Devotional music- good or just prettied up bible speak? (1 Viewer)

[Corey]

Just found a copy of Mahalia Jackson's The Upper Room. It's so good it nearly made me wanna pray.
-nearly...

which begs the question as to whether devotional music can be appreciated on a technical level. Can it? Should it? and if so, does that take away from it's aesthetic?

 

[BC]

which begs the question as to whether devotional music can be appreciated on a technical level. Can it? Should it? and if so, does that take away from it's aesthetic?

Yes, Yes and No. Music should stand on its own, one doesnt need to understand the words or have any interest in the religious context, it has its own power. examples that spring to mind are the Armenian religious chants from the middle ages, and the work of Nusrat Fatet Ali Khan.

 

[chickenham]

which begs the question as to whether devotional music can be appreciated on a technical level. Can it? Should it? and if so, does that take away from it's aesthetic?[/QUOTE]

I'm guessing that you're asking if it's appropriate to criticise devotional work in terms of secular art and does criticizing it in that way take away from it effect???

I'd say that there's always been a crossover between devotional and secular (arts / crafts) but it's totally inappropriate to think that one can be criticised in terms of the other in any kind of objective way.

The Mahalia Jackson experience equates to the Arvo Paart / Nusrat Fateh.. / Turkish dervish music / Gregorian chant ...etc. experience. It's a window onto another state of being, equivalent to enjoying a postcard from the place.
It's a world away from living the life that produces those works tho.

 

[snakybus]

Don't they mean like Reverand Al Green or John Coltrane or whatever, rather than dervishes and whatnot?