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The Secrets of Musical Symbolism with Zach Tolan
39 Plays2 months ago
In this episode Jon and Nate have a conversation with Zach Tolan, a local music teacher and researcher, about previously undiscovered symbolism in the works of Bach and Beethoven, which uncovers hidden layers of emotional and spiritual depth to their works.
Find additional resources referenced in the video here: https://www.exact-notes.com/podcasts
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast "Artists of the Way"
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to Artists of the Way.
00:00:02
Speaker
I'm John.
00:00:02
Speaker
I'm Nate.
00:00:03
Speaker
And we are the hosts of aforementioned podcast, Artists of the Way.
00:00:07
Speaker
Today we've got a really fascinating episode.
00:00:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:00:11
Speaker
I am like... Flabbergasted.
00:00:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:15
Speaker
We like just recorded it and my mind is like blown.
00:00:18
Speaker
This is someone we didn't know before.
00:00:19
Speaker
His name is... Just walked into your house.
00:00:21
Speaker
He walked in and was like, I'd like to be the most fascinating guest you've had.
00:00:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:27
Speaker
His name is...
Meet Zach Tolan: Music Teacher and Researcher
00:00:30
Speaker
Yes, his name is Zach Tolan.
00:00:32
Speaker
He's a music teacher.
00:00:33
Speaker
He reached out to us because of some research he's been doing on Bach and Beethoven for sounds like five years, several years at least, and has some very fascinating discoveries about music.
00:00:45
Speaker
the methodology with which they composed.
00:00:49
Speaker
And lest you think that this is just for our music theory nerds that listen to this podcast, I really don't think so.
00:00:55
Speaker
This is making me rethink.
00:00:57
Speaker
Like it literally is making me rethink how I create my art.
00:01:00
Speaker
Like the level of intentionality that goes into this.
00:01:03
Speaker
I think it's a fascinating, fascinating look at how subtext and intentionality really matters in our arts and how our Christian faith works itself out in it.
00:01:16
Speaker
It's just absolutely crazy.
00:01:19
Speaker
So please stick around and listen.
00:01:21
Speaker
It's going to be really wonderful.
00:01:22
Speaker
Having a source, a reason for what you do is really interesting.
00:01:27
Speaker
And that doesn't mean that it's going to be all the same.
00:01:31
Speaker
Right.
00:01:31
Speaker
That anyone who starts at the source is going to make the same thing.
00:01:34
Speaker
Right.
00:01:35
Speaker
Because these amazing artists created their amazing art based on sources, but no one else would have done it like them.
00:01:43
Speaker
Right.
00:01:43
Speaker
And so when we create art, we can base it on sources.
00:01:47
Speaker
An inspiration and it still be a unique thing that only we could do.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:01:56
Speaker
This is a full episode and there's some things to kind of go along with it just so you have as resources.
00:02:02
Speaker
I think you can just listen to the episode and you'll get everything you need.
00:02:05
Speaker
But...
00:02:06
Speaker
Zach has recently done a TED talk on this topic.
00:02:09
Speaker
That's going to be in the description below if you want to check it out.
00:02:12
Speaker
We do give a brief explanation of what exactly is happening here, what he's discovering about the methodology, and basically a lot of symbolism that he's finding in this music.
00:02:23
Speaker
But check out that TED Talk as well.
00:02:24
Speaker
That's great.
00:02:26
Speaker
He has shared some resources with us.
00:02:28
Speaker
That's going to be linked below.
00:02:30
Speaker
We'll have a couple of those on social media as well.
00:02:32
Speaker
So you can check them out, maybe look at some things if you would like.
00:02:38
Speaker
you know, while you're listening to it or while you're watching the video.
00:02:41
Speaker
And then he'll have some more resources on his website as well.
00:02:45
Speaker
Is there anything that I'm missing?
00:02:47
Speaker
I think that's good.
00:02:48
Speaker
This is basically National Treasure, the Artist of the Way episode, but it's like the whole thing is happening right here.
00:02:57
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:58
Speaker
Just it's wonderful.
00:03:00
Speaker
And Zach has some really great insights on this.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yes, we talk a little bit about Zach's story.
00:03:06
Speaker
He has a fascinating story of faith as well, and kind of going away from the Christian faith and coming back.
00:03:11
Speaker
Really great.
00:03:12
Speaker
We don't have to keep talking your ear off about it, because you can listen to it.
00:03:16
Speaker
So without further ado, here is Zach Tolman.
Zach's Musical Journey and Philosophical Exploration
00:03:22
Speaker
Thank you for reaching out and coming onto the podcast.
00:03:25
Speaker
I'm really excited to talk about this topic.
00:03:28
Speaker
So we have a mutual friend, but...
00:03:31
Speaker
I don't know what you know, but I grew up playing violin.
00:03:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah, great.
00:03:37
Speaker
Music is sort of, I often say that I like think musically.
00:03:41
Speaker
I have the term that I have these abstract thoughts and then I have to like turn it into words.
00:03:45
Speaker
And recently I've sort of come to the conclusion that it feels like there's just this symphonic sound and then I'm
00:03:50
Speaker
So, so all that to say, I love music.
00:03:53
Speaker
I'm so excited to delve into this topic when, when it came my way, I was like, this is so fascinating.
00:04:00
Speaker
But first, would you just share a little bit about who you are for the audience or
00:04:06
Speaker
for Nate.
00:04:07
Speaker
Pretend I'm the audience.
00:04:09
Speaker
Hello, you guys are both the audience.
00:04:11
Speaker
We don't know each other very well.
00:04:13
Speaker
So yeah, just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into the world of music and yeah, a little bit of your story.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, so my story, I guess starts as about a second grader who my parents thought you should take piano lessons.
00:04:28
Speaker
Sure, it's a good idea.
00:04:29
Speaker
And I did for a few weeks and I hated it and I quit.
00:04:32
Speaker
Oh no.
00:04:33
Speaker
I was one of those kids that quit.
00:04:35
Speaker
And I remember the music was hard to read and it just felt uncomfortable.
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Speaker
And I stepped away from music for years.
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Speaker
And then I was watching a Yanni Live at the Acropolis video on my dad's big screen TV.
00:04:47
Speaker
And he had great speakers.
00:04:49
Speaker
And I was just a little kid getting up close to the TV and saw the dueling violinists.
00:04:53
Speaker
The lady in red was just playing her heart out.
00:04:57
Speaker
And then a few weeks later at school, they had tryouts.
00:05:01
Speaker
And you could pick up the different instruments.
00:05:03
Speaker
And I went right to that violin.
00:05:05
Speaker
And I kind of had an idea of what it looked like.
00:05:07
Speaker
And the guy said, you're kind of good at that.
00:05:09
Speaker
You want to try that?
00:05:10
Speaker
Nice.
00:05:10
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:05:11
Speaker
And I had asthma.
00:05:12
Speaker
And so I tried some of the woodwind instruments.
00:05:14
Speaker
Not a good combo.
00:05:15
Speaker
Didn't feel good.
00:05:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:17
Speaker
And then I thought, yep, I'm going to go violin.
00:05:19
Speaker
So that's where it started.
00:05:21
Speaker
And I got back into music that way.
00:05:23
Speaker
Nice.
00:05:24
Speaker
That's the beginning.
00:05:24
Speaker
That is awesome.
00:05:25
Speaker
Just down the road from here, actually, at the Valleywood Middle School.
00:05:27
Speaker
Oh, nice.
00:05:29
Speaker
Sweet.
00:05:30
Speaker
That's super cool.
00:05:31
Speaker
So what took you from doing it in school to wanting to pursue that as a career?
00:05:38
Speaker
Was that your first career move with music?
00:05:41
Speaker
No.
00:05:41
Speaker
Originally, I wanted to go into ministry.
00:05:43
Speaker
I wanted to be a youth pastor.
00:05:45
Speaker
Sure.
00:05:45
Speaker
I had a great high school youth pastor.
00:05:47
Speaker
He's still active, but now he does the grown-up church.
00:05:50
Speaker
Sure.
00:05:51
Speaker
You know.
00:05:51
Speaker
He graduated.
00:05:53
Speaker
I still kind of wish he was doing youth ministry.
00:05:56
Speaker
I don't know why he decided to grow up.
00:05:59
Speaker
But anyway, Peter Pan.
00:06:02
Speaker
So anyway, I wanted to do that.
00:06:04
Speaker
And so I wanted to do a secular undergraduate degree.
00:06:09
Speaker
Because I saw some people going off to Christian undergrad.
00:06:12
Speaker
And they would leave and come back a year later.
00:06:13
Speaker
And they seemed so different.
00:06:15
Speaker
And without naming any names, they seemed...
00:06:18
Speaker
Out of touch all of a sudden.
00:06:19
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:06:19
Speaker
And I thought, oh, no.
00:06:21
Speaker
These people, they're definitely not in the world.
00:06:23
Speaker
Right.
00:06:24
Speaker
And they're definitely not of the world.
00:06:25
Speaker
Right.
00:06:25
Speaker
But, like, you got to be one of them.
00:06:27
Speaker
You got to be in the world.
00:06:28
Speaker
Right.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:29
Speaker
So I thought, oh, man.
00:06:30
Speaker
This is a – this seemed like a problem.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:32
Speaker
I thought, I'm not going to do that.
00:06:34
Speaker
So I went to Grand Valley, and I was going to pursue philosophy as my undergraduate degree.
00:06:38
Speaker
Oh, perfect.
00:06:39
Speaker
Which I did and finished.
00:06:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:06:40
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:06:41
Speaker
I loved studying things like ancient languages, but the curveball was I became an atheist during that track.
00:06:47
Speaker
No!
00:06:48
Speaker
And so most people at that point in the story would look at it and say, oh, see, you should have gone the other route.
00:06:53
Speaker
Right.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:55
Speaker
And so I got Jonah in the wild, I think.
