brains of musicians. And so I think you're right--and this surely doesn't only apply to Western classical music--understanding the vocabulary and idiom is essential.

This is something I hope to learn more about in this current/future project.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

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Originally posted by Komensky:
One thing that fascinates me is how music is processed differently in brains of musicians.

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Originally posted by ken:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
One thing that fascinates me is how music is processed differently in brains of musicians.

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And what, if anything, do we know about that?

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