Music soothes the savage beast, it is said.
Certainly, snake charmers command cobras with flutes.
So, too, did the pied piper of Hamlin with his flute, leading rats to water.
David used to calm Saul with his lyre.
Arguably the music of Africans in America has had a similar affect, impact, and sensation on themselves and on their enslavers, subliminally.
After all, the brutality perpetrated against Africans, here, served as inspirational templates for such as the Union of South Africa, including, Rhodesia's apartheid repression; for King Leopold's Congo rape, and repression; for Benito Mussolini's Italian Ethiopian invasions and colonization; and for Germany's Adolph Hitler's Aryan Nazism, being anterior to them all and as racist!
"Sing us one of your songs of Zion," request the unnamed captors in the Book of Psalms : http://biblehub.com/kjv/psalms/137.htm
And we obliged in spirituals, hymns, gospels, work songs, blues, jazz, ragtime, boogie-woogie, bebop, choral song, chamber music, pop, orchestral compositions, rhythm and blues, rap, hip/hop, and everything in between these musical interstices!
We did it as much for them as for ourselves. We needed to be comforted. And we were comforted. And by and through our music, all of it, we happily survived and thrived, mesmerizing the world with soul and with harmonies heretofore unknown!
So music does heal the savage beast both within us and without us in this no-longer strange land that is home!
Saturday, October 11, 2014
MUSIC SOOTHES MERCIFULLY
MUSIC SOOTHES MERCIFULLY
Music soothes the savage beast, it is said.
Certainly, snake charmers command cobras with flutes.
So, too, did the pied piper of Hamlin with his flute, leading rats to water.
David used to calm Saul with his lyre.
Arguably the music of Africans in America has had a similar affect, impact, and sensation on themselves and on their enslavers, subliminally.
After all, the brutality perpetrated against Africans, here, served as inspirational templates for such as the Union of South Africa, including, Rhodesia's apartheid repression; for King Leopold's Congo rape, and repression; for Benito Mussolini's Italian Ethiopian invasions and colonization; and for Germany's Adolph Hitler's Aryan Nazism, being anterior to them all and as racist!
"Sing us one of your songs of Zion," request the unnamed captors in the Book of Psalms : http://biblehub.com/kjv/psalms/137.htm
And we obliged in spirituals, hymns, gospels, work songs, blues, jazz, ragtime, boogie-woogie, bebop, choral song, chamber music, pop, orchestral compositions, rhythm and blues, rap, hip/hop, and everything in between these musical interstices!
We did it as much for them as for ourselves. We needed to be comforted. And we were comforted. And by and through our music, all of it, we happily survived and thrived, mesmerizing the world with soul and with harmonies heretofore unknown!
So music does heal the savage beast both within us and without us in this no-longer strange land that is home!
Music soothes the savage beast, it is said.
Certainly, snake charmers command cobras with flutes.
So, too, did the pied piper of Hamlin with his flute, leading rats to water.
David used to calm Saul with his lyre.
Arguably the music of Africans in America has had a similar affect, impact, and sensation on themselves and on their enslavers, subliminally.
After all, the brutality perpetrated against Africans, here, served as inspirational templates for such as the Union of South Africa, including, Rhodesia's apartheid repression; for King Leopold's Congo rape, and repression; for Benito Mussolini's Italian Ethiopian invasions and colonization; and for Germany's Adolph Hitler's Aryan Nazism, being anterior to them all and as racist!
"Sing us one of your songs of Zion," request the unnamed captors in the Book of Psalms : http://biblehub.com/kjv/psalms/137.htm
And we obliged in spirituals, hymns, gospels, work songs, blues, jazz, ragtime, boogie-woogie, bebop, choral song, chamber music, pop, orchestral compositions, rhythm and blues, rap, hip/hop, and everything in between these musical interstices!
We did it as much for them as for ourselves. We needed to be comforted. And we were comforted. And by and through our music, all of it, we happily survived and thrived, mesmerizing the world with soul and with harmonies heretofore unknown!
So music does heal the savage beast both within us and without us in this no-longer strange land that is home!