00:06:57
Speaker
That's how I usually say.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's my favorite person.
00:07:00
Speaker
Like, that's the story I relate to most from the Bible.
00:07:02
Speaker
Wow.
00:07:03
Speaker
I constantly feel like, I'm going to go do this.
00:07:06
Speaker
And it's kind of like, or you're going to get swallowed.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:09
Speaker
and held captive until we spit you out where we want you.
00:07:12
Speaker
So it always feels like that.
00:07:15
Speaker
I want to hear more about that.
00:07:18
Speaker
What was the transition from atheist to, well, first, what brought, was it the philosophy that you were studying that kind of led you astray or what?
00:07:28
Speaker
It would be a mix of that and, you know, in a sociology class or I was studying world religions.
00:07:34
Speaker
And I remember having these feelings like if I was raised in China, if I was born in China.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:41
Speaker
you know my parents would be buddhist and right or whatever they'd be something different right and with all my friends and family and culture and society everything all every influence pushing it on me like that yeah i'd probably be that right and so i in the fairness of god like it's a thing that i want to call it childish
00:07:59
Speaker
But I don't want to sound offensive because... No, it's a thing everyone struggles with.
00:08:04
Speaker
As adults, I think, you know, as I just turned 40, I'm feeling more and more like I'm still just a kid.
00:08:09
Speaker
Right.
00:08:10
Speaker
I still feel quite childish most of the time.
00:08:12
Speaker
You know, and like regulating emotions and stuff.
00:08:15
Speaker
Our temper tantrums just look a little different.
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Speaker
Right.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
Anyway, so yeah, the transition into atheism was partly influenced by that.
00:08:28
Speaker
And then the New Testament started to seem less and less plausible.
00:08:32
Speaker
I was studying ancient Greek.
00:08:34
Speaker
And in the same kind of way, I wanted to study Attic Greek, which is the dialect that came before Koinea, which is the one the New Testament is written in.
00:08:42
Speaker
And that's the one that the classical philosophers write in Aristotle and Plato.
00:08:47
Speaker
They're all writing in Attic.
00:08:50
Speaker
I think, I'm pretty sure.
00:08:52
Speaker
And anyway, studying a little bit of Greek started to create more problems than answers.
00:08:59
Speaker
So in the same way that when the Bible gets translated into English, translators have to make choices and decisions about which word are we going to put in and try to make the whole sentence flow.
00:09:09
Speaker
In English, that one word can sometimes mean two or three or five things.
00:09:13
Speaker
And depending on the context, maybe even more.
00:09:15
Speaker
And with nuance, you know, it really, when we write instead of speak, we lose a lot of what the meaning is.
00:09:23
Speaker
And when it's in a foreign culture, and 2,000 years ago, it is like darts in the dark sometimes.
00:09:30
Speaker
Very often.
00:09:30
Speaker
What on earth could that mean so much?
00:09:33
Speaker
And I thought it would get easier studying ancient Greek.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:36
Speaker
Great.
00:09:37
Speaker
Right.
00:09:37
Speaker
Kind of.
00:09:38
Speaker
But then you find that they have just as complex of language.
00:09:41
Speaker
Right.
00:09:42
Speaker
And so one word for them can also mean five different things.
00:09:46
Speaker
And it compounded the problem.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:48
Speaker
And when you're young and don't have good support systems of people who are really, really diehard, sincere experts in that sort of thing.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:58
Speaker
It is easy to get yourself lost.
00:10:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:10:01
Speaker
So that's what happened.
00:10:02
Speaker
For sure.
00:10:03
Speaker
That's one way.
00:10:04
Speaker
That's a very heavy way to describe it.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:06
Speaker
I know when I was in college, I really had to like pour into like, um, uh,
00:10:16
Speaker
Now I'm forgetting the word.
00:10:17
Speaker
The guys that defend the faith with- Apologists.
00:10:19
Speaker
Apologists, my goodness.
00:10:20
Speaker
Like Ravi Zacharias and watched a lot of his videos.
00:10:24
Speaker
I saw him in Chicago live on this.
00:10:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:27
Speaker
I saw him in Lansing.
00:10:27
Speaker
Did you hear about his downfall?
00:10:29
Speaker
I know.
00:10:30
Speaker
Gosh.
00:10:31
Speaker
Even those types, you know?
00:10:34
Speaker
People.
00:10:35
Speaker
Heartbreaking.
00:10:35
Speaker
That was heartbreaking.
00:10:36
Speaker
It was.
00:10:39
Speaker
But I don't think I'm much better.
00:10:43
Speaker
I mean, yeah, he's, yeah, did a lot of good, though.
00:10:46
Speaker
Let's not get into my... Yeah, the Lord used it, yeah.
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker
But, yeah, really, but, yeah, you have to... I'm not being a good witness.
00:10:54
Speaker
No, no.
00:10:55
Speaker
I know, right?
00:10:56
Speaker
Anyway, let's not get into my skeletons in the closet.
00:10:58
Speaker
Right.
00:10:58
Speaker
I'm going to ruin everything before we go.
00:11:01
Speaker
But no, it's at that impressionable age when you're like leaving your nest and I've all these ideas coming at you.
00:11:10
Speaker
It's really hard to not get pulled astray.
00:11:13
Speaker
When you do, you got to really find something to hang on to.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:18
Speaker
What was it?
00:11:20
Speaker
We'll stay on the faith track and then I'll jump back to music quick.
00:11:22
Speaker
What was it that led you back to the faith?
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'd give you guys 100 guesses, and I wonder if you get it.
00:11:29
Speaker
Want to take any guesses?
00:11:29
Speaker
Can we play a guessing game?
00:11:31
Speaker
Oh, fine.
00:11:31
Speaker
I'm curious.
00:11:31
Speaker
What do you think?
00:11:32
Speaker
Because you talk to people on this kind of level a lot.
00:11:34
Speaker
I don't actually get to have these kind of heart-to-heart conversations too often.
00:11:37
Speaker
Okay, sure.
00:11:38
Speaker
So I'm curious.
00:11:39
Speaker
What do you think would do it?
00:11:40
Speaker
Because it's not what I would have expected.
00:11:42
Speaker
Okay, not what you would have expected.
00:11:43
Speaker
It's not the last thing I would have expected.
00:11:45
Speaker
Oh.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:47
Speaker
Very strange.
00:11:48
Speaker
Okay, let me narrow it down.
00:11:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:53
Speaker
Was it a, was it an argument or was it something relational?
00:11:57
Speaker
Um, by argument, do you mean like a new perspective on things?
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:01
Speaker
Or like a, like a proof of God or an intellectual thing?
00:12:04
Speaker
It was several intellectual things.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:11
Speaker
Was it, I'll just throw it again.
00:12:13
Speaker
Was it reading the church fathers?
00:12:15
Speaker
Kind of.
00:12:18
Speaker
Oh wow.
00:12:20
Speaker
That's interesting.
00:12:21
Speaker
These are good guesses.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:22
Speaker
I'm Anglican.
00:12:23
Speaker
I love the church.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:24
Speaker
Right.
00:12:25
Speaker
So, okay.
00:12:27
Speaker
You're up.
00:12:27
Speaker
Name church fathers.
00:12:32
Speaker
It's like 20 questions or whatever.
00:12:34
Speaker
Right.
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker
No, I like this.
00:12:36
Speaker
Could have fit in a bread box.
00:12:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:39
Speaker
You were something adjacent to
00:12:43
Speaker
So you were reading some kind of old folks?
00:12:47
Speaker
It wasn't reading.
00:12:48
Speaker
There was a relational component for sure.
00:12:50
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:12:51
Speaker
But it was the perspective.
00:12:53
Speaker
It was a big perspective shift.
00:12:55
Speaker
Maybe I should just tell you.
00:12:57
Speaker
Maybe you should.
00:12:58
Speaker
I wish I was better at guessing.
00:13:00
Speaker
I don't have a good... I might not be smart enough to guess it.
00:13:04
Speaker
No, no, it's definitely not that.
00:13:06
Speaker
The last thing I would have expected would be that it was the Catholic faith.
00:13:10
Speaker
I was raised Protestant.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:13:12
Speaker
And a lot of the problems I was having were what I would call kind of the typical Protestant problems people pick at.
00:13:19
Speaker
Sure.
00:13:20
Speaker
And say, oh, well, you guys don't get along with that church.
00:13:22
Speaker
Or you internally are all arguing, and so you're going to split and create your own church.
00:13:27
Speaker
And 30,000 times later, just in the United States,
00:13:29
Speaker
right like it's like oh yeah and where's the holy spirit in that and where's the hand of god and all that right the catholic church fixed a lot of those problems for me yeah they got a lockdown kind of yeah and it's not like they haven't had their splits either right not like they don't have their problems uh but um and that's going to segue into our work today too because martin luser is super important in the box sure we'll we'll get into that okay yeah so which is like a kind of a
00:13:57
Speaker
circle for me because anyway but yeah the catholic church uh i i owe a great debt to and in particular some catholic families in the area were super influential and showed me that it's not so gloom and doom always yeah there's a way of doing it and it's not you know like questions around things like salvation
00:14:18
Speaker
were super touchy issues, you know, must believe X, Y, and Z, and then you are saved.
00:14:25
Speaker
And for me, those were like questions I thought, who are you to say?
00:14:28
Speaker
How do you know?
00:14:29
Speaker
I don't even know.
00:14:30
Speaker
You know, for me, it's been a big issue that the concept of faith
00:14:35
Speaker
is not necessarily knowing for certain everything that is true or not true about God or understanding every verse and, you know, understanding the correct translation, those kinds of things are my big problems.
00:14:48
Speaker
For me, it was this idea that faith is something a little different than that.
00:14:52
Speaker
It's like, I would say, well, how do you know you're saved to some of my Catholic friends?
