Art and other taboos

As a child brought up in an Old Roman Catholic family, though my mother had a first prize for piano of the Conservatoire de Paris and we all learned to play piano at home, this was only to be for personal entertainment in the house circle.

When I gave a voice of my wishes to become a ‘musical star’ I soon felt the slap in my face to bring me on other thoughts. My artistic choice would bring me in a big patriarchal battle and even when I got older, but not being considered an adult yet by law (at that time still 21 years), I missed some very nice contracts with major companies, because my father did not want to sign the contract.

Interior of Roman Catholic Church, Buchach, Ukraine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Next to my artistic choice there was the difficulty I had in the Catholic Church with all their worshipping of statues and different so called holy figures. Already as a six year old boy I made it the priest very difficult with my questions about the Holy Trinity and about the many actions I noticed in church which looked more like pagan worship than like, described  in the Bible, the way it was we should do.

As an acolyte I was very active in the Catholic Church but did not find my thing in it and with the priest I felt best at ease for the way he did mass, my father did not like those services at all because they looked to protestant for him.

Also the sorts of music and music instruments which were allowed where often subject of debate. After some years of church shopping I became a non trinitarian Baptist and enjoyed the free spirit, the singing and ‘yes’ the ‘dancing‘. There song and dance was not considered something of the ‘devil’ like in the Old Roman Catholic Church.

But when the Southern Baptist Church Union won ground all over the world and many non-trinitarian Baptists felt pushed in a corner, many left the Baptists to go by other non-trinitarian groups. For a long time I wanted to be faithful to those many Baptists who had been killed for their belief in Only One God. But the presentation of more trinitarian Baptists made it impossible for people not associating me with such a trinitarian organisation, so I also had to follow the thousands of ex-Baptists and go to an other denomination.

In those many non-trinitarian groups I again encountered people who were against their members having a job in the theatre or show business. But like in the many trinitarian groups people can find different opinions in one and the same denomination. So also in the denomination were the people believed the same things I could find in the Bible, which we should follow and believe.

Though I must confess I miss the joyful singing and dancing we had at our Baptist services. It would take years before certain attitudes can be changed.

Concerning dancing outside the ecclesia or church there is no problem by lots of Christadelphians. I do agree like in any denomination you shall be able to find more conservative or more fundamentalist groups. But even in the for some ‘conservative England‘ and in the United States of America  Christadelphian Care offers dancing to the elderly.
In the States you may find people who bring more health to others with the art of movement.

For 35 years, dance and movement therapist Donna Newman-Bluestein has gone into classrooms and institutional settings to spread the joy of movement. She sings and two-steps, greets everyone by name, shaking hands. Newman-Bluestein’s dance engagement is not just fun for cognitively-impaired seniors she works with, but provides physical therapy. Newman-Bluestein is a senior lecturer in Lesley University’s graduate school, a performer with the intergenerational dance company Back Pocket Dancers, and the spokeswoman for the American Dance Therapy Association.
You may find an interview with her at: Engaging patients through dance, movement.

She wants to rouse the people around her because human beings are meant to move.

Once a person’s moving, the more they want to move, getting the circulation and respiration going, building flexibility, strength and moving the lymph system, which is the house of our immune system. Hormones are released, new neuronal pathways are built.

In many cultures there have been different periods how people looked at the use of sound and movement.

As Teegan Clark writes:

Since the ancient times the people tabooed this or that sound sequence, musical instrument or song. Of course the taboos of various epochs were defined by the whole variety of social factors, since accepting the sounds as music is the purely social phenomenon.

Mouthpercussion traditional music-instrument

One of the main reasons for the objection of those art forms, according to me, is that they can influence people more than any words or actions undertaken by other human beings. It is not just because people of those previous times, who forbid music and dance, supposed music is able to change the mind of a human being and make them carry out the orders of the musician.  It was a fact which they could measure experimentally. From ancient times it was also notated on many papyrus rolls, stones  or paper, how music and movement influenced the human being. It could go deep into the soul (the inner being).

It was the fear for the intricate consequences of hearing certain sounds and their influence on the body and way of thinking that made people react so heavenly against those art forms. Certain musical instruments were banned and selected music was allowed to play only during the most important ceremonies like birth, funeral or wedding.

Teegan Clark may rightly say:

The communist or strict monarchy regime leaders were afraid of revolutions and assassination attempts. It was clear that the right music may inspire the people to carry out a revolution. That is why in Soviet Union such music as jazz or blues was prohibited. It was supposed to immoralize the Soviet youth.
Today the people all over the world have the great possibility to search and listen mp3 songs, store, playback and listen to any type of music.

Drummers in Ojumo Oro, Kwara State

But though it may seem that all over the world people are free to use any instrument or sound, practice proofs this is not so and in case we are not careful we can move again to an era where there would be people prohibiting certain sorts of music.

Yesterday I chatted with a Nigerian about the fights in their community, in the Abia State, because tins or cans were not any more allowed for making music. Also the natural wind instruments made from the available material in the environment were not allowed any more to be used.

We should always be alert that the freedom of the voice, the sound, music and dance can stay vivid.

In this world we shall have to face more than the music or the dance taboo. One of the greatest taboos we learned when we where young was that you could not speak about politics or religion in public. such subjects still are no music in the ear of many and bring forth many taboos.

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Please do find the article of Teegan Clark:  Music Taboos

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Also of interest:

1. Performing music
2. Sacrifices to be made
3. Dance halls and Theatres Open Monument Day 2012
4. Feel-good Factor?
5. Feeling-good, search for hapiness and the church
6. Icons and crucifixes
7. Manifests for believers #3 Catholic versus Protestant
8. Music and young people in Christadelphia
9. A small rant…music, young people and Christadelphia
10. Singing gift from God
11. What Jesus sang
12. Push-pull
13. Called Christian
14. Not all christians are followers of a Greco-Roman culture
15. Make a joyful noise unto Yahweh, rejoice, and sing praise unto Jehovah
16. Only One God

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About music:

Feelings

The Universal Language

There’s Music in the Air

Drake Announces He’s Performing At The 2013 VMAS, And More!

Fans Mass for One Direction Movie Premiere

Some handy hints for Berlin- I hope.

Without You

Piano:

Piano – a simple idea and tune.

Sonata for Piano: IV. Fuga (Samuel Barber)

Over:)

Welcome to the Music Room

Rachmaninov, Morceau de fantaisie in G minor, Liberamente

ThePianoGuys – Mission Impossible – (Piano/Cello/Violin) ft. Lindsey Stirling

The Inner Life Of Glenn Gould

On an other taboo:

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