While I was reading, Thoughts on Worship Music, from the resources at Christ Church, Moscow Idaho, I thought about the time a pastor objected to a particular song on the basis that it was “melancholy”. Now, this was either an idiosyncratic reaction to the song itself, which was an upbeat, joyous expression of personal religious experience or a highly unusual use of the word, “melancholy”. Since he went on to elaborate that it was a “downer” I believe it was the former, since the common usage of “melancholy” indicates
“–a gloomy state of mind, esp. when habitual or prolonged; depression.”
or when used as an adjective, as he used it,
“-causing melancholy or sadness; saddening: a melancholy occasion.”
NO ONE (and I mean a BIG zero with the rim kicked off) else I have asked about this song has EVER agreed that it, is “saddening”, gloomy or depressing.
That leaves a much, much less common usage of the word to mean,
“-soberly thoughtful; pensive.”
Ah, perhaps he did mean it in this manner and objected because it led people to be thoughtful, contemplative. Knowing both his sermonizing and his temperament, it’d not surprise me that he’d not want people actually THINKING about what was going on…
*heh*
Back to more of the thoughtful (and thought-povoking) articles at Christ Church.
Mini-micro-update: Something from the article linked above to those with gig modern musical palates dulled by passing fare:
Some of us may have thought through the worldview issues, but we still can’t see the beauty in some older pieces. Of course, every era has plenty of inferior work. But, once again, it’s possible that modernity has prejudiced us to count only surface-level beauty as real beauty. In other words, we discount things that aren’t immediately beautiful to our personal tastes. We can tend to want everything to be immediate and automatic, and we cast off whatever doesn’t instantly please…
…Sometimes, though, even if we grasp the complex beauties at work in a piece of music, we get frustrated because of its level of difficulty. Yet here too we need patience and discipline. Reading English was once hard, but we overcame that. Singing shouldn’t come easily. Learning to sing glorious music will take years of education…
Aye, there’s the rub. Our society’s become used to drek that is instantly titillating and is easily accessible because it is so massively dumbed down. Stupid music for dull ears. “It’s all just personal taste” the dull eared crowd may assert. Yep. But that’s like asking a two-pack-a-day smoker for his assessment of a good wine or a good restaurant. He can’t taste the difference between good and garbage, and neither can “listeners” whose ears have been dulled–both physical and mental ears–by years of listening to garbage tell the difference between good music and bad.
So, it is a matter of taste, but not quite in the sense that dull-eared, self-enstupiated moderns intend.
FWIW…
(BTW, I have perversely found that, as my ears have deteriorated–primarily increasing issues with tinitus–I can “hear” more that is in the music I listen to. It’s a matter of understanding and feeling as much as physically hearing, though, and I suppose that comes with decades of slowly improving my listening skills. Well, as far as music goes, at least. I can’t say I listen as well to speech, but maybe that’s because so much of it is from people who just speak so very, very poorly and have nothing to say worth hearing (like the TOTUS’ current parrot-boy, The 0!).