00:14:56
Speaker
And they'd say, well, we don't
00:14:58
Speaker
No, I mean, that's for God to decide.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I thought, oh, really?
00:15:03
Speaker
And there was still this major faith component in it, trusting that no, no, no, God is good and he loves you.
00:15:10
Speaker
And do you believe that he sent his son?
00:15:13
Speaker
And do you believe that he's got a plan for the salvation of the world?
00:15:16
Speaker
If that's the case, then that's a big part of faith.
00:15:20
Speaker
And those kind of precursors that led to those bigger conclusions were the ones that I hadn't spent enough time thinking about.
00:15:26
Speaker
So the sort of perspective of the assurance is not on myself and on I've done the right things.
00:15:32
Speaker
I've got it all figured out.
00:15:33
Speaker
Right.
00:15:34
Speaker
But on...
00:15:35
Speaker
It's God who is saving me and it's God in whom I'm placing my faith to save me.
00:15:39
Speaker
Right.
00:15:40
Speaker
And it's not some other religion and it's not myself.
00:15:43
Speaker
Right.
00:15:43
Speaker
Certainly not myself.
00:15:44
Speaker
I mean, I can hardly get my taxes in on time.
00:15:46
Speaker
Right.
00:15:48
Speaker
Let alone anything bigger than that.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
I do find that interesting because I think one of the big theological critiques of the Catholic Church is that it does not rely on faith as the salvation, as the salvific thing, but on the sacraments.
00:16:04
Speaker
All that doing.
00:16:05
Speaker
The right.
00:16:07
Speaker
And I think that that can be true still, but I think a lot of times that can be an outdated critique of the Catholic Church.
00:16:13
Speaker
So it's cool to see an anecdotal proof of there is that faith is alive and well in multiple traditions within God's family and God's people.
00:16:25
Speaker
That's really neat.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's been it's been quite a ride.
00:16:28
Speaker
I'll say so.
00:16:29
Speaker
Ultimately, I didn't go through with becoming Catholic.
00:16:32
Speaker
I went to the classes and it was it played its part, though.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:35
Speaker
And so now I go to a non-denominational kind of congregation.
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:39
Speaker
So that's what Nate does, too.
00:16:41
Speaker
I do, too.
00:16:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:42
Speaker
Well, I got as close to Catholic as you could without being Catholic.
00:16:46
Speaker
You just kind of walked up to the line and.
00:16:48
Speaker
This is nice for sure.
00:16:49
Speaker
I would qualify for a Catholic funeral.
00:16:51
Speaker
I know that.
00:16:52
Speaker
And if I got one, that'd be cool.
00:16:53
Speaker
That'd be fine.
00:16:54
Speaker
So I'm on the record now of saying that.
00:16:57
Speaker
But it doesn't have to be.
00:16:58
Speaker
It's fine.
00:16:58
Speaker
There's just a lot of ways.
00:16:59
Speaker
What was it that then led you into music?
The Therapeutic Role of Teaching in Zach's Life
00:17:03
Speaker
Because you do music teaching now.
00:17:05
Speaker
Did it start off in pursuing education in particular?
00:17:09
Speaker
Or did music draw you in?
00:17:11
Speaker
A bit more.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:12
Speaker
So I knew like in high school when I decided I wanted to go into ministry and I wanted to go into youth ministry, it was the teaching component that I liked the most.
00:17:21
Speaker
Right.
00:17:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:21
Speaker
And then I learned that ministry involves a lot of that other relational stuff that I'm not so good at.
00:17:27
Speaker
Sure.
00:17:28
Speaker
And it's great for people who are and I'm glad they exist.
00:17:34
Speaker
That's not me.
00:17:35
Speaker
Right.
00:17:35
Speaker
And I thought I will get drained doing that kind of work.
00:17:38
Speaker
Sure.
00:17:38
Speaker
For me, just pure education is better.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I know that you interview a lot of artists and I'm not, you know, I'm going to be talking about Bach and Beethoven and their art.
00:17:48
Speaker
Right.
00:17:49
Speaker
and the way that they are composers and that's what they do.
00:17:52
Speaker
I'm more like a spokesperson now for what they're doing.
00:17:55
Speaker
Sure.
00:17:55
Speaker
If I had an art, I would say my art would be teaching.
00:17:59
Speaker
And I'm the kind of artist that like if you were drawing a picture and you didn't like it and you crumpled it up and threw it away.
00:18:04
Speaker
For me, that would be like video after video and make a teaching video.
00:18:07
Speaker
Oh, garbage, delete, throw it away.
00:18:09
Speaker
I'm like that.
00:18:12
Speaker
So what was it about music then that drew you into wanting to teach that as opposed to another another subject?
00:18:17
Speaker
You know, I think for me, to be honest, the gritty truth of it is that for me, music was a therapeutic thing for a traumatic childhood.
00:18:31
Speaker
And so it was introduced at a very crucial point in time, about a year and a half after my parents got divorced.
00:18:37
Speaker
We moved across the country.
00:18:39
Speaker
We moved back.
00:18:40
Speaker
And...
00:18:40
Speaker
At the time that my life started to, like when we moved back to Michigan, this is where most of my family and friends were.
00:18:46
Speaker
And so music was introduced kind of right at that point in time.
00:18:51
Speaker
And it was the sort of thing where if I was upset and I could go practice, I could play angry songs.
00:18:56
Speaker
Mr. Rogers has this right quote about his parents letting him
00:19:00
Speaker
express his feelings that way because he wasn't allowed to with his voice right but he could with his hands and i could with my violin on those strings and they didn't ever stop me because i think they were probably thinking well at least he's not breaking his tv or punching a hole in the wall yeah you know he's yeah he's learning it is a great outlet oh yeah yeah i didn't uh what's the word sublimation i didn't understand the word sublimation until just a few years ago but for me it was the best like accidental sublimation of my childhood yeah
00:19:30
Speaker
Explain sublimation if somebody does a job.
00:19:33
Speaker
We're here to learn on podcasts.
00:19:36
Speaker
I'll take a stab at that.
00:19:38
Speaker
Listeners should Google it to make sure they get the right definition.
00:19:42
Speaker
But the big idea is a healthy outlet for something that could be negative.
00:19:47
Speaker
So if you're mad, you could do something destructive like punch a wall and then have to fix something later.
00:19:53
Speaker
Or you could go to the gym and punch a punching bag.
00:19:56
Speaker
And one of them is going to work you out and be healthy and leave you better off.
00:20:00
Speaker
And the other is going to leave you behind.
00:20:02
Speaker
Right.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
Cool.
00:20:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:04
Speaker
Art is often, I think.
00:20:06
Speaker
Thank you.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:08
Speaker
Art, I do think is often that, that outlet.
00:20:10
Speaker
I think it's interesting that music hit you at that time and stuck with you.
00:20:14
Speaker
I'm thinking back to my own story and,
00:20:16
Speaker
I describe myself as a storyteller and I do a lot of theater and I do some writing, but that really sort of, similar to you, came to the rose to the top or something for me during my parents' divorce and coping with that.
00:20:32
Speaker
And that was where I sort of escaped to.
00:20:34
Speaker
You said violin too, right?
00:20:35
Speaker
Violin was part of that too.
00:20:37
Speaker
Also violin is, yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
And so that's interesting then to think about a God's sovereignty and arranging those in such a time where like those become important things, but also just how you never know what might like just catch you at the right moment and then become such a important formative thing.
00:20:55
Speaker
So was it that experience then in being able to process that emotionally that made you want to pursue teaching that in particular?
00:21:04
Speaker
Well, let's see.
00:21:06
Speaker
I think I would have been happy teaching anything.
00:21:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:09
Speaker
It was just something I was really good at.
00:21:10
Speaker
Sure.
00:21:11
Speaker
Great.
00:21:12
Speaker
Way to go then.
00:21:13
Speaker
Right.
00:21:13
Speaker
And in high school, I started an orchestra and it was really just good luck.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:19
Speaker
I mean, Providence, however you want to call it.
00:21:21
Speaker
Sure.
00:21:22
Speaker
At the time, it definitely struck me as a good luck.
00:21:24
Speaker
That's how I labeled it then.
00:21:27
Speaker
um and i won the talent show playing the devil went down to georgia and i was from kind of a small town a lot of farmers and it was the right song for the right audience yeah it would have been bad to play a boccarini minuet i would have lost the talent show with the same level of talent you know um
00:21:46
Speaker
And so right song, right audience.
00:21:48
Speaker
And then the photographer for the newspaper said she had a hard time finding a violin teacher for her kids.
00:21:54
Speaker
And she was positive that if I put my phone number in that article or let her put my phone number in the article, I would get, she said, 20 calls with people wanting lessons.
00:22:03
Speaker
And she was almost dead on.
00:22:04
Speaker
No way.
00:22:05
Speaker
Within a few weeks of the thing, it was on the front page of our local paper.
00:22:08
Speaker
And within a few weeks, I had about 15 students.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
Wow.
00:22:11
Speaker
And you were in high school?
00:22:12
Speaker
And I was in high school.
00:22:13
Speaker
I was an 11th grader, could just barely drive.
00:22:16
Speaker
Some students drove to me because they had a hard time finding a teacher.
00:22:19
Speaker
And they thought, well, this kid can play, we'll let him teach.
00:22:23
Speaker
So I was just a few years older than a lot of my students.
00:22:26
Speaker
And in some cases, I was teaching adults.
00:22:28
Speaker
And so we didn't know what to call me.
00:22:30
Speaker
And so we started with Mr. Zach because it had a mix of informal.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:35
Speaker
Because I was the age of some of their kids.
00:22:37
Speaker
Right.
00:22:37
Speaker
But it was still enough for the younger ones to show some kind of respect.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:41
Speaker
Right.
00:22:41
Speaker
Not in a super formal way.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
And that's kind of been the name that stuck.
00:22:45
Speaker
Right.
