Thursday, February 12, 2015

Judaism as the Source of Classical Music

I'm no classical music historian but here's what I am concluding from the online class I told you about: classical music got its start from the Church. I would imagine that people always sang, even peasants in the field. But that was solitary. What you get with Classical music is a group of singers or musicians with each person playing a different role in the total harmony. At first the groups were small and the instruments crude as mostly the music was vocal. The music was spiritually inspired and the musicians were monks and the like.

Over time, a method of scoring the music, or encoding it, developed. This allowed for larger groups of musicians and for more complex arrangements. At first the score only addressed pitch, that is notes, but didn't account for duration. Eventually, it included both as well as accent and the like.

As technology developed the instruments got better and better and eventually replaced the voices in most cases. This made the music more universal, but also, in my opinion, it departed from religious themes as the words kept the content on point.

So I draw a few conclusions. Classical music started with Xianity, which of course, is not possible without Judaism. So no Judaism, no Beethoven. The true source of classical music is Judaism.

Technology aided the music but also took it away from religion, its source.

If you go to a classical music concert today, it's a very iffy situation. Half the musicians are immodestly dressed - you know which half. Most live non-Torah and non-Xitan lifestyles. The audience is the same. They love classical music but don't honor it's source. As Shakespeare wrote,  "Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude."


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