In Praise of Jubal (Music makes the world go round)

Post on 31 July, 2019 by Dallin Malmgren

Accord­ing to the Bible, Jubal was the inven­tor of musi­cal instruments.

“After silence, that which comes near­est to express­ing the inex­press­ible is music.” –Aldous Huxley

When I decid­ed to write about music, I asked Aunt Faith what kind of music under what cir­cum­stances has had an impact on her life. “None,” she replied. “I don’t lis­ten to music.” I was amazed. We moved a col­lec­tion of around 80 CD’s from her house. But it’s true. She hasn’t lis­tened to a sin­gle song in eight months, unless it was com­ing through the TV. I guess that’s not uncom­mon for many people—I just don’t think I could live with­out music.

The only musi­cal skill I pos­sess is lis­ten­ing. I can’t even sing. Long ago I was singing robust­ly in church. The woman next to me gig­gled. When I looked at her, she blushed and turned away. My vocals have become quite muted.

How­ev­er, I’m an excel­lent lis­ten­er. As I age, music is tak­ing pre-emi­nence over tele­vi­sion as a pas­time. My $16.23/month to Spo­ti­fy is a drop in the buck­et, and well-spent too. I love to sit out on my back porch in the sum­mer, when the sun is set­ting and the temp is cool­ing and the air is fresh­en­ing and the breeze is caress­ing and the music is play­ing. I’ve always felt that when Jesus said, “The king­dom of heav­en is at hand,” he was imply­ing that if we could just raise our aware­ness, we would rec­og­nize beau­ty and joy and glo­ry right here, right now. Music draws us near­er to that recognition.

I sus­pect I am over-spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing it. Music speaks to mul­ti­tudi­nous indi­vid­u­als in infi­nite ways (thus all the ear pods). When I once asked a JV ten­nis play­er what he had done over the week­end, he told me he had lay on his bed and lis­tened to “Glyc­er­ine” by Bush for 24 straight hours! He said it kind of rap­tur­ous­ly. One of the stu­pid­est things you can do is argue about music, like this artist is supe­ri­or to that artist. It’s like Coke vs. Pep­si. I remem­ber telling my friend Bill Wax that Bob Dylan was one of the great­est har­mon­i­ca play­ers of all-time. Bill rolled his eyes—he knew (and still does) a lot more about music than I ever will. Okay, I under­stand that when it comes to tech­ni­cal vir­tu­os­i­ty and skill, he was right. But when it comes to Bob’s notes rolling through my soul in “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” I was right. Musi­cal taste is utter­ly subjective—do you think your spouse is bet­ter than mine?

As regards sub­jec­tiv­i­ty, I do believe music can serve as an ora­cle. There are numer­ous times God has spo­ken to me through music. I will go a step fur­ther and sus­pect that it is one of His favorite avenues. We are crazy to think God relies on words. Music goes way deep­er than just say­ing some­thing we agree with. How­ev­er, a word of cau­tion: when I worked in the men­tal hos­pi­tal, there was a young man (diag­nosed para­noid schiz­o­phrenic) who told me the Bea­t­les, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Jimi Hen­drix, all of rock­dom, had iden­ti­fied him as the avatar of the New Age—he was to rise up and lead the rev­o­lu­tion (spir­i­tu­al and oth­er­wise). One Saturday—when not much happens—I came to work with an arm­load of rock records, and he and I went into the music room. After lis­ten­ing to cer­tain songs and lis­ten­ing to him for about four hours (prob­a­bly not part of his treat­ment plan), I was 49% con­vinced that he was, in fact, the leader of the next rev­o­lu­tion. Take heed.

I feel bad for Faith and every­one else who doesn’t allow music to play a role in their dai­ly lives. My son-in-law Dylan is a bril­liant musi­cian. One of the coolest things is watch­ing him enchant my grand­daugh­ters by pick­ing up a gui­tar or ban­jo and pluck­ing some­thing mag­i­cal out. I am left with a semi-con­sol­ing remark from Kurt Von­negut: “Vir­tu­al­ly every writer I know would rather be a musician.”

Comments

  • Reply

    Music can be very uplift­ing and spir­i­tu­al and very sooth­ing. It plays on a wide vari­ety of emo­tions. I dare to say, how­ev­er, that some music leads peo­ple to very dark places. I do not like hard rap that calls for killing cops or dis­re­spects women by refer­ring to them as “ho’s” and “bitch­es” or glo­ri­fies gangs and drug deal­ing. The dev­il has abscond­ed with God’s good inten­tions and uses some music to infect the soul with dark­ness. As with any­thing, there is light and there is dark­ness. May we all only lis­ten to that which delights or soothes our souls.

    Laura G Grimmer9 August, 2019
  • Reply

    Look for­ward to lis­ten­ing to some music with you. Coke is bet­ter than Pep­si btw. Also, you can sing and dance unre­strained right now, here on earth. Any­one can. They just need the inspi­ra­tion and courage to let go and do it. “If you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing” — Zim­bab­wean Proverb

    Nate Malmgren7 August, 2019
    • Reply

      i think you are right, nathan–i can, i just don’t. but that is a wrig­gly line to cross. maybe i will.

      Dallin Malmgren8 August, 2019
  • Reply

    i am hop­ing that in heav­en we can sing (and dance) unre­strained­ly. (appar­ent­ly, that is not a word.)

    Dallin Malmgren1 August, 2019
  • Reply

    I like how you said, lis­ten­ing is a musi­cal skill. As a non singer, I total­ly relate! I get more from music by lis­ten­ing. It allows me to go some­where else.

    Jeannette31 July, 2019

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