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I recently read Who Needs Classical Music by Julian Johnson, a well-known English composer, academic, and expert in music aesthetics. The book is a defense of classical music and Johnson attempts to explain why there are objective standards of quality in music and how classical music differs from popular music.
Note that when I refer to classical music in this post, I am using his definition which is art music rather than music from any particular time period.
There is a lot I could talk about, but don't want to take the time. If you are interested, pick up the book. It is short and once you get through the introduction, pretty accessible. The reason I want to discuss it here is because it relates to our question of whether there are objective standards in music.
Though not from a Christian viewpoint, Johnson addresses this question and his input is relevant. Here are some of the ideas that he seems to emphasize.
1) There are objective characteristics in music that make it either high quality or low quality. Most people do not know the difference but could know if they were educated in music.
2) Different music functions (or communicates) in different ways. Popular music focuses on immediate gratification while classical music requires effort to understand. To understand this point, consider the difference between reading any typical mystery and reading Macbeth. The mystery is easy to follow and is entertaining. However, while Macbeth takes more time to understand, there is far more to eventually appreciate about the plot, development of characters, etc.
3) The idea of musical relativism is a farce and along with other factors, has destroyed the popularity of classical music. By musical relativism, I mean the idea that everyone is free to decide what music they like for themselves and everyone's opinion is equally valid.
I do not mean to oversimplify the book but these points are somewhat critical to what I want to talk about.
I also want to point out something that Johnson does not say. He does not say that any objective characteristics of music communicate morality or immorality. In fact, he does not condemn popular music though he obviously is not a huge fan. He just points out that the function of the music is different.
Assuming that Johnson is right on the above three points (and I think he is), how do we relate that to church music? That is the subject of the next post. Don't assume however that I am going to advocate for art music in church (because I am not).
