Dark Music
By Moses Garcia
Music equals seven tones and five
semitones. That’s it. That is all. Truly! All of music
in its endless entirety is the infinite combination and variations of tone,
pace, rhythm, volume, approach, intensity, attack, and pattern, within the
confines of twelve notes. There is nothing more than that. It is
sometimes hard to believe that this amazing wondrous language called music is
derived from merely twelve letters.
So, that being the case, is there such a thing
as “devil’s music?”
When Ludwig Von Beethoven débuted his 5th symphony, many
critics called the work “devil’s music.” As odd and funny as that might
seem in our day, the work must have seemed ruckus and thunderous to the very
first listeners. And it would seem that the pattern when people call
something “devil’s music” seems to be about loud and pounding sounds.
That’s fine, except that it doesn’t really prove anything. It especially
does not prove anything, if the evidence is that one person acted out violently
after listening to a particular music, but everyone else that listened to that
same piece of music remained perfectly peaceful and God fearing.
Of course, music is vast and far reaching in
textures, tones, and reflection of many cultures. What one person loves
may very well be disagreeable to another. One could suppose that if the
music inspires in a positive way, it might also influence negatively.
Generally speaking though, even violent-themed music does not seek to inspire violence,
unless it happens to be very political themes and radical in its desired
objectives.
Where and why then, would the term “devil’s
music” be used? Unfortunately it is used usually to place blame on
something that on its own has no real power. Instead of understanding
that evil occurs inside a person and all the complex factors that contribute to
heinous acts, it seems much simpler to say that a specific object was
responsible and not the individual. The fact that music can inspire
doesn’t mean that the individual becomes like a robot controlled by a melody or
its words. Music is just music, and it has no power except what we give
it. One could say that “devil’s music” is the troubled mind itself.
That because of trauma and other factors, the mind is susceptible to influence
- not only music, but books, and all the variety of media available.
Both good and bad dwells within us, and
generally, it is a struggle to avoid being swayed by things that are alluring,
but potentially harmful to others. But not a difficult one if we walk a
good and spiritual path.
