Tuesday, 26 June 2018

Contemporary Christian Music (?)

Hello people!

Hope you are doing great. Because I'm not (not to be taken too seriously, I'm actually doing pretty good). And here's why. I'm a little disappointed with not being able to find too many good Christian music artists.

Now I do know the old argument that we shouldn't make a sacred-secular divide, and that there is no such thing as Christian music, blah blah blah... And I kinda agree with that too. But recently I've been granted extra grace by God, which has enabled me to really enjoy spending time with Him. And so I was in the mood to listen to some music which talk about God, and His wondrous works.

But the sad thing is that I couldn't find a lot of music that talk about God in the right way (right as in according to the Scripture) and are also good musically. There are the hymns of course, which I just love. Those old songs that are sung in the traditional Churches, you know? Like, "A Mighty Fortress is our God," "Just As I am," "Be Thou my vision," and so on. But if I want something newer, I don't know.

There is a lot of debate surrounding Contemporary Christian Music. There are a fair number of critics, and quite a few who defend it. The former say that it is vain repetition or that it is not Scripturally solid. There are a number of arguments used by the latter, but I'm going to focus on one in particular. "Why should the devil have all the good music?" That's a famous quote, by (I don't know who). And I guess it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that it is used to defend music that is not actually all that good. Like, what happened to good song writing.

I know being Scripturally correct is the most important thing. I totally agree. But there are enough people talking about it. So let's talk about song-writing. Like, why don't we get Simon and Garfunkel quality songwriting both lyrically and musically. Or Bob Dylan quality lyrically. I don't want to come across as an elitist. But let's face it. The song writing in CCM gets tedious pretty soon. Which is why CCM songs don't last long. They come in waves. Whereas 'Sound of Silence'. That lasts. Or 'Blowing in the Wind'. Tremendous lyrics. No wonder he won the Nobel (though I know there's a fair bit of controversy with that and I don't want to go there.) And that's part of the reason why the great hymns have lasted too. I'm sure there were a number of Scripturally good hymns that are sort of forgotten today because of poor songwriting. And what about plagiarism in CCM. Let's be honest here. There's way too much plagiarism which is just annoying.

Petra is one good band that had great songwriting, and amazing music. And were Scripturally very good. I'm not saying there aren't any more examples. In fact, there are a lot. Southern Gospel music is really good. I grew up with the Gaither Homecoming CDs and I think they are great. I do sort of like Tenth Avenue North too. And I've heard there are some great rap artists in the Christian community. I've also heard there are some good heavy rock / metal bands that write music with Christian lyrics.

This blog post is somewhere between a rant and a plea for song / artist suggestions. I'm guessing there is a lot of good Christian music out there, and I don't know about it. So, if you guys know of any such artists, do let me know. I don't want artists in the rap, heavy rock / heavy metal, country, or CCM genres. I'm looking at more along the genres of classic rock, soft rock, alternative, Indie, jazz/blues, or some sort of fusion. Or even Celtic I guess. In fact if it's really good country music I don't mind. And what genre does Enya's music come under? Even that kind would be great. And I'm looking for good songwriting. Also, if you know of any good Indian music with Christian lyrics. In Hindi or Tamil, let me know. Like Keerthana songs are old Tamil songs written with Tamil tunes. Is there any such contemporary music?

Alright. That's it, I guess. Thanks in advance! :D Here's a meme I found on the internet to end it on a lighter note (did you note the pun I squeezed in there? Did it hit a chord with you? Okay I'm going to give it a rest...)

Friday, 22 June 2018

Can you guess the answer? I lost to ....

Recently, there have been a lot of whatsapp stories going around with some sort of riddle. I'll give two examples I came across.

1. Can you tell me, what comes once in a year, twice in a week and never in a day? I lost to (some random person).
2. Someone's mom has four sons, North, East, and West. What is the name of the fourth son. Can you guess the name of the fourth son? I lost to (some random name).

There were a lot of these stories around. If you give the answer and it turns out wrong, you are supposed to put up the story saying who you lost to, and you get the answer.

Initially I found these stories extremely annoying. But then I found them fascinating. How is it that so many people who are more or less fluent with English, could get these simple answers wrong? Or if they are riddles to do with logic, certainly people can figure it out? The explanation for the phenomenon though is extremely fascinating. It is due to the difference between the semantic meaning of a sentence and its pragmatic meaning.

Semantic meaning refers to the technical grammatical meaning. More specifically speaking, lexical semantics has everything to do with sign systems and how meaning is conveyed. For instance, lexical semantics is interested in the relationship between letters in the alphabet, words and phrases, and sentences. And if you delve deeper into the subject, you will study the relation between sounds and meaning.

Pragmatic meaning on the other hand, refers to meaning in a more practical sense. Or in other words, meaning that is usually intended for practical purposes. This is opposed to the rather theoretical interest of semantics.

In some cases, semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. For instance, if I ask the question, "what is your name?" the semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. They both are requesting for your name. On the other hand, if I instead ask "may I know your name?" the semantic meaning is whether or not the person would be okay with me knowing their name. But the pragmatic meaning, as most people would agree, is that I am asking the person's name.

In our day to day usage of language, we often ignore semantics for pragmatics. This is where the old banter about the words 'can' and 'may' come in. I ask my friend, "Can I borrow a pencil?" And he replies, "I don't know. Can you?" Pragmatically speaking, I wouldn't ask if I couldn't. And yet, semantically my question begs the reply given by my friend.

The whatsapp stories I started this post off with earlier are playing on this disparity between semantic and pragmatic meanings. For instance, the answer to the first question given by me was "the letter 'e'". And yet I was wrong according to the person who posted the story. The intended correct answer was "I can" or "I can't." The question was asking whether I could, not the answer to the riddle itself. Similarly, the answer to the second question is 'what'. The reasoning is that there is no question mark, and hence it is not a question in the first place. It is merely a statement, "what is the name of the fourth son."

I find human language extremely fascinating. My friends know that I love puns and word play. I guess this is another play on language, and to be honest I am enjoying it. I just don't like putting up whatsapp stories of this nature, and saying I lost to people. I guess that's just my pride though. But let's end this blog post with a joke I found on the internet not too long ago. I don't remember where I saw it, and hence this is my paraphrased version of it.

Interviewer: "What would you describe as your biggest skill?"
Candidate: "Noticing the semantic details, and failing to see the pragmatics."
Interviewer: "Can you give an example?"
Candidate: "Yes, I can."