00:22:46
Speaker
And that's how I'm kind of known by all my students for the last 20 years.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:49
Speaker
Wow.
00:22:50
Speaker
What does teaching look like for you now?
00:22:54
Speaker
How do you do that?
00:22:55
Speaker
What are kind of your...
00:22:56
Speaker
I don't know, main focuses and avenues and stuff with that.
00:22:59
Speaker
So for the last five years or so, it has secretly been research and development.
00:23:02
Speaker
Right.
Developing a Music Curriculum
00:23:04
Speaker
So curriculum design is what I found that I really love doing.
00:23:07
Speaker
And I love teaching the classes, but for me, it's fun just to sit down.
00:23:12
Speaker
And I think that helps too.
00:23:14
Speaker
At the classes, I just sit down and have fun with the students because the actual class time for me is a sort of a breeding ground of finding out is the lesson that I just, is the lesson I made working.
00:23:24
Speaker
Right.
00:23:25
Speaker
Right.
00:23:25
Speaker
Do the students like it?
00:23:26
Speaker
Do they seem bored?
00:23:27
Speaker
Are they resistant to even trying it?
00:23:30
Speaker
If they did the lesson, did it work?
00:23:32
Speaker
Did they do the whole lesson?
00:23:34
Speaker
And that for me is just data, raw data that I can use to say like, the last three students who learned that song all struggled at measure 10 at that particular technique.
00:23:45
Speaker
I'm going to remake that one.
00:23:46
Speaker
In the garbage it goes.
00:23:47
Speaker
I remake and I make sure to focus on that thing.
00:23:50
Speaker
And then I see if the next three or four students get it.
00:23:53
Speaker
Sure.
00:23:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:54
Speaker
And boom, it smooths out just a brick at a time.
00:23:56
Speaker
Wow.
00:23:57
Speaker
They're making year-long, multiple years-long courses that way.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
And this is happening primarily online.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:03
Speaker
Cool.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:04
Speaker
Students have been down the East Coast.
00:24:05
Speaker
Some of them are in England.
00:24:06
Speaker
I've got some in California.
00:24:08
Speaker
And there have been some across the world.
00:24:10
Speaker
I'm fascinated to see how hardcore some of these parents are.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:14
Speaker
Like, I was doing some free online piano camps a few summers ago.
00:24:17
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:24:18
Speaker
And some of these parents had their kids up at 10.30 p.m.
00:24:20
Speaker
or 11 p.m.
00:24:22
Speaker
to do the class and then put their kid to bed.
00:24:26
Speaker
Dang.
00:24:26
Speaker
And these are young kids.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:27
Speaker
It's like, well, they should watch the replay.
00:24:31
Speaker
I think is what they should do, but whatever.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:34
Speaker
How do people find you?
00:24:37
Speaker
I mostly advertise on Facebook.
00:24:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:39
Speaker
And so I run little campaigns all the time.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:42
Speaker
I've got a new one that's like a three-day, three-song, I call it the Quick Start Kids Piano Pack.
00:24:47
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
00:24:47
Speaker
It's a little song pack.
00:24:48
Speaker
They can just try it, and if they like it, then they want to do more.
00:24:51
Speaker
Nice.
00:24:52
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:24:53
Speaker
Cool.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's fun.
00:24:54
Speaker
Sweet.
00:24:54
Speaker
It's a good time.
00:24:57
Speaker
I would quickly like to ask a couple questions I ask everybody when they're on, and then I want to delve into some of the research you've been doing.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yes.
Art, Music, and Faith: The Influence of Bach and Beethoven
00:25:05
Speaker
One of the questions we always ask in looking at art and how it intersects with our faith and such, how do you feel that God's been using art in your life in this season, wherever you're at right now?
00:25:17
Speaker
Like right now, like recently?
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:20
Speaker
Hmm, that's interesting.
00:25:21
Speaker
You know, so I've got some hangups around music, like singing at church.
00:25:26
Speaker
It's funny, I'm a music teacher and I'll be one of the only people not singing for longer in the praise and worship time.
00:25:32
Speaker
I always feel like I'm probably getting noticed more because I'm not singing.
00:25:36
Speaker
I just like out the words.
00:25:38
Speaker
Right.
00:25:38
Speaker
But I found myself with all this musical symbolism stuff translating what's with these modern songs into the kind of techniques that Bach and Beethoven used.
00:25:48
Speaker
So I remember my favorite one from last week was the what's it called?
00:25:52
Speaker
The
00:25:53
Speaker
Mountains bow down and the seas will roll.
00:25:55
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
Shout to the Lord.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:57
Speaker
Shout to the Lord.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:58
Speaker
So I was there, they had that one and I thought, oh mountains, that's in the prelude in, I got to kind of count them, prelude in A major because it's the form, day three of creation.
00:26:09
Speaker
And so it's the forming of the lands out of the waters.
00:26:13
Speaker
I thought, okay, so he does mountains in the same way that you would imagine.
00:26:16
Speaker
We think of the Grand Tetons, but Bach is German.
00:26:18
Speaker
So he'd be thinking of the German Alps.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:21
Speaker
And, you know, they're really jagged and they've got the tall points.
00:26:24
Speaker
And so you draw a set of notes that connect, you know, 16th notes would be beamed.
00:26:29
Speaker
And so it's kind of the underground or the hills.
00:26:31
Speaker
And then the dots, the note head, are going to be the way that the mountains move up and down.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
It creates these kind of scalar patterns that are da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
00:26:47
Speaker
Right?
00:26:47
Speaker
You can draw little mountains.
00:26:49
Speaker
So how do you draw a mountain bowing down?
00:26:52
Speaker
Right.
00:26:53
Speaker
Oh, it kind of changes.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
So he uses, I was thinking, what you'd have to do is show a mountain like it's a person.
00:26:59
Speaker
So you anthropomorphize the mountain.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:01
Speaker
Because he does this thing where people fall down.
00:27:04
Speaker
There's one from Prelude in G that's the Proverbs 24, 16 man.
00:27:09
Speaker
And it says a righteous man will...
00:27:12
Speaker
How does it say?
00:27:14
Speaker
A righteous person will meet calamity and then rise seven times.
00:27:22
Speaker
And so the idea is mess up, but rise up again.
00:27:24
Speaker
Mess up and rise up again.
00:27:26
Speaker
Whereas the wicked will, I don't know, be tempted or something and then...
00:27:31
Speaker
just fall they're done because they succumb to the temptation right so what he does is he takes a person and he draws like a stick figure person this was in the ted talk and then the body down and then he falls falls falls and then the second time and it's grouped together so you can see he's falling the second time third time fourth time fifth time sixth seventh and then rise up rise up rise up and then done right yeah so it symbolizes that that period of the he tells the story he illustrates the story
00:27:58
Speaker
So with mountains bowing down, you can start to imagine that you'd have to draw the same mountain up high and then take the same shape and then move it down.
00:28:08
Speaker
And then take the same shape and then move it down.
00:28:10
Speaker
And then take the same shape and move it down.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:13
Speaker
A mountain.
00:28:14
Speaker
bowing down yeah and then you could take some chord some wonderful just robust beautiful chord and that could represent god or the lord or whatever usually the perfect triad is c major and so you can imagine just a large arpeggiated c major chord
00:28:34
Speaker
And that's the mountain bowing down before the Lord.
00:28:36
Speaker
That is cool.
00:28:38
Speaker
Ah, it's so fun.
00:28:40
Speaker
And there's a million different mountains you could draw.
00:28:42
Speaker
You could choose your key signature.
00:28:44
Speaker
You could throw some rhythms into it.
00:28:46
Speaker
You can create your own mountain.
00:28:48
Speaker
And that's where a class of 100 students would make 100 different mountains.
00:28:51
Speaker
Sure.
00:28:51
Speaker
And they could all symbolize.
00:28:53
Speaker
And that's the art of the different musicians.
00:28:56
Speaker
Let's see what does your mountain look like.
00:28:59
Speaker
How does it bow down?
00:29:01
Speaker
This technique, and you talked a lot about it in your recent TED talk, which was so interesting.
00:29:05
Speaker
Yeah, which we'll have just for our audience in the show notes below as well, so you can check that out, because that's a really good primer as well for some of this stuff.
00:29:15
Speaker
We'll give you a primer as well in this, but if you... We've kind of given you a primer a little bit, but this is my awkwardness.
00:29:20
Speaker
Pause and watch that.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah, there you go.
00:29:23
Speaker
Now I'll catch up to the rest of the conversation.
00:29:25
Speaker
You're back.
00:29:25
Speaker
Okay, good.
00:29:27
Speaker
So that like how these composers like Bach and Beethoven made these like visual pictures within their music of the thing that they're talking about.
00:29:37
Speaker
It's just wild.
00:29:39
Speaker
Is there, does that technique have a name?
00:29:43
Speaker
So it has been described loosely historically as something like tone poems.
00:29:49
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:29:50
Speaker
We hear about that, and I've seen some of these around, and to me, the impression I get when I look at some of that is it's very abstract.
00:30:01
Speaker
Beethoven told us that string quartet number 14 is supposed to be based on the tomb scene from Romeo and Juliet.
00:30:07
Speaker
That's like a documented thing he said.
00:30:09
Speaker
And so people look at it, and I haven't analyzed it closely, so maybe in five years or whatever when I get to that, we'll take a look at it.
00:30:17
Speaker
Maybe we'll have another podcast.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:19
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:30:20
Speaker
But that sort of thing, usually the analysis it gets is, okay, those are maybe sounding like the stab wounds or, well, I don't think there's any stabbing.
00:30:33
Speaker
Poison, right?
00:30:34
Speaker
One of them stabs themselves and one of them poisons themselves.
00:30:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:37
Speaker
Yeah, there's a little bit of stabbing.
00:30:38
Speaker
I think Romeo.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:30:39
Speaker
I think Romeo stabs himself and Juliet poisons herself, I believe.
