Music: Let's try it again

                 

Music. Let’s try this again.

Consider:

1—Revelation sums up the whole Bible.

2—There is a Song of Revelation, compiled by JBJ, of the words of the songs in Revelation.

3—This Song of Revelation is summational of the songs of the Bible, then.

4—But there is no music, as we know it, A. D. 2012/PergoamsCoram861.

5—Why not? Perhaps it is related to psalmodic response being the ultimate theological dynamic. Perhaps we are to respond to Revelation and the Song of Revelation to provide the music (melody, instruments, etc.).

6—How so? Consider Psalm 1. There are three iterations of ‘Blessed is the man’ in different situations.  This is an illustration of psalmodic response.

7—Hold this thought also: God reveals in word and sign.

8—How do we get the music then?

9—Hold this thought, from the atheist Howard Bloom in ‘Genius of the Beast:--Tuned empathy, saturated intuition.  You get the intuition of the tunes by saturated empathy, with the whole Bible.

10—Here’s a help: You run the gamma to ut, the gamut, in liturgy. Revelation is liturgical (and preterist, futurist, historicist, idealist, transformational—and I say, teachus us symbol). Therefore, certain note combinations, etc. are appropriate for certain times in the liturgy, which liturgy is sung in the Song of Revelation.

11—We can find, here’s an example, instruments mentioned in the Bible, e. g., Psalm 150.

12. What was used at Jericho, at the Song of the Red Sea, after the Last Supper?

13—And there is a space of time between A. D. 70 to now, and we are to flower from the seeds planted in the Bible, most of which is about our youth, and slavery. This leaves room for going from drums to organs and moog synthesizers and microphones and Snuffle and more.

14—My proposal would be to hang all the music for liturgy on the Song of the Revelation, insterspersing songs from other parts of the Bible, and that ‘we’—those with these talents—should continue to provide the links from one to the next, and into the liturgy. (It used to be that where songs came from was indicated by a verse at the top of the page in the hymnal. And in many churches, such as Christ the Redeemer, we respond to a Scripture reading with a Psalm or hymn.

15—What a revelation it would be to enact liturgy as a Lord’s Day/Day of the Lord proleptic recapitulation and training for maturing in the  Holy War in redemptive history, for liturgy trains the muscle memory of the body of Christ, so we can rightly ‘blink,’ Gladwellingly.

16—A wise one describes various ways of working.  One can get a job from the newspaper or a friend’s recommendation, and go to it and do it.  The job is in the temporary air. Or one can begin an apprenticeship of a few weeks or so, and then move up to journeyman, etc.  Thirdly, there are jobs one gets after academic training or liberal arts college work.  But the key work is a 4^th way, one’s calling, in which one engages from, say, 21, to, say, 70—one’s vocation, the most important thing one can do at which one would be most difficult to replace, lifetime. (this is not to belittle ‘issacharing,’ which is knowing what must be done NOW.  I have described a 4^th way approach.

CONCLUSION: Write a liturgy after the fashion of Revelation, providing the notes, etc. and instruments/memestruments, in psalmodic response to Symbol, the Language, the language in which Revelation is written, and which Revelation teaches us.  Hang the hymns and psalms from this framework.  If people complain, tell them in a loving imperative why, and ease into it, as ‘The Lord be with you, And with your Spirit’.