Praise the LORD with Music
Part 2

To be clear, I am not talking about words sung in music, just the music apart from any lyrics. In this writing on music I am not referring to lyrics, or words in music.

I've noticed that us Christians often tend to stretch things to support our beliefs. So, I try to not take my beliefs on music from Christian teachers, and would caution others to do the same. However I do believe the Lord has led me to some great truths in Scriptures, and in the secular world. Consider Luke 16:8b "for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." Funny as it seems, some times this world teaches me some truths that just blow away my misconceptions. But, let's start with scriptures in Praise the Lord With Music Part 1. Sounds good huh?

I have seen the backbeat to be a problem with Christian rock music, by the Holy Spirit's conviction in my Spirit. When I talk of the music here, I don't mean the lyrics, just the music comprised of various notes, rhythms, and volumes. And when I speak of the backbeat, I mean a rhythm emphasizing 2nd and 4th beats in 4/4 timing, or something giving the same rhythm in another time signature. For example, emphasizing beat 2 in 2/2, 4 in 6/8, 3 in 4/4, etc. www.Dictionary.com defines a backbeat as "A sharp rhythmic accent on the second and fourth beats of a measure in 4/4 time, characteristic of rock music." I have seen many salvations and much good come from Christian rock music. I know a couple people saved at Christian rock concerts, and have seen many people that I don't know come to Christ after one. I have seen good come from Christian rock music, in fact I may be more for it than I am against it. But I think the good comes from other than the backbeat. So that's why I need to clarify what I see as the problem. It's certainly not the lyrics, they are holy and beneficial. It's not instruments, as Psalms mentions a great variety of instruments. It's not the drums even, for I find several rhythm instruments in the Bible used for God, such as the taberete, tymberal, tambourine, and cymbal. One of many references to rhythm instruments is when Miriam picked up a tambourine and sang a praise song to God in Ex 15:20. But I do see an evil part in Christian rock music, and the is the backbeat and the backbeat only. Not to say that the Lord will never enlighten me on other identities of evil music. I see the backbeat as sin. And when people release to it, it is addicting, destructive, and controlling to the listener. Just like taking drugs.

Consider these writings form the legendary, long standing drummer of the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart, in his book Drumming at the Edge of Magic. I have not read the whole thing, I don't think I would want to. It's not something I would recommend, especially to the young. I have just read bits and pieces here and there. But I think we can learn much from it. I'm going to ask that you do some of your own study on the subject by looking up some things in the Amazon search inside the book feature here. Or if you feel God's extra powerful protection you may check it out at the library. Here's a few quotes I have included...

"... time to get into the percussion business, since the back beat was exploding up through rock and roll and out into the marketplace in ..."

"... turns them into men, talking drums calling the Orisha down into the bodies of the dancers, Gene Krupa massaging the backbeat. And as I told these stories and watched the kids absorb them in their tough, suspicious, fourteen,year,old ways, I realized ..."

"... It was clear to me that the drum in Zakir's hallucination was the backbeat talking to him. Indian drummers like Zakir and Alla Rakha had taken rhythmic complexity to its ultimate expression, but they ..."

"... to come listen to these gongs. Krippner later conducted some tests on how quickly and deeply one could induce the hypnotic state with a gong. At the time he determined they were the quickest inducer he knew of. Drumming at the ..."

"... Billy and I moved our drum pads into an empty room and stayed in there for days. Employing some intensive hypnotic techniques I had learned, Kreutz, mann and I now attempted to lock up at a deep level. We'd play for..."

".noise and about a theory I had concerning the mixing of environmental sounds - water, crickets - with a steady rock back beat. Environmental rock. I played him the pump song as an example of what I was up to. Joe loved it. ..."

"... Thunder's entourage - he usually traveled with five or six young Indians, sons and apprentices - who drummed a steady, hypnotic rhythm. Rolling Thunder would then call on the four winds to carry our morning prayers up with the smoke, then ..."

"...at synchronizing our drumming. Sometimes we'd play for hours with our arms around each other, Billy handling one drumstick, me the other. One of our most intense drum experiments occurred ... what I knew of the rudiments, and he taught me how to rock. I had heard, of course, of the phenomenon of rhythmic entrainment that rock and jazz musicians call "the groove." I ..."

Here's another couple things from the world... When we find lyrics in secular rock songs like like... " Still like that old time rock and roll. That kind of music just soothes the soul" "give me the beat boys and free my soul, I want to get lost in your rock and roll, and drift away," "We were cruising to the backbeat. Oh yeah, Making love in the backseats" Shouldn't that make us wonder if there's some truth to them? Could the backbeat be a trance inducing medium of the Devil?