00:30:42
Speaker
So dumb.
00:30:43
Speaker
What a waste.
00:30:44
Speaker
Somebody leave a comment.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yes, correct.
00:30:46
Speaker
Tell us how they die.
00:30:47
Speaker
Someone listening I know knows.
00:30:50
Speaker
And so historically it's kind of an abstract concept where it's like, okay, so the tomb scene is sad.
00:30:56
Speaker
Right.
00:30:56
Speaker
Therefore it should sound not happy.
00:30:59
Speaker
Right.
00:30:59
Speaker
And to be performed well, we have to use our imagination to think like, well, at what point are they here?
00:31:06
Speaker
Is she just discovering?
00:31:07
Speaker
Or is he just discovering her?
00:31:09
Speaker
And then is she discovering him?
00:31:10
Speaker
Because there's the falling asleep, waking up.
00:31:12
Speaker
But the way Bach would do it, or Beethoven would do it, would be to... It's harder in Shakespeare because...
00:31:20
Speaker
Beethoven and Bach both do a lot with finger numbers to point at Bible verses.
00:31:26
Speaker
So cool.
00:31:26
Speaker
And that fills in the text.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:31:28
Speaker
You can get a really clear idea.
00:31:30
Speaker
And there are usually a lot of verses to choose from that have different nuance that kind of point at something.
00:31:36
Speaker
And a lot of times they will kind of triangulate a position.
00:31:39
Speaker
That's been fascinating for me.
00:31:40
Speaker
So you'll see the same concept in three or four different verses.
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:45
Speaker
Because I get the question, probably one of the most common questions I get about the Bible verse thing is like, how can you know?
00:31:51
Speaker
Because can't you use different finger numbers to play it?
00:31:53
Speaker
Right.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's part of the problem.
00:31:56
Speaker
And aren't there, you know, because what I'll usually do is I'll see a finger combination.
00:32:00
Speaker
It's pretty easy if it's something like three, one, and then a, well, I was going to say six, but we have to add up on one end.
00:32:06
Speaker
It has to be separated into voices to do that trick.
00:32:10
Speaker
But you'll see a finger combination like 2-3-2-3 or 3-2-3-2.
00:32:14
Speaker
That's an easy one.
00:32:17
Speaker
And usually Beethoven will signal it by doing it multiple times.
00:32:21
Speaker
And those ones are much easier to find.
00:32:23
Speaker
Like there's a part in for at least that's after the do-do-do-do-do-do-do part.
00:32:26
Speaker
It's like da-da-da-da and then da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:32
Speaker
That's the same finger combination three times in a row.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:35
Speaker
It's 1, 5, 4, 3.
00:32:35
Speaker
It's the most logical way to play it.
00:32:38
Speaker
And so it's pointing, I think, at 1 Corinthians 15, 43, three times.
00:32:44
Speaker
And then you can look at other 15, 43s, because what I do is I'll plug it in to Google, and I'll say Bible 15, 43.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:53
Speaker
And then if it kind of makes sense, like something from Psalms 15, I don't know if it has a 43, I don't know if it goes that far, but it might just make no sense at all.
00:33:04
Speaker
Right.
00:33:05
Speaker
Something from 1 Corinthians, it usually is whatever is the most popularly known one or the most popularly queried ones.
00:33:11
Speaker
Sure.
00:33:11
Speaker
Those are the ones he knew too.
00:33:12
Speaker
Because although he was, it seems pretty deeply Catholic, he wasn't a Bible scholar.
00:33:17
Speaker
Right.
00:33:18
Speaker
And so he picked and chose from the ones that were prominent, easier to know.
00:33:25
Speaker
So can you tell us what does fur at least mean biblically?
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:33:31
Speaker
We should totally get into that.
00:33:33
Speaker
This is probably the coolest individual piece that I've deciphered fully.
00:33:41
Speaker
Okay.
Uncovering Hidden Meanings in Classical Compositions
00:33:42
Speaker
This one is like 98% done.
00:33:44
Speaker
Wow.
00:33:44
Speaker
Moonlight Sonata is also super cool, but I think I'm only about 10% done with that.
00:33:50
Speaker
And the story that's emerging is super cool, but let's go on for release.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:53
Speaker
So this is stuff that you've...
00:33:56
Speaker
You're discovering you're not just reading about people who have discovered it.
00:33:59
Speaker
Correct.
00:33:59
Speaker
Wow.
00:34:00
Speaker
This is authentic.
00:34:01
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:02
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:34:02
Speaker
We're getting a scoop.
00:34:03
Speaker
We are.
00:34:04
Speaker
Just to catch up any audience members that are driving and can't click on the TED Talk link.
00:34:08
Speaker
So the sort of premise of this research is in a lot of the classical music from the great classical composers that we know, there are...
00:34:20
Speaker
The word hidden messages makes it seem like it's a conspiracy, but there's subtextual things going on.
00:34:27
Speaker
Wholesome messages.
00:34:30
Speaker
But that are happening in the music.
00:34:33
Speaker
So like you were just talking about with the fingers, where the finger pattern can be referencing...
00:34:38
Speaker
Scripture.
00:34:39
Speaker
So a lot of these are scriptural.
00:34:40
Speaker
You also mentioned some that maybe are happening just in their life, like you mentioned.
00:34:45
Speaker
I think we'll probably talk about some of that with Elise in for Elise.
00:34:49
Speaker
But just sort of uncovering a lot of interesting things.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah, like meditative sort of theological things happening in the undercurrents of just the melody, the way that they write the notes, the way they shape the melody, and the way that the technique to play it.
00:35:10
Speaker
So that's just a really, really brief summary for those who can't click on the TED Talk to watch.
00:35:15
Speaker
So let's dive in to Fur Elise.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
What is happening here?
00:35:20
Speaker
What's... This is the one that Patrick from the TED, the speaking coach, he wanted me to do this one.
00:35:26
Speaker
And...
00:35:28
Speaker
I wanted to as well, but it takes way more time than I could possibly do.
00:35:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:35
Speaker
So let's do a long form podcast.
00:35:36
Speaker
We got it.
00:35:37
Speaker
Right.
00:35:38
Speaker
This is so exciting.
00:35:40
Speaker
So, all right, let me start first before we dive right into it.
00:35:44
Speaker
I want to, I want to create a case for why I started wondering about this.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yes, please.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:49
Speaker
Cause
00:35:50
Speaker
I've taught this piece hundreds of times for decades now.
00:35:52
Speaker
And there were a lot of things that I always just scratched my head about.
00:35:54
Speaker
Sure.
00:35:55
Speaker
There are sections like, it's the, so it's a song that's, it's like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in the sense that it's got the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
00:36:13
Speaker
the B theme and it goes back to the A theme.
00:36:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:14
Speaker
Now non-musical listeners have no or at least does the same kind of thing.
00:36:17
Speaker
It's like do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do is the A theme.
00:36:18
Speaker
And then it develops into something completely different and a radical change is like dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-d
00:36:36
Speaker
if you're not really familiar with for at least they you might be wondering that's part of her at least it's like yep that's the b-scene then it goes back to do do do yeah throw it on spotify really quick i know right you can do that in the car they go listen right and keep in mind while you listen that what you're hearing is a version not informed by the story beethoven's trying to tell and therefore what you're hearing
00:36:59
Speaker
is pretty wrong.
00:37:01
Speaker
Emotion, wrong, tempo, volume.
00:37:04
Speaker
The story totally changes how most of it should be performed.
00:37:09
Speaker
I wish we had a piano here so you could play it for us.
00:37:11
Speaker
I've been trying to get my wife to let us get a piano for months.
00:37:16
Speaker
I could bring mine in.
00:37:16
Speaker
I've got a digital keyboard.
00:37:18
Speaker
We could wire it up.
00:37:20
Speaker
Or I've got a pretty good mic set up at my house.
00:37:21
Speaker
We could do it there.
00:37:22
Speaker
So yeah, the performance totally changes.
00:37:27
Speaker
from modern renditions.
00:37:30
Speaker
And that's another thing.
00:37:31
Speaker
So then it's got a C section.
00:37:34
Speaker
Not supposed to sound like a cesarean section, although, although kind of related to what goes on in that section because the C section in the Baroque doctrine of affect would be called
00:37:46
Speaker
an impending doom technique.
00:37:48
Speaker
And impending doom is this real fun, real easy to spot one because even if you don't know how to read music, if there's an impending doom, usually what you'll see is the same note over and over and over.
00:37:58
Speaker
So for at least it's do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
I'm getting stressed.
00:38:17
Speaker
It's kind of like a thunderstorm rolling in from the distance where, you know, when you hear that first crack of thunder or maybe you see the lightning, but you don't hear it.
00:38:25
Speaker
Right.
00:38:26
Speaker
And it's very far away.
00:38:28
Speaker
Then it gets a little closer and it gets louder and it gets louder.
00:38:31
Speaker
You can render a thunderstorm pretty well with music, especially you get some of those low notes just rumbling.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:38
Speaker
And so this section I call the C section, not meaning to refer to that, but maybe subconsciously because this is where Elise is giving birth.
00:38:50
Speaker
Hmm.
00:38:51
Speaker
Interesting.
00:38:52
Speaker
What?
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:54
Speaker
In the C section?
00:38:55
Speaker
I know, right?
00:38:56
Speaker
In the C, yeah, in section C, maybe is what I should call it.
00:39:00
Speaker
So there's certain things.
00:39:00
Speaker
This section is usually performed very quickly.
00:39:03
Speaker
Dun, dun, dun, dun, like that.
00:39:06
Speaker
But in measure 75, he uses a quarter note and an eighth rest.
00:39:13
Speaker
So in a quick piece, that would be like, if we're counting in 3-8, which is the time signature of the piece, it would be like 1-2-3-1-2-3, which would be like 1-2-rest.
