TAM Initiative

Kurt Woetzel and Frank Garlock defend the thesis that certain styles of music carry the same moral value (good or bad) in any culture or situation, regardless of their lyrics. Woetzel, music minister and co-author of Music in the Balance (the title suggests both the idea of evaluating music and that of balance) together with Garlock, offers a quotation from a personal interview with Robert Shaw, a highly respected and renowned twentieth-century conductor, who said: “I believe all the arts are moral” (meaning not that they possess positive morality, but simply that they have the capacity to be good or bad). “I cannot understand how any art can be neutral.”[1] However, the claim that music is definitely capable of communicating a message with moral content (independent of lyrics) does not bring this question to its conclusion.

But there is no evidence to support the proposition that the capacity for moral communication is inherent in the elements of music (melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.), nor in the even smaller parts that make up those elements. Just as paint on a canvas can be used to convey a good or bad message, the elements of music are likewise not good or bad in themselves. It is necessary to combine these sound elements in a particular way for them to carry a “message.” Beyond this fact, the listener’s culture is the interpretive lens through which sounds communicate. Just as the patterns of human language must be known for the message to be understood, the message of musical sounds will likewise be correctly understood by those who belong to the culture that uses them (whether through singing or instrumental music).

Gilbert Rouget, a twentieth-century French musicologist is the author of Music and Trance. Having deeply studied the relationship between the music used in African tribes and trance (or possession), Rouget made certain observations relevant to our culture: “. . . what we need to remember is that music has a physical impact on the listener, and that it produces a sensory modification in the listener’s consciousness of self. This physical impact, of course, is what pop music is consciously seeking.”[2] This statement has been used to defend the thesis of the absolute morality of musical styles. However, this is not the actual message of Rouget’s study, as can be seen in this article by Dr. John J. Pilch discussing the thesis of Rouget’s book:

“Rouget denies that music causes a trance state ‘directly.’ Music is, rather, only one of many components that cause a trance state. It is often an essential element, but other cultural factors also enter into the picture. These factors vary from society to society. Moreover, even the same factor, such as music, functions differently in different societies, so that it is difficult to generalize [the relationship — my note] between music and trance. In one society, the trigger for trance may be soft music; in another it may be loud sound. In one society, fast rhythms may induce trance, while in another, slow rhythms are preferred.”[3]

Rouget, then, does not attribute the power to induce a trance in someone to the specific types of music used for a ritual, but concludes that the cultural expectations of individuals work together with the music to bring about the expected result.

A musical style (much like a style of visual art on canvas) does not carry with it only ONE possible message of moral content; rather, this message depends on the values and customs of the particular society (the culture) to which it belongs, and it is capable of being used as a negative or positive moral instrument. In the next article, we will try to distill all the information from these last four issues and seek a view that is exclusively biblical.

[1] Kurt Woetzel, “Is Music Neutral? An Interview with Robert Shaw,” Front Line, September–October 1998, 11, http://www.projectprobe.org/showpage.php?p=article4 (accessed December 20, 2012), my translation.

[2] Gilbert Rouget, Music and Trance (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985), 120.

[3] John J. Pilch, “Music and Trance,” Music Therapy Today, Vol. V(2), March 2004, 2, http://www.wfmt.info/Musictherapyworld/modules/mmmagazine/issues/20040225084519/20040225085459/MTT5_2_Pilch.pdf (accessed December 20, 2012).