Quotes about Music

And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, to the full-voiced choir below, in service high, and anthems clear as may, with sweetness, through mine ear dissolve me into ecstasies, and bring all Heaven before mine eyes.

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.

Anon they move in perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders.

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!

Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul And lap it in Elysium.

childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator.

The problem is not a battle between contemporary worship music and hymns; the problem is that there aren't enough martyrs during the week. If no soldiers are perishing, what you want on Sunday is Bob Hope and some pretty girls, not the army chaplain and a surgeon.

So the question we need to ask today is this: if the teaching in our church was limited to the songs that we sing, how well taught would we be? How well would we know God? We should make it our aim not only to preach the whole counsel of God but to sing it, as well.

Bob Kauflin Kauflin argues that Christians tend to fall into one of three categories when it comes to the relationship between music and words: (1) music supersedes the word; (2) music undermines the word; (3) music serves the word. Arguing for this third paradigm, Kauflin suggests three implications:

1) Singing can help us remember words, which means that we should use melodies that are effective, sing words that God wants us to remember

I have no objection to instruments of music in our worship, provided they are neither seen nor heard.

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.