00:39:23
Speaker
And then in the next measure, it's an eighth note and 2-8-rest, which would be like 1-rest-rest.
00:39:29
Speaker
which on a fast piano piece, the audience is not even going to be able to detect the difference because... Right, because you're blazing through the chord notes fast that it's basically the same thing.
00:39:42
Speaker
One, two, rest, one, one, or then one, two, rest, one, rest, rest.
00:39:45
Speaker
You don't even hear it.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:47
Speaker
And I thought, it takes more work for Beethoven to do that, to be that deliberate about something that is usually so fast.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:55
Speaker
And is there a reason of two eighths rest instead of a quarter rest?
00:39:59
Speaker
There is.
00:40:00
Speaker
Ah!
00:40:00
Speaker
There's a reason for three rests in total, to be specific.
00:40:03
Speaker
Okay, okay.
00:40:04
Speaker
All right.
00:40:04
Speaker
So we use the phrase rest in peace.
00:40:07
Speaker
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:40:08
Speaker
It is one way, one of several ways that he's signaling that she died.
00:40:13
Speaker
Oh no.
00:40:13
Speaker
And so did her twin girls.
00:40:15
Speaker
Oh no!
00:40:16
Speaker
How can we possibly know that she's dying and that there were twins and that they were female?
00:40:23
Speaker
How can we know that?
00:40:24
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:40:24
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:40:25
Speaker
I should give a trigger warning, though, because I've talked to enough people about this to know that this can be a sensitive subject.
00:40:31
Speaker
I would like to also throw out that we don't know that Beethoven is doing anything historical.
00:40:37
Speaker
It might be a story.
00:40:39
Speaker
And if it is, it's a very emotionally rich story because, especially in the 1810s, 1820s, when Beethoven was writing and revising this, there's two versions of the piece, the one famous one and there's another one,
00:40:54
Speaker
We don't know if it's real, but the likelihood of a first-time mother dying in childbirth was five to ten times higher if twins.
00:41:05
Speaker
Oh.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:09
Speaker
And so if twins is about 1 in 75 chance that that's the case, if twins then... Is that how often twins are?
00:41:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:18
Speaker
Something like 1 in 500 or 1 in 600.
00:41:20
Speaker
We'll look that up too.
00:41:21
Speaker
Google that.
00:41:23
Speaker
It's something around there though.
00:41:26
Speaker
So anyway, so how can you possibly know that from just notes, right?
00:41:31
Speaker
Well, there's all sorts of ways.
00:41:33
Speaker
Did you know that Artists of the Way is more than just a podcast?
00:41:36
Speaker
What?
00:41:37
Speaker
I know.
00:41:38
Speaker
Crazy.
00:41:38
Speaker
We do live theater.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yes.
00:41:40
Speaker
We have a conference.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yearly.
00:41:42
Speaker
The Cultivate Conference.
00:41:44
Speaker
Just happened and it was really great.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yep.
00:41:48
Speaker
It's a growing organization.
00:41:49
Speaker
We're so excited about what is happening for Artists of the Way.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:41:54
Speaker
And we need your support to be able to do it.
00:41:56
Speaker
We want to cultivate great, challenging, joyful, redemptive art.
00:42:01
Speaker
And we want to equip...
00:42:03
Speaker
the artists here in Michigan who are doing those things and all of you listening to the podcast.
00:42:09
Speaker
All of that takes money, unfortunately.
00:42:11
Speaker
That's the world we live in.
00:42:13
Speaker
But if you earned, Earth was like, you got to have some money.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:19
Speaker
But if you want to support Artists of the Way in everything that we do, go to our website and donate.
00:42:26
Speaker
www.artistoftheway.com slash support us.
00:42:29
Speaker
It's support-us because the way the website... Just go to the homepage.
00:42:32
Speaker
Be a normal person.
00:42:34
Speaker
Go to...
00:42:35
Speaker
And click on the support us button.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:42:37
Speaker
Our end of year goal is $6,000.
00:42:40
Speaker
We are about a third of the way there.
00:42:42
Speaker
So your one-time gift can go to helping us reach that goal, give us a nice jumpstart, or you can become one of our monthly donors.
00:42:50
Speaker
We have a goal of having a total of a third of our yearly budget being covered by monthly donors.
00:42:55
Speaker
So your gift of any amount per month, it does a huge amount to help us be able to put on this podcast and do it at a level of quality, be able to increase the quality.
00:43:07
Speaker
Yes, buy a third mic for when we have a guest.
00:43:10
Speaker
Indeed.
00:43:11
Speaker
You'd like that.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yes, you could donate.
00:43:13
Speaker
And Mark, this is specifically for a third mic.
00:43:15
Speaker
That would touch our hearts.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:17
Speaker
We hope you guys are enjoying this episode.
00:43:19
Speaker
Thank you for your support, for listening.
00:43:22
Speaker
And we hope you guys enjoy the rest of the episode.
00:43:25
Speaker
But I still need to build a case for why we would think any funny business is happening in this at all.
00:43:30
Speaker
Right.
00:43:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:30
Speaker
If funny business isn't too impolite to call it.
00:43:33
Speaker
Why would he be doing, why would he take all that effort to do this?
00:43:36
Speaker
Right.
00:43:37
Speaker
Well, a lot of reasons.
00:43:40
Speaker
One of which is like, what inspires a composer to write a certain kind of set of notes anyway?
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:45
Speaker
So if he can get some notes to have some kind of meaning, which would be the curriculum he was raised on, which is that Bach curriculum, which is instrumental.
00:43:54
Speaker
It's vital for me to be able to decipher this stuff.
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:58
Speaker
Because what Bach does is goes systematically through Genesis.
00:44:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:44:02
Speaker
Wow.
00:44:03
Speaker
And so you can link the mountains.
00:44:04
Speaker
I would have never known that he was drawing mountains if I didn't suspect that he was doing the seven days of creation, six days of creation and day of rest.
00:44:12
Speaker
Yes.
00:44:13
Speaker
If he wasn't doing that, then I'd have no reason to suspect that those are mountains.
00:44:17
Speaker
But when he draws in a way that you can either link it to one of the five methods of higher order thinking, it's got to be a picture.
00:44:26
Speaker
Let's see if I can get them all a picture, a gesture, physical gesture, like sign language.
00:44:30
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:44:31
Speaker
Informal or formal, like little kids do the finger thing to represent a person walking.
00:44:35
Speaker
But French sign language, Beethoven would have been studying because he was going deaf.
00:44:39
Speaker
So sign language would have been very important for him.
00:44:42
Speaker
So pictures, gestures, numbers, letters.
00:44:47
Speaker
Letters would include words, combining letters to do that.
00:44:50
Speaker
And then sounds, because the musical instruments all make sound.
00:44:54
Speaker
And we can relate to things like crying, like, and put notes that feel like that.
00:44:59
Speaker
John's done that, yeah.
00:45:00
Speaker
And some instruments do it way better.
00:45:02
Speaker
Like you can do a better cry on a violin because you're not limited between the notes.
00:45:06
Speaker
Right.
00:45:06
Speaker
You can slide around.
00:45:09
Speaker
Right.
00:45:09
Speaker
So.
00:45:10
Speaker
My favorite thing to do.
00:45:12
Speaker
I'm crying.
00:45:13
Speaker
I slide around on the violin while I cry.
00:45:15
Speaker
Which then becomes a reason that a composer might choose a certain instrument or set of instruments to represent a certain story.
00:45:21
Speaker
Right.
00:45:22
Speaker
Or include for a moment even a certain instrument to do an effect.
00:45:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:27
Speaker
And we see that kind of stuff in modern orchestration all the time.
00:45:29
Speaker
Like the sleigh bell song.
00:45:32
Speaker
Yeah, right?
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah, you've got the whip.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:45:36
Speaker
They'll use instruments just for a note or two, just to do a thing.
00:45:39
Speaker
And then, boom, it's done.
00:45:40
Speaker
It served its purpose.
00:45:42
Speaker
so there's other things though beethoven tells us that we're supposed to switch hands uh on two notes that's uh in measure 12 13 um he says that and he has to go out of his way to tell us this he has to say okay we're going to switch the bass cleft to a treble cleft and we're going to do that because the bass cleft is how the reader is going to know to use the left hand and then on the treble cleft we're going to
00:46:06
Speaker
Play the same two notes we just played.
00:46:08
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:46:09
Speaker
And then in the next two notes, we're going to go up higher.
00:46:12
Speaker
We don't need to switch hands to go that.
00:46:14
Speaker
We can switch our thumb onto where our pinky was while we switch up, and it will sound exactly the same.
00:46:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:21
Speaker
No detectable difference.
00:46:23
Speaker
Right.
00:46:23
Speaker
So while the effort for the hand switching, right, and I did this right at the end of the TED Talk because I wanted to show some of the gestures that forces the musician to put the hands down.
00:46:33
Speaker
You can imagine both hands being open like high fives, one thumb and pinky on the right hand and then the left hand pinky on top of thumb and thumb on top of pinky in a gesture that makes it look like they're holding hands.
00:46:47
Speaker
because we just had Beethoven's name spelled out in letters, and now we have the first and last letter of Elise's name spelled out in letters.
00:46:54
Speaker
So we just left off with B, E, E, and now it's E, E, and then E, E, and then the right hand moves up E, E again,
00:47:04
Speaker
And if I was a soprano, like Elise might have been.
00:47:07
Speaker
Right.
00:47:07
Speaker
Because that is a soprano exercise.
00:47:09
Speaker
Like going from that range of notes in the octave jumps is as important to singers as scales are to pianists.
00:47:19
Speaker
And so those octave leaps suggest that she's maybe a soprano.
00:47:23
Speaker
And there was an Elise who was a soprano, who was in Beethoven's circle, who was young, who disappears from all public records in 1820s.
00:47:31
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:47:32
Speaker
Elise Behrensfeld is her name.
00:47:34
Speaker
Wow.
