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Deus Ex Musica is an ecumenical project that promotes the used of a scared music as a resource for learning, spiritual growth, and discipleship.

Filtering by Tag: Gospel

God's Pedal Tone Endures: Listening Deeper on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Julian Reid

A unique feature of music is the way one sustained sound can sit underneath other harmonies layered on top of it. This concept is prevalent across genres: American jazz standards, Celtic bagpipe music, Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. In musical terms, this steady sound that sits underneath others is called a “pedal tone” (or “pedal point,” but we’ll stick to pedal tone in this article.) It might be such a common musical device because it has such symbolic value for the world that we live in. This way of sounds interacting illustrates how humans interact with each other, the rest of God’s creation, and God too. The pedal tone is an apt metaphor to describe what is going on today – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – in a country contending with its foundational racism. The pedal tone can remind us of God’s intentions for this gift of a world we inhabit.

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An Equal Opportunity Revelation: Lessons from The Incarnation for Musicians

Julian Reid

When Christ Jesus came to us the first time, he attracted humanity to the manger by appealing to our senses of hearing and vision. The shepherds travelled to the stable to worship because they had heard the sound of the angels, whereas the sages made the trek from distant lands because they had seen and studied the Star of David. To put it in context of music, the divine revelation of the Incarnation involved the two ways that musicians typically play music – spontaneity (shepherds) and premeditation (the sages). On this view, the Christmas story invites musicians and music-lovers to reflect on the theological messages resident in these two modes of music creation.

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