Art Is Emotion

Fareed Zakaria says something interesting in The Future Of Freedom, talking about how democracy as a thought system has essentially won throughout the world. Even in Iraq, while Saddam was in power, they had “elections”; in the last one Saddam garnered 100% of the vote. When clearly non-democratic institutions imitate democratic systems to boost their legitimacy, you know democracy has won.

In America, it’s won not just politically but also socially. In the arts, what used to matter most for an artist, what made one important, was who liked you. The right, important patrons. Nowadays, it’s all about how many people like you. Pure popularity; pure democracy. That’s probably why critics are becoming more and more irrelevant. Like movie critics. People don’t really care what critics think about movies anymore.

And I’m not sure that’s a particularly bad thing. The problem with critics is that once you become knowledgeable about the technical details of any field, you start valuing things that most people don’t. Like, I read movie critics who go buck wild whenever directors use long, unbroken takes. BORING. I mean, it’s technically interesting. But to me, and to most casual movie-goers, it’s irrelevant.

I strongly believe that art is fundamentally about emotion. All that technical stuff is a means, not an ends, and it’s a means to emotional connection. And I feel like art critics frequently miss the forest for the trees, valuing technique over connection, which is why they’re so frequently at odds with popular opinion. I don’t think the masses are always right. But I do think that what the masses value in art (emotional connection) is fundamentally more important than what critics frequently value.

So in music, and especially with worship, I sometimes have to remind myself to not get too caught up in the details, or value the wrong things, things that most people would not care about. Because that’s not what really matters.

That said, I still find myself highly entertained in music by creative things. One technique I find very entertaining is non-standard meters. For the uninformed like Henry, meter is how you group beats in music. Most songs have 4 beats per measure (4/4). You see 6 beats a lot nowadays also (6/8), sometimes 3. What I love is super irregular (like 5 or 7 beats) or shifting meters.

That’s part of the reason that I love Sting so much – he plays around with meter a lot. Starting with Ten Summoner’s Tales, like with Love Is Stronger Than Justice (7 beats in the verses) and Seven Days (5 beats). In Mercury Falling, he has You Belong To Me (5 beats), and the *brilliant* I Hung My Head (9 funky beats). It’s genius.

Actually, tons of artists do shifting meter, probably most as some point, though not as much or as interestingly to me as Sting. Like Stairway To Heaven has all that funky stuff going on before the solo. Metallica on some songs. U2 goes from 6/8 to 4/4 in Where The Streets Have No Name, which is really interesting. In Christian music, not so much, although Michael W. Smith in his really early 80s albums would do that with like Blessed Is He Who Comes In The Name Of The Lord and Could He Be. Steven Curtis Chapman has interesting stuff on More Than Words on More To This Life and Next 5 Minutes on Speechless. It’s even more rare in worship music, but Chris Tomlin skips a random beat in Famous One, and Matt Redman uses weird meter in Lord, Let Your Glory Fall and Breathing The Breath, which is awesome.

The problem with irregular meters is that when people do it, you usually notice it – it sounds strange. Like, I talked with people about this once, and they hated Next 5 Minutes, probably because (though they might not be conscious of it) of the funky meter. So what’s really brilliant to me is when people use strange meters and it doesn’t sound strange. Dave Brubeck’s Take Five and the Mission Impossible Theme are both brilliant for this reason. They’re in 5/4 (and thus nearly impossible to bob your head to – try it) but feel normal.

Anyway, the funky numbers thing extends beyond beats and also to measures. Just like beats, you tend to group measures together in regular numbers. Usually groups of 4, sometimes 2. You rarely see things deviate from that without feeling odd.

That’s why the Beetles’ Yesterday is an amazing song. It’s melodic, memorable, flows musically, just feels right. But if you count the measures in the verses, there are 7. A totally irregular number. But the song feels completely right. Amazing.

All that to say in part why Yesterday is a brilliant song. Egad.