Advice To My Daughter 15: The Power Of Music

God has gifted you, my daughter, with a beautiful voice which you have used well to praise him and to bring joy to your fellow man. It is a gift that should not be taken lightly. Music has great power that can be used to build up as well as tear down, edify as well as corrupt.

According to myth, the walls of Thebes were built by music. Amphion played on his pipes, and, in response to the melody, the stones moved and danced and formed themselves into a wall. It was with music as well that Orpheus softened the iron heart of Hades, compelling the lord of the underworld to return to Orpheus the soul of his beloved Eurydice.

For two thousand years, Europeans believed that the planets were encased in spheres of crystal and that as they spun and vibrated and rubbed against each other, they produced a celestial harmony known as the music of the spheres. Most of the time our mortal ears are too dull to hear that cosmic symphony, but sometimes, when we look deep into the eyes of our beloved, and all the mundane things of the world fall away, we catch a strain, however fleeting, of that eternal song that the universe sings.

Whether played by a master musician or produced by the perfect movements of the planets, the highest and most beautiful music brings order, harmony, and balance to our world of change, decay, and death. It restores that which has been broken, reassembling the fragments into a new and higher synthesis. Such music strengthens the soul and turns its focus toward the things above. Such music, by its very nature, praises the Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos.

Alas, just as music, when it comes into sync with the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty that God has spread so liberally through the universe, has the power to renew and ennoble, so music, when it defiantly breaks from the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, promotes spiritual decay and social dissolution. And that goes not only for the ear-splitting, cacophonous sound and fury that has increasingly dominated popular music since the 1960’s, but for classical atonal music that has abdicated its responsibility to mimic celestial harmonies in favor of dissonance and discord.

Much has been written on the harm done by Rap, Heavy Metal, and Hip Hop, but the focus of such criticism is too often the lyrics. Of course, the lyrics, with their glorification of physical and sexual violence, are perverse and destructive, but so is the music itself. I do not exaggerate when I say that such music has done serious harm to millions of young people.

My daughter, forsake ugliness and dissonance and embrace that higher beauty which is the proper goal of music. I do not say that you should avoid the real pain and suffering that exist in the world, or that you should sing saccharine, overly-sentimental songs. But do try to use your musical gifts to heal and uplift souls that have been crushed by dark, atonal despair and bring joy and hope to hearts that have been shattered by the false promises of our consumer-driven age.

The modern world has, in many ways, lost its moorings, leaving people adrift in a world without meaning, purpose, or direction. Use your music to lead them back to the right road.