00:47:34
Speaker
I didn't find that.
00:47:35
Speaker
There's some other person out in Europe who did that research.
00:47:38
Speaker
But I would confirm with what I see here, I probably should look that person up and talk to them.
00:47:44
Speaker
Because we have some things to talk about.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, you do.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:47
Speaker
So anyway, so first and last letter of Elise's name makes E-E, like E-L-I-S-E, the perfect letters to represent her.
00:47:55
Speaker
And then I think it's cute that Beethoven's name here is so often portrayed with just B-E-E.
00:48:00
Speaker
It's very cute.
00:48:01
Speaker
Because I can imagine Elise just totally being like, hey, bang.
00:48:07
Speaker
Right?
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:09
Speaker
People do that.
00:48:10
Speaker
It's a thing.
00:48:11
Speaker
That's great.
00:48:12
Speaker
And if they had some musical romance, it'd be great for him to be like, hey, Elise, like my girl.
00:48:21
Speaker
So is it your conjecture that...
00:48:24
Speaker
she died in childbirth to his children.
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:28
Speaker
Oh.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah, because otherwise he'd have no reason to be so mournful and repentant and remorseful.
00:48:34
Speaker
In the first few measures here, measures one through eight, the left hand can be played
00:48:41
Speaker
With exclusively finger combination 5-1 on the left hand and then cross up to 2.
00:48:48
Speaker
This is where Beethoven the Catholic is super important.
00:48:52
Speaker
His patrons were Catholic.
00:48:53
Speaker
He attended Catholic masses.
00:48:55
Speaker
He wrote Catholic masses.
00:48:57
Speaker
He performed music.
00:48:59
Speaker
Well, he didn't write the liturgies.
00:49:00
Speaker
He wrote the music.
00:49:01
Speaker
One of his final great pieces is the Misa Solemnis, which by music continues.
00:49:05
Speaker
Scholars is considered his greatest work, even though we usually know, like the popular music is more like Moonlight Sonata.
00:49:11
Speaker
Right.
00:49:12
Speaker
Ode to Joy Symphony 9 sort of stuff.
00:49:15
Speaker
Misa Solemnis is considered to be the, I don't know.
00:49:19
Speaker
Magnum Opus.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:21
Speaker
It's wonderful.
00:49:21
Speaker
And also composed after he went deaf.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:23
Speaker
Amazing.
00:49:24
Speaker
But 512 representing Psalm 51.
00:49:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:49:31
Speaker
And having a left-hand finger cross over is what we call it, even in English, because the pinky, I'm sorry, the pointer finger has to cross over the thumb.
00:49:42
Speaker
And so it's kind of like a small way of doing the sign of the cross with just a finger.
00:49:47
Speaker
Interesting.
00:49:48
Speaker
So also Bible nerd coming up.
00:49:51
Speaker
So Psalm 51 is David's Psalm of Lament after Bathsheba.
00:49:56
Speaker
Nice.
00:49:56
Speaker
Nice.
00:49:57
Speaker
Bingo.
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:49:58
Speaker
It's good.
00:49:59
Speaker
Oh, that really ties in that.
00:50:01
Speaker
Wow.
00:50:02
Speaker
Right.
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:03
Speaker
A different kind of adultery in Beethoven's case.
00:50:06
Speaker
Right.
00:50:06
Speaker
If Elise was betrothed or married, which there's no public record.
00:50:10
Speaker
If it's Elise Berenstall, there's no public record.
00:50:12
Speaker
Right.
00:50:13
Speaker
But the feeling still, like, I think that's the one where he talks about
00:50:17
Speaker
having blood guilt is the way he describes it.
00:50:21
Speaker
And David killed Bathsheba's husband, you know, legally because he's king so he can send who he wants to battle, but knows that it's his fault.
00:50:34
Speaker
And so Beethoven didn't mean to have her have twins and die in childbirth, but he knows it's his fault, at least maybe for the story, but maybe for the reality.
00:50:46
Speaker
Right.
00:50:47
Speaker
Because this was never a published piece.
00:50:49
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:50
Speaker
Oh, it's a hidden diary.
00:50:52
Speaker
It is.
00:50:53
Speaker
It was in his private storehouse and published over 30 years after he died.
00:50:57
Speaker
Wow.
00:50:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:58
Speaker
So there's like other reasons to think that because it could go a few ways.
00:51:03
Speaker
It could be the case that he wrote the story as literature, as fiction, maybe in a moment of inspiration, you know, and just thought,
00:51:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you know, there's a lot of good Bible verses that make finger numbers.
00:51:17
Speaker
That could make a pretty juicy story.
00:51:19
Speaker
Maybe I'll do that.
00:51:19
Speaker
Right.
00:51:20
Speaker
And then maybe he thought, ah, you know, some of my friends know how to read my secret writing.
00:51:25
Speaker
Nah, if the word got out, people might think this actually happened.
00:51:29
Speaker
And therefore, that could be bad for me politically because they'd say, well, why else would you write such a sad song about something that's not real?
00:51:35
Speaker
And maybe that could be bad.
00:51:36
Speaker
So maybe I'll just put that one in the cupboard for now.
00:51:39
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:51:40
Speaker
Or maybe it was his private confession and his private way of praying to God and putting in permanent record that he is sorry.
00:51:53
Speaker
And he conveyed that in the language he spoke best.
00:51:57
Speaker
Because it is titled and subtitled for Elise.
00:52:00
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:52:01
Speaker
in memory and it has a date april 27 and then the year is put on a lot of these copies but not in the original the original one that was published is just april 27 they put 1810 i think that year would be wrong too i think it's more likely to be 1820 if it was a year that's when she disappears right so okay yeah that is fascinating so much little history to it
00:52:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:27
Speaker
Whoa.
00:52:27
Speaker
Oh, that's sad.
00:52:29
Speaker
So interesting.
00:52:30
Speaker
And very sad.
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:32
Speaker
I've had, you know, at first it didn't occur to me that it could just be a story because a lot of the other stuff I've been doing, the Bach research and such, um,
00:52:43
Speaker
You know, people interpret Genesis differently.
00:52:45
Speaker
Right.
00:52:46
Speaker
The Catholic interpretation is these are stories that, you know, have a moral point and you're supposed to interpret them kind of loosely.
00:52:54
Speaker
Some people are diehard about, no, 24-hour days of creation, seven of them, rest of them, you know, and okay, however you want to interpret that, it's not the point of this podcast.
00:53:05
Speaker
But for me, a lot of it, when I'm reading the Martin Luther commentary, especially to help, because Bach was writing from the same church in the same town that Martin Luther held, was like hiding from the Catholic persecution, where he was translating the German Luther Bible.
00:53:22
Speaker
At the same time?
00:53:24
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:53:24
Speaker
200 years later.
00:53:25
Speaker
200 years later.
00:53:25
Speaker
That's how bad my head is.
00:53:27
Speaker
No, no, it's okay.
00:53:28
Speaker
Two centuries later.
00:53:30
Speaker
But he's literally...
00:53:32
Speaker
in the same town, he's in the hot seat of the Protestant Reformation, and Bach seems to care deeply about this stuff, and knows, and certainly was familiar with both Latin and with Martin Luther's commentary.
00:53:48
Speaker
on Genesis and Martin Luther has, that's one of my resources I brought for you guys to share with the audience.
00:53:53
Speaker
You said what resources would I want to share?
00:53:55
Speaker
Check out the Martin Luther commentary on Genesis.
00:53:58
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:53:59
Speaker
And the one on the Psalms is also really cool.
00:54:00
Speaker
I haven't done, I haven't read as much of that one, but the one on Genesis is amazing.
00:54:04
Speaker
Wow.
00:54:05
Speaker
And he's, um,
00:54:07
Speaker
Martin Luther was writing the commentary not as a commentary.
00:54:12
Speaker
He was writing it as lectures for his classroom.
00:54:14
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:54:15
Speaker
So you read it like you're a student listening to him, and these are his lecture notes.
00:54:19
Speaker
Okay, sure.
00:54:20
Speaker
And very word-for-word formed intelligently, very interesting.
00:54:26
Speaker
And a lot of the scientific questions he brings up are ones that we might be able to resolve better now than during his time.
00:54:35
Speaker
Sure.
00:54:36
Speaker
So one of the questions is on day one of creation, God says, let there be light.
00:54:41
Speaker
And on day four creates the sun.
00:54:43
Speaker
Right.
00:54:45
Speaker
So Martin Luther tackles that and says, whatever kind of light it was on day one, we are to, I'm going to get the quote wrong, but to paraphrase, he says, we're to understand that it is a divine light of some kind and perhaps better and more radiant, more perfect.
00:55:01
Speaker
And however we can imagine it, then whatever the light is that we received on day four.
00:55:04
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:55:05
Speaker
And so I think of Nikola Tesla and the way he describes understanding the universe in terms of wavelengths and frequency, vibration and all that.
00:55:13
Speaker
And I think, what kind of light would it be with our modern understanding, you know, in a post Einstein era, in a quantum mechanics era?
00:55:21
Speaker
And I thought, for me, I think, what is the kind of light on day one that's different in
00:55:27
Speaker
And we know that light is just part of a small fraction of the visible spectrum.
00:55:32
Speaker
What we perceive as light is a very small fraction of what light actually is.
00:55:37
Speaker
Interesting point number one.
00:55:39
Speaker
Interesting point number two is that the whole universe consists of vibrations and there is nothing that exists that is not in motion.
00:55:47
Speaker
And so that very motion itself, the fact that it has energy, could be a Moses way of trying to convey to the people at that time, pre-Einstein, pre-quantum mechanics, pre-light frequencies, you know, pre-Newton,
00:56:03
Speaker
Just saying, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was void and formless.
00:56:09
Speaker
He uses the Hebrew tohu and bohu to describe just a vacant mess.
