Any Christians making music here?

[ShawnG]

Late arriver, I am a christian, but dislike preachy songs. Your music should be a reflection of who you are, not what you want others to be. I have the same problem however with those who write "political" music. many people who use music to send a political message will often criticize "christian" bands for doing the same thing.

[essential]

George Bush makes Christian music: The drums of war in Iraq.
Jesus would be so proud!

[essential]

I dont have a problem with Christian music or Political music. It is emotion that makes us create music, and Jesus can be very inspiring to some, and Political oppression can be very inspiring to others.

[daizo]

who cares about your heresy, and quit trying to shove it down our throats.

[aMUSEd]

I dont have a problem with Christian music or Political music. It is emotion that makes us create music, and Jesus can be very inspiring to some, and Political oppression can be very inspiring to others.

Not oppression (unless you mean the fight against it) but freedom can certainly be inspiring. I do disagree with this view that politics or religion and music don't or shouldn't mix. To me music expresses who you are as a person - what you feel, think and believe. If you believe in god (or gods) so powerfully you are moved to pray through the best means available to you creatively then why not? Similarly if you are moved by the oppression and suffering of others to want to express your outrage, forge a creative (rather than literal) weapon against it, or show another way forward, again why not? Music embodies human passion in all it's glory - that has to include expressions of love, joy, desire for peace, desire for change and so on.

[essential]

who cares about your heresy, and quit trying to shove it down our throats.

What heresy?

[essential]

Not oppression (unless you mean the fight against it) but freedom can certainly be inspiring.

Yes aMUSEd, I mean the fight against oppression.

[Rangtangtang]

What about Tony Blair's latest album - "I sing a song for you - Tony Blair and the Tabanachal choir".





Get it now on EMI records!

[Rangtangtang]

The Putin Jazz Funkster's - "This is my world"











yes

[abi]

something is wrong when i have to share someone´s religious beliefs in order to be accepted as his "mate", isn´t it?

yes, something would be wrong, but that's absolutely not the case here.

religion rears its ugly little head

this is the best sentence uttered so far in this thread!!

nice lesson of tolerance and humanism, thank you.

i wrote that i liked the sentence because i thought it was a variation of living colour`s song title "love rears its ugly head". that was all.

sorry for perhaps having been too sensitive about this whole thread.

lets be friends

[Panda]

OK, it is time to make some distinctions here

First, "Polyphony" is a word that has both general and specific meanings. Literally, of course, it means "Many voices" which is a pretty damn general term. I was using it in a more specific sense common in musicological writings. In this sense it means a specific form of 'Many voiced' part writing wherein melodic lines of distinct pitches are coordinated in accordance with certain rules of concordance. There is not really an argument here on that point, just some definitional vagueness.

I must point out, though, that of all the references and links that I have seen in this thread point to contemporary polyphony. When I pointed out that music of most parts of the world has no notation, it wasn't a cut, it was to point out that we have no way of knowing what it might have sounded like. I mean how could we know given the total absence of a notational or phonographic record?

Christians didn't even want polyphony in the beginning, because according to them, music should concentrate on the message, on the word of god, and not the means or the envelope, hence for example the monotonic gregorian chants.
Unless you count paraphony and heterophony as forms of polyphony (which i don't because polyphony to me means several *equivalent* voices at the same time), polyphony didn't appear in 'high western culture' before the renaissance, which in fact was in a way a movement *away* from the church

This "What Christians wanted" sort of statement is rather too sweeping. Just about everyone in medieval europe was a christian. Some of them were stodgy old men, and some were enthusiastic young people. Some were trying to conserve the past and some were trying to break from it. But in any case, the first firmly attested, documented polyphony was from the Ars Nova period (circa 1290-1360), well before the Rennaissance.

First of all: sorry, english is not my native language, so sometimes i can't quite express all the nuances i have in mind...

And yes, you're right that there's only definitional vagueness on the polyphony point, but it causes several possible interpretations of the word, that's all i was saying.

Ok, that 'christians didn't want' was rather poorly put, sorry. Let me rephrase: the elite, being also the religious officials only wanted monophonic music to be performed in their churches because according to them people had to listen to the message.

Secondly, I've always been told the Renaissance began in Italy in the 13th century, in France in the 14th. Ars Nova is mainly French and belongs to the early Renaissance. It is also not true polyphony but heterophony because the different voices are not independent but moving in 'organum'. But there's probably more than one possible division possible...

[Wopelka]

lets be friends

abi,

thanks for your message. i must admit i didn't get the living colour's reference.

oh yes, readily, let's be friends.

[oldevil]

sorry if i offended anyone, not my intention. having been raised in the American South I'vem experienced religious bigotry my entire life. Baptists insisting all Methodiists are going to hell, evangelicals insisting everyone but them going to hell, other evangelicals insisting evangelicals who belong to a different church are going to hell,and ,of course, anyone who doesn't agree with their political opinions going to hell, etc, etc, ad nauseum..it gets on my nerves when i perceive people using religion for other than positive purposes. my perception here was obviously incorrect. i am not singling out any specific religion but i stand by my statement that religion is the great divider; i think history shows that is often the case.

[ouroboros]

Jews do not recognize Jesus as messiah.
Catholics do not recognize Protestant faiths.
Baptists don't recognize one another going in and out of bars.

[koolkeys]

I do primarily Christian music. The music that is not "Christian" is written from a Christian perspective, such as love songs and such. But it all falls into the Christian category.

Sometimes here on KVR people really get on Christianity, but you'd be surprised just how many Christian musicians are here.

Welcome, and I'm also here if in need of fellowship, collaborating, or whatever.

Koolkeys