The Order of Music

“Looking at it from a purely logical or cold viewpoint, that fact is phenomenal! Music
doesn’t provide sustenance for the body to keep it living as does food and water does. It
takes no material form that can be locked in a bank vault or added to the assets of one’s
estates. It doesn’t improve the quality of one’s life. A poor person can listen to the same
piece of music that a rich man does and neither of their lives, financially,
materialistically, or in quality improves or deteriorates. Music is not necessary for life.
Music doesn’t make one prettier or more handsome. We don’t need music to perform
certain tasks such as getting from place to place in a car, or having hot running water to
take a bath in, or to keep the house clean, mow the yard, fix the car, or even to play a
round of golf. Most all of our things help us to accomplish some sort of task, necessary or
unnecessary. Music does none of these things. But everyone likes it. Everyone has his or
her favorite types and styles of music.” The Power of Music p1

1Co 14:40 Let all things be done decently and in order.

“But singing should not be allowed to divert the mind from the hours of devotion. If one
must be neglected, let it be the singing.” {Ev 506.3}

Elements: Melody, Harmony and Rhythm (Beat)

Melody: We listen to melody with that part of the brain that is more concerned
with the aesthetic, emotional and spiritual. (Spiritual, in this context, does not
necessarily mean religious).

Harmony: We listen to harmony with the intellectual part of our brain. Harmony is
more complex in nature than melody because it is the combining of melody and
harmonic interplay that make up this facet of musical communication. Classical
music, for example, is a more intellectually based medium, whereas Metal, Rock,
Rap, Techno, Rave or rhythmical jungle `grooves' from Africa would fall into the
category of rhythm.

Rhythm: We respond to this aspect on the physical level. This is why people
dance to music that puts an emphasis on the beat.

The Melody (Soul)

Isaiah 23:16 – Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten;
make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.

Isaiah 51:3 – For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places;
and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD;
joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Amos 5:23 – Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the
melody of thy viols.
Ephesians 5:19 – Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

God most interested in the melody or the TUNE itself. It is usually the lead voice in a
singing group; the soprano in song notation

The Harmony (Spirit)

The harmony is other notes that harmonize with the melody. By itself the harmony is
dependent upon the melody.

The Rhythm (Beat)

The beat or the rhythm of a song can stand alone. It does not need the melody or the
harmony in order to sound. However this is clearly not music. Music is the combination
of all three, where the melody is pre-eminent. If the beat becomes overwhelming and
drowns out the harmony it is not music in the truest sense of the word music. It has
become noise.
The instruments used form part of the rhythm. Drums, timbrel, piano

“Better never have the worship of God blended with music than to use musical
instruments to do the work which last January was represented to me would be brought
into our camp meetings. The truth for this time needs nothing of this kind in its work of
converting souls. A bedlam of noise shocks the senses and perverts that which if
conducted aright might be a blessing. The powers of satanic agencies blend with the din
and noise, to have a carnival, and this is termed the Holy Spirit's working.”--2SM 36.
{PaM 178.3}

Harps, lyres, and cymbals were the musical instruments used in Bible times. The first two
are soft, melodious string instruments.

“String instruments were used extensively to accompany singing, since they would not
cover up the voice or the ‘word of the Lord’ which was being sung.”— Garen Wolf, The
Music of the Bible in Christian Perspective, p. 287.

The cymbals were only used to mark the beginning of the song or stanzas:
“The cymbals were not used by the precantor to conduct the singing by beating out the
rhythm of the song, but rather to announce the beginning of the song or a stanza in the
song.”—John Kleinig, The Lord’s Song, p. 82.

“The percussive instruments were reduced to one cymbal which was not employed in the
music proper, but merely to mark pauses and intermissions.”—A.Z. Idelssohn, Jewish
Music in Its Historical Development, p. 17.

Because of this, Israel’s music was softer and more sweetly melodious than that of the
nations around them. This can be deduced from Exodus 32:17-19. When Moses and
Joshua heard the aggressive Egyptian-type sounds from below, Joshua interpreted it as
the sound of war. But Moses recognized it as worldly singing.

2 Ch 5:12-14 Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman,
of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having
cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an
hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:) It came even to pass, as the
trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and
thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals
and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy
endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the
LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the
glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.

The beat of a musical score should remain in submission to the melody. To emphasize the
beat is unnatural and out of order. Therefore it is not decent. If it is not decent it is sin.

Rom 8:4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit

Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Never bring the truth down to a low level in order to obtain

converts, but seek to bring the sinful and corrupted up to the high
standard of the law of God. (Manuscript 7, 1900. Italics supplied)