Music Appreciation

I agree with Drew, and Dr Alb and others that music has a way of warming the soul. It impacts, and we remember it better perhaps then spoken or written words without music. I am hosting our first music appreciation gathering today. It will be a once a month time when we will get together and listen to what others are listening to.

The purposes are mosaic: To learn, to discuss, and maybe to discover what might be good as "worship" music or prelude music. To think, to disagree, to encourage, to find out a bit more about other people. So it should be intriguing.

Having said that (here is where some may disagree with me) I think perhaps the best music is the older. It has withstood the test of time. Just like I encourage men in my discipleship group to read one dead author for every two live authors, so I might encourage people to listen to one dead songwriter for every live one. A book that is still in print after 200 years (like Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards) has something in it that causes people to want to read it. The same I think may hold true for music. Example: Aaron was telling us the story of "I am not skilled to understand" last night.

Maybe the timeline is shorter in music; about 40 years back will get us to The Beatles.:)