Mick Jagger

FROM the transcript of the searing documentary Hell’s Bells: The Dangers of Rock and Roll by Eric Holmberg:

Young people wake up to it, drive to it, play to it, study to it, and go to sleep to it. Studies show that between the 7th and 12th grades, the average teenager will listen to and watch 11,000 hours of rock music and rock videos – more than twice the time they will spend in class.

As Dr. Alan Bloom noted in his best-selling book The Closing of the American Mind, “Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music.”

Incredibly, despite this unprecedented power and the mounting evidence that rock’s influence can be less than positive, most people have never stopped to consider what is really going on in and through contemporary music. Why is music so powerful? How does it affect us? What is its source? And to where is it leading us?

Throughout the ages, wise men have noted music’s profound impact on its listeners. For example, over 2,000 years before the birth of Christ, the musical systems of China were both highly developed and central to its society. It was to this that the philosophers directed much of their attention. Understanding its intrinsic power, they carefully checked their music to make sure that it conveyed eternal truths and could thus influence man’s character for the better.

To this end, tradition states that one emperor, by the name of Shun, would monitor the health of each of the provinces of this vast kingdom by simply examining the music they produced. Course and sensual sounds indicated a sick society, one in need of his intervention and assistance.

Two thousand years later the Greek philosopher, Plato, echoed the sentiments of Emperor Shun when he said, “When modes of music change the fundamental laws of the state change with them.”

In his famous work Laws, Plato could have been writing about our modern age when he stated: “Through foolishness they, the people, deceived themselves into thinking that there was no right or wrong in music – that it was to be judged good or bad by the pleasure it gave…. As it was, the criterion was not music but a reputation for promiscuous cleverness and a spirit of law-breaking.”

Plato’s contemporary, Aristotle, noting that music has “the power to form character,” 10 wanted to see it actually regulated by the state – an approach, by the way, of which I am not in favor.

Moving up to the present century, Vladimir Lenin, the co-founder of communism and one of history’s greatest experts on subversion and revolution said, “One quick way to destroy a society is through its music.”

Changing laws, forming character, and toppling societies – most of us are not used to talking about music in such expansive terms. To understand this magnitude of impact we must consider both the nature of music and man; and how music affects us in body, soul, and spirit.

Given the materialistic philosophy that marks this present age, it’s surprising that more attention has not been given to the many profound ways sound and different musical forms can affect the physical world. For example, research has found that shrill sounds of sufficient volume can congeal proteins in a liquid media. So a soft egg placed in front of a speaker at some of the louder rock concerts – can midway through the concert become a hard-boiled snack for the weary head-banger.

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