Ken Myers, of Mars Hill Audio, recently gave several lectures on the subject of music and meaning. Videos of the talks are available HERE. Myers addresses the nature of music and cultural trends and problems in modern music. I must confess this is an issue I have struggled with over the past few years, but I think Myers does a fine job of crystallizing some of the issues with modern popular music, and especially modern music in the church.

One of Myers’ points that I found helpful was the idea that, in general, music has evolved in recent centuries from what he calls ‘cosmo-centric’ music to ‘self-centered’ music. I think Myers is right in his contention, and that this paradigm shift can be found in more than just music. Take poetry for example.

This was illustrated to me in a discussion I recently had with a university student on the subject of poetry. I discovered that this student basically thought of poetry as nothing more than pithy self-expression. Poetry, for her, is a way of expressing yourself eloquently, but that’s about it.

Compare that to C.S. Lewis’ statement about Geoffrey Chaucer:

Poets are, for Chaucer, not people who receive fame, but people who give it.

You can see his point quite clearly by considering the famous ancient and medieval poems. Take the Odyssey and the Iliad for example. Homer’s work was to spread the fame of Troy, the gods, and Odysseus – not himself. The ‘modern’ view of poetry, however, as expressed by the viewpoint I noted above, will yield primarily introspection and personal emotion. It turns inward, and points readers to the poet, rather than attempting to spread the fame of someone or something ‘outside itself.’

Myers is arguing that much the same is the case with music. My family and I explored this idea by listening to several pieces of classical music. As we listened to, for example, several of Bach’s violin concertos, I asked my daughters to tell me the impressions the music made on their minds. They gave answers such as ‘fairies frolicking in a meadow,’ ‘fairies being chased by a wizard,’ ‘sunshine,’ etc. The common thread in all of their answers concerning the various pieces we listened to is that they all pointed outward. They never said, ‘that piece of music makes me think of my emotions.’ They easily related to the music, not because it pointed them to the song-writer, or the music itself even, but to outward reality and imagination.

I am no music-snob. I know relatively nothing about classical music. But I understand Myers’ point. Much of the classical and ancient music I have encountered tends to set the mind on things outside itself. It’s easy, almost necessary, as you listen to many classical pieces, to begin thinking about thunder and lightning, or sunshine, or the sea. The music was cosmic-centered – it exposited, and pointed to, the grandeur, beauty, ugliness, etc of the world around us. Whereas much of today’s popular music is highly flippant and ego-centric, pointing to nothing outside itself other than the emotions of the song-writer or singer. It exists to spread the fame of the artist rather than something outside the artist, and so the artist lives to spread his own fame rather than the fame of another.

Does this mean that modern poetry and music is bad? Not necessarily. Modern, self-centered, music can be very good, for example, at expressing empathy. A good-songwriter can use his own experience and imagination to eloquently express the human condition. Old country songs about loss and heartache can be a balm to a soul that has suffered those experiences. As a matter of fact, I think the psalter does this exact thing. The psalms give us examples of, and words that we ourselves can appropriate, for expressing and praying our own emotions through song and prayer. Yet I believe there is something to be said for the classical practice of turning our eyes off ourselves in music and poetry, and using the imagination to capture and exposit the world around us.

Let me make one final point. A while back I read something from C.S. Lewis (I think it was in Surprised by Joy) where he talked about the different ways in which people use their imagination. Lewis noted that there is a difference between sheer fantasy and imagination. By fantasy, he was primarily thinking of using the imagination to think about oneself – from visions of grandeur, to lust, and in various other ways, man uses fantasy to make himself the center and hero of the story taking place in his mind. In the other form of imagination, man uses his mind to build worlds of which he is not necessarily a part. Lewis used as an example that he would often use his imagination to create landscapes and the like.

As I read this I took time to reflect that I had rarely, if ever, used my imagination in this way. It seems that my imagination always terminates on one subject – me. I’m always involved. In my own mind, as I imagine, I am always either the hero, or the victim, or the centerpiece of the story. I wonder where I picked up this type of thinking(?). Myers has given me one answer to this question.

Our music habits contribute to how we see the world – especially when they implicitly lead us to think primarily, or only, of ourselves. We become the world, and, more than that, we become the sun – everything revolves around me and my own fragile psyche. This world – me – is surely not as glorious as what is outside it. I pray that I, like the poets of whom Chaucer wrote, will learn to spread the fame of others rather than myself.