The Roller Coaster of Music

~This post is accredited and a shout out to my older brother for the inspiration~ :)

     If you know anything about culture, society or just life in general you will know that while some things will always remain the same, there are also things that are always changing. While there is always a presidential election every four years, a Superbowl every year, or special holidays like Christmas certain times of the year, there also is a new style of clothes, fuel prices are always changing and there is always a new hit song. And if you know anything about the culture, music and music history you know that there are certain things in society that change the form and lyrics of music.
     One change that came about back during the Romantic period of culture and music was the freedom to express the artist's and composer's own personal feelings and thoughts. In the past, forms and structures had a strict blueprint that absolutely could not be changed. Yet as culture changed, certain parts of society became more relative and humanistic, the rules of music changed with it. The composer could add or subtract, do more of what they felt and have more self expression. Don't misunderstand me, I think some of changes were perfect! Some amazing and beautiful music came out of those expressions.
                                     

Yet at the same time, some composers soon took their relative philosophies and beliefs to the extreme in their music. By the time pre-modern/modern/20th century music came to be music was all over the place. "In C" by Terry Riley is an example of minimal music in the 1960's that shows how relative and to the extreme people took the music. Wikipedia- In C by Terry Riley 

You can probably only go about 30 seconds of listening to the "song" before you start going crazy! :)

I also find it hilarious how sappy and crazy music took leaps and bounds as music was being written in my early childhood. One random song that comes to mind is the Backstreet Boy's "I want it that way"

There are probably tons of songs that could mentioned and I wouldn't even hit the tip of the iceberg of the way culture and music have formed and changed.
     As more lyrics and emotions came into song writing, certain trends came out. The biggest things that were written about were probably relationships, life and partying. And don't get me wrong, some of things things need to be lived, felt and sung about. Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes said "there is a time for everything". Our lives will never be a plateau. There will be ups and downs, twists and turns in our lives just like a roller coaster. There is a time for us to sing of the past and how we made it through and a time to sing of the bright future! Even Paul in 2 Corinthians mentions the past, present and future in Believer's life as he says "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!"  Yet how much of the past and old things do we need to write, talk about, relive and sing about?


               (TO BE CONTINUED)