I was recently privileged to attend the local symphony with some of my children for a wonderful performance of a Beethoven piano concerto. A brief Brahms overture was also played, and both pieces were of course beautiful, inspiring, and uplifting. After the intermission, however, a contemporary piece (of garbage) by “one of Iceland’s foremost musical voices today” was performed. This horrific work of cacophony exemplifies much of what is wrong with modern man, and I find it enlightening to contrast this contemporary trash with the beautiful works of true musical artists.
Perhaps the most immediately recognizable difference between the classical and modern pieces was the percussion section of the orchestra. Brahms’ overture employs the occasional bass drum, a handful of brief crash cymbals, and just a couple notes from the triangle. One percussionist was easily able to handle the occasional use of these few instruments. For Beethoven’s concerto, the percussion section was non-existent. For the contemporary piece? The number of percussionists ballooned to four, and they spent the entire grueling forty-five minutes running back and forth between bass drums, snare drums, suspended cymbals, almglockens, cowbells, tom-toms, sandpaper blocks (yes, sandpaper blocks), egg shakers, tubular bells, nipple gongs, tuned gongs, tam-tams, timpani, guiros, crotales, lion’s roars, and broken pieces of clay tiles. (It’s okay if you had to look up some of those instruments – I did too.)
What’s the problem with an expanded percussion section? Percussion instruments are primarily intended to provide and support rhythm – also known as “the beat.” Rhythm or beat is the lowest element of music. It is much less significant than the harmony or melody – which is the highest element of true music. But again, what’s the problem with elevating the lower parts of music for a particular piece? Well, rhythm is supposed to support melody, and when this order is inverted you suddenly have disordered music. Disorder is by its very nature a bad thing, but it gets even worse for this particular piece because the percussion section actually provided no semblance of rhythm. The piece was so awful that it could not even provide a simple consistent beat – the most basic and lowest element of what makes music. If the most basic element of music is non-existent in a piece, can we say that the piece even qualifies as music? We are forced to conclude that this contemporary piece from “one of Iceland’s foremost musical voices today” is actually not even music. His composition is so bad that it can only be described by the one word I repeatedly heard thrown around in the foyer walking through the crowd after the performance – “noise.”
Perhaps this “noise” is illustrative of what is wrong with the world today. If music is viewed as a hierarchical pyramid – melody at the top, followed by harmony in the middle and rhythm at the base – modern “music” has inverted and perverted this pyramid. Beat is now the predominate element, and melody is relegated to the background – if it exists at all. This is disordered music which can only spawn from a disordered mind. And how many other aspects of life does this disordered and perverted mind of modern man evidence itself? We live in a society where innocent children are put to death and violent criminals deserving the death penalty are set free. Citizens guilty of no crime are incarcerated while actual criminals are applauded. True virtuous heroes are mocked and scorned while degenerate and grossly immoral celebrities are held up as role models. The truth has no rights, and the biggest liars are our political leaders. And most significantly, the soul of man is disregarded while his body is worshiped.
Modern man has forgotten all that is good and true and beautiful, and he has traded it for the ugly, distorted, and perverted. This can only end in disaster. Mankind will never have peace so long as we lead disordered lives. Start getting things in order today by throwing out the contemporary trash and listening to some good Beethoven.
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