Fascinating and simple YouTube video describing the mental and intellectual changes in someone who went through Bach’s teaching syllabus, right from the beginning.
Sebastian didn’t waste time teaching you about notes and flats and sharps. He taught you about how the mind creates and interacts with music.
Good video!!
The Christian Esoteric writers Steiner (Dark Journalists favorite), Corinne Helene, Hal Lingerman and other writers on the hidden spiritual history of Classical music, and it shall remain hidden to the masses, all agreed, these composers were divinely influenced. Each with a mission. Later, science, (the non establishment sector), created a study of the therapeutic application of music. Yeah, whatever. But the research confirms what the esoteric writers were able to divine through non-ordinary channels. This music has the power to change people and society.
Stress, Anxiety, increased learning capabilities, greater balance.
Ted Gioia recently wrote a substack on how great philosophers wrote about the influence on character, and the societal trends of the day were influenced by music. That’s a tall hypothesis to prove. But the science has been proven.
They go even further and suggest that music is NOT a reflection of society rather the casual agent which creates the conditions of society. Sit with that statement for a month because one reading ain’t gonna do it.
Handel’s music was responsible for the snobbery The Beatles, Elvis and Rock of the late 50’s and 60’s was used to break up rigid societal thought forms. Bach, Beethoven and all the great composers each fulfilled a different purpose. Mozart took place in sync with the American Revolution. Alot of pen has been written on that subject for those who are self motivated to seek it out. And we can go on and on re: the writings about the influence of music on society. How Greek and Roman arts began a decline and removal of beauty in sync with their empire’s declines.
So if you elect me President of the United States of America, I will use and abuse my Presidential privileges and create new executive orders and mandates of music in schools, mandatory periods of listening to diverse music, and obligatory classes to teach focused listening. That means NO scrolling while listening. 100% focus on what the music does for you.
If any of the Christian writers or modern scientific evidence on the effect of emotional and mental well being have ANY merit, then it can be proven to oneself through the act of focused listening.
Listen to Bach for ONE month, can’t slip in any Dooby Brothers (i like them), No Stones, No nothing else but Bach. I did this experiment with Gregorian Chant and then different composers during Baroque and some of the romantic composers. Only when your subjective experience confirms the writing, do you really know.
Now, if you dislike the Kindle and the digitizing of the written word, then consider that you’re probably listening to digitalized versions of analog recordings on youtube and the major stream providers. The writings does suggest that there is a significant difference on effect. Just like the research suggests less retention reading on a digital. It doesn’t mean there is absolutely no benefit, including your enjoyment, to the digitalized recordings. Less preferred is not the same as no benefit.
Of course, as President, I could always issue an edict that if you are caught listening to digitalized versions, I could put you in FEMA camps? Yeah exactly. Silly.
So where are we in society based on the music? Hard to say.
But the country who is in a total mess, Englastan, Cambridge…seems to be the center, what the Irish called the TING, the Al-Thing, the Greeks Omphaloessa,omphalos of sacred choral music. The density of great chorus’s in a small vicinity seems to be unparalled anywhere. Church’s, Conservatories, Professional Ensembles and has given birth to new sacred music with modern composers. . Is the music upholding society so it doesn’t completely collapse or guiding through the transition?
Some are performing re-arranged standard classical repertoire from Bach to modern day. Like this famous toe tapper
VOCES8: Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber
If you emerge from the listening the same state you were before you listened. Maybe you’re just a metallica person.
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Oddly no one has referred to Affektenlehre… I have a couple of talks about it in the members’ area.
Just did not have a chance. I am reading. Musica poetica right now… I originally thought that the doctrine of the affekts was a single doctrine, I now understand that it is more of a movement of many sub doctrines than a single catechesis.
There was a time several years ago when a very good friend of mine asked me to listen to to Bach’s Passagalia. Apparently, he was doing an experiment… he asked me to listen to the piece and then extract the narrative like I was reverse engineering a piece of software.
Well anyway, he asked a number of people to do the same thing. And it was remarkable that everyone came up with the same basic story. Someone once said that music is the soundtrack of our lives. It would be more appropriate to say that our current music is the soundtrack of our children’s lives.
I just finished watching both video’s. Fascinating presentation!! And a great opportunity to revisit this music and listen with a new ear and understanding of the music. Will pick up Schweitzers book on Bach and I see he wrote some other very interesting titles.
There is a gentleman named Johnny Reinhard who is the founder of the American Festival of Microtonal Music, composer, conductor, author and bassoonist. He is an expert on tuning especially Bach and CPE Bach. For many years, the Columbia University radio station would have a Bach Christmas show on Christmas Morning and Johnny would do the show. He had encyclopedic knowledge of everything Bach including tuning which is quite a complex subject.
He wrote a book called “Bach and Tuning” Bach and Tuning. Bach and Tuning
It goes into Bach’s relationship with Werkmeister and other important figures in tuning during that period. Johnny writes:
Irregularly shaped scales provide resources for a different narrative, a catalyst to perceiving a missing dimension in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. The aim here is to return lost color to Bach’s music which has been stripped away by equal temperament hegemony.
He also mentions that .CPE Bach applied a technique on the clavichord designed to manipulate the pitch.
his unusually soft instrument is capable of some singular pitch acrobatics called Bebung , a technique that allows the sharpening and flattening of a pitch through the conscious adjustment of finger weight.
Thus Johnny’s response to “equal temperament hegemony” was to put regular concerts on in New York City, often at very nice church’s and feature original tuning. Unfortunately, no organ but he did have a regular Clavichord feature. I’m sure there are still recordings online however, Johnny was always operating on a paper thin budget and thus the ensembles are not always standard size and recordings not always audiophile quality
So I walked away with alot of information on tuning but I never heard him speak of Affektenlehre.
Johnny was and I guess still is a very unconventional person, I think they wanted to kick him out of the Ph.D. program at Columbia for his idea’s. His music not everyone’s cup of tea.