The Mystery of Music
There’s an interesting story behind the hit movie series, “Star Wars”. George Lucas wanted to bring a scifi adventure tale to the screen in a way that no one had done before. One of the ways “Star Wars” was to be unique was that it would have it’s own masterpiece of a musical score.
Previously, Stanley Kubrick had used some classical pieces in his scifi, “2001, A Space Oddesey”. Classical music is probably the epitome of disciplined and refined musical genres. Lucas uses classical orchestration to his own means as a background to telling his tale. It’s a very effective way to give an otherwise comic book story much more dignity and grandiuer.
Music has a profound effect on us. As a Christian, and a musician of sorts, my goal is to make my music become subject to Christ and His teaching. Like the fictional war that Lucas’ character, Luke Skywalker was fighting with the “dark side of the force”, there is a dark side to music.
Music effects us in profound and subtle ways that we don’t fully understand. Our sense of hearing is designed to give us an awareness of our surroundings, to enable verbal communication and to enjoy certain complex, rythmic patterns of sounds we call, “music”.
I doubt that music was ever intended to become the obsession that it has become to the western world. Many people spend thousands of bucks each year on their musical cravings. CD’s, concert tickets, iPods, boom boxes, mp3’s, music videos, etc.
I play guitar and bass for a youth choir at my church. Kenny, the director also plays for them and we work on lots of familiar pop and rock tunes from our younger days. We take songs and add our own words and make them songs of praise and worship for the kids. It’s a way for them to lead the mostly adult congregation into a closer relationship with Christ.
But, it’s a challenge to extricate the irreverence and attitude of arrogance and pride from many of the original recordings. One way is to poke a little fun at the original lyrics and another is to soften the hard edge of the instrumentals. The difficulty i find over and over is my tendency to let the music dictate how i play rather than the opposite.
It’s just one of the ways that God has challenged me to gain mastery over my own selfishness and pride and learn how to offer Him service, devotion and humility.
Wayne Hollyoak