00:56:14
Speaker
And so he calls it the, oh, he's got a cute phrase for it.
00:56:20
Speaker
Oh.
00:56:21
Speaker
The primordial ooze.
00:56:23
Speaker
That's what Luther says?
00:56:24
Speaker
That's how it's translated in English.
00:56:26
Speaker
He did it in German.
00:56:27
Speaker
But I think it was German or maybe Latin.
00:56:29
Speaker
I think he was lecturing in German.
00:56:31
Speaker
He was all about the people's language.
00:56:32
Speaker
So probably in German is my guess.
00:56:34
Speaker
My translation is English.
00:56:35
Speaker
But yeah, the primordial ooze of the universe is such a cool way to describe it.
00:56:41
Speaker
And he says, let there be.
00:56:44
Speaker
And Moses is thinking.
00:56:46
Speaker
how can I describe this?
00:56:47
Speaker
How do I describe what God said there could be on that first day?
00:56:51
Speaker
And I imagine like he took off the pause button and allowed emotion to exist.
00:56:57
Speaker
But saying let there be emotion, it's like, no, it's not very clear.
00:56:59
Speaker
People aren't going to get that.
00:57:00
Speaker
Like,
00:57:01
Speaker
Let there be energy would be a pretty good English translation.
00:57:04
Speaker
Let there be energy is not a bad rendering of let there be light.
00:57:09
Speaker
Interesting.
00:57:10
Speaker
And does describe that now the waters are moving.
00:57:13
Speaker
Now the spirit of God is, I was sitting in the park one day after reading this, like one of your other questions was how has this stuff affected my beliefs?
00:57:22
Speaker
I had never thought of the spirit of God as just like the feeling of the literal wind on a windy day.
00:57:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:57:31
Speaker
My son was playing out at the park.
00:57:32
Speaker
We homeschooled, and he's out at our recess.
00:57:36
Speaker
I'm sitting there reading the Martin Luther commentary about day one.
00:57:39
Speaker
He's talking about the Spirit of God hovering over the waters.
00:57:43
Speaker
And hovering is an interesting word.
00:57:44
Speaker
So then a breeze came by, and when you're in an open area, you can see it coming from a distance.
00:57:51
Speaker
And I see the trees in the distance, and I always love watching the wind blow over a lake.
00:57:55
Speaker
It's one of my favorite things about being on a still lake is when the wind is playing with the top of the water.
00:57:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:58:00
Speaker
And so I saw it coming and I was just kind of waiting for it.
00:58:02
Speaker
Like, you know, like, here it goes.
00:58:04
Speaker
It's going to be a good one.
00:58:05
Speaker
And it was a good one.
00:58:06
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:58:07
Speaker
And it was just related to what I was reading.
00:58:09
Speaker
And I felt like the spirit of God.
00:58:11
Speaker
What would people think in a context where they have religion, but they don't have much science?
00:58:17
Speaker
It's like, what would they think?
00:58:18
Speaker
It's like the breath of God just blew on them.
00:58:20
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:58:21
Speaker
And that's a really beautiful thought because then anytime you feel a breeze, you can feel like God is still breathing on you.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:27
Speaker
No, I've felt that before.
00:58:28
Speaker
Isn't that?
00:58:28
Speaker
It's great.
00:58:29
Speaker
That's one of my wife's favorites.
00:58:30
Speaker
She frequently is like, every time that I feel the wind, it's like a reminder that God is present with me and the Holy Spirit is with me.
00:58:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:36
Speaker
That's just beautiful.
00:58:37
Speaker
And then you relate that same idea to breath of life.
00:58:40
Speaker
And when someone dies, the breath goes out.
00:58:42
Speaker
And so our breath is a little metaphor for God's breath.
00:58:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:47
Speaker
And it's blowing across the whole universe.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:49
Speaker
Not just my little park, you know.
00:58:51
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:58:52
Speaker
Isn't that cool?
00:58:53
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:58:54
Speaker
And so when Bach is drawing the primordial ooze of the universe, which is what the prelude in C major is supposed to be, he uses half notes that are open on the inside to show the emptiness, the tohu bohu concept.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:09
Speaker
And then puts rests above it.
00:59:12
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:59:13
Speaker
In a way that he doesn't need to write all that extra stuff.
00:59:15
Speaker
He has to write extra stuff to break it into three voices.
00:59:18
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:59:19
Speaker
Three voices of music.
00:59:20
Speaker
But the rest are important because they represent spirit.
00:59:25
Speaker
It's like there, it's on the page, but it's silent.
00:59:28
Speaker
It's a presence and it's there, but it's invisible, it's inaudible.
00:59:33
Speaker
Well, not invisible, but to the audience it's invisible, but it's inaudible, but it's there.
00:59:38
Speaker
And it is there in every measure.
00:59:41
Speaker
And then the notes themselves cascade over in this kind of pattern that looks like wind.
00:59:46
Speaker
And then the bottom two notes, which are the first two voices, make little waves.
00:59:50
Speaker
And so it's this idea.
00:59:52
Speaker
And it's always in that pattern.
00:59:54
Speaker
And so all 33 of the, or 32 of the first measures use exactly the same pattern.
01:00:00
Speaker
And it's all just variations on breezes over a primordial ooze.
01:00:05
Speaker
And if you want the real clincher, here's where Bach is much more a theologian and a scholar than Beethoven.
01:00:11
Speaker
Okay.
Theological References in Bach's Music
01:00:12
Speaker
Beethoven can use the verses.
01:00:14
Speaker
Right.
01:00:14
Speaker
He can say, this describes my story.
01:00:16
Speaker
And he can put in finger numbers that point to verses.
01:00:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:18
Speaker
And he can do that with time signatures, and he can do it with a few other mechanisms.
01:00:22
Speaker
But Bach will use Lutheran theology to point to John 3.16 in Prelude in C, which represents day one of creation.
01:00:32
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:00:33
Speaker
Before the light has even broke.
01:00:35
Speaker
Because right now, the prelude in C is a universe that exists before Let There Be Light.
01:00:41
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:41
Speaker
That's prelude in G. Okay.
01:00:43
Speaker
That's the next piece.
01:00:44
Speaker
He gives one whole piece to showing the preexistence of the universe and God's presence there before the moment of light.
01:00:51
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:52
Speaker
And the finger numbers he uses on the left hand can be a three on the left hand, a one on the left hand, which is a middle finger and a thumb.
01:01:02
Speaker
And then the right hand uses an arpeggio pattern.
01:01:05
Speaker
This is exactly how any trained pianist would play an arpeggio.
01:01:09
Speaker
We would do a thumb, pointer, middle, pinky.
01:01:12
Speaker
He just uses thumb, pointer, middle, which are fingers one, two, and three.
01:01:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:01:17
Speaker
and that adds up to six.
01:01:19
Speaker
And that's one voice of music.
01:01:21
Speaker
So he isolates the voices to give a three and a one in voice one, voice two, and then voice three adds up to six.
01:01:28
Speaker
It's a 316.
01:01:29
Speaker
So that at the moment of before even light, the dawning of, before the dawn of the creation of the universe in the primordial ooze, Bach is symbolizing that he has a plan for salvation.
01:01:42
Speaker
God so loved the world.
01:01:44
Speaker
It's the craziest thing.
01:01:45
Speaker
He blew him
01:01:46
Speaker
mind wow it still blows my mind you can tell like what that is crazy and then the next and then i started to think oh my gosh if you can do that what's going on with all these other measures right and so so far what it appears to be is uh he's cascading through john he's linking because john just for the listeners too um starts with in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god and
01:02:11
Speaker
In Genesis, it's a parallel then to Genesis because in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
01:02:17
Speaker
And so John itself is kind of the perfect mirror of the New Testament to the Old Testament.
01:02:22
Speaker
And so in the same measure, Bach is illustrating both Genesis and John.
01:02:30
Speaker
And I don't know any other language that can do that except music.
01:02:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:33
Speaker
Super powerful.
01:02:36
Speaker
Oh, that is, that has been the most profound thing.
01:02:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:40
Speaker
And Bach does it song after song after song and Beethoven will weave in layers of it as well.
01:02:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:47
Speaker
But man, I never, ever, ever thought that I would see such beautiful art.
01:02:53
Speaker
Right.
01:02:53
Speaker
Music.
01:02:54
Speaker
It just, it's too much to handle.
01:02:56
Speaker
That is insane.
01:02:57
Speaker
Now, when you hear these pieces, you, you know what they sound like better than I do.
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:02
Speaker
I wish I did.
01:03:03
Speaker
Does it, um,
01:03:06
Speaker
Does it musically express the feeling that goes along with these thoughts, would you say?
01:03:13
Speaker
Now that's where if you just look up a recording, maybe, maybe not.
01:03:17
Speaker
Right, depending on how the player is putting in their expression.
01:03:20
Speaker
Because right now we live in a sort of stone age of this music because it's actually, it's not a stone age.
01:03:27
Speaker
I shouldn't say that.
01:03:28
Speaker
It's a literacy gap.
01:03:29
Speaker
Right.
01:03:30
Speaker
Because people are literate in how to play it.
01:03:33
Speaker
It's like Shakespeare.
01:03:34
Speaker
If you don't know what the words are, if you don't know what the language is, then you don't know how to express it.
01:03:39
Speaker
Right.
01:03:39
Speaker
Exactly.
01:03:41
Speaker
Then you got to know the context, right?
01:03:44
Speaker
And so now when I play it, it's fun.
01:03:48
Speaker
That's the fun for the performer.
01:03:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:50
Speaker
Is to render in a way that feels like what is in it.
01:03:55
Speaker
Sure.
01:03:55
Speaker
That is crazy.
01:03:56
Speaker
And then the artist gets better, like me, the artist.
01:03:59
Speaker
I get better as I learn more about the theology.
01:04:04
Speaker
So when I'm stuck, I'll go to a few resources.
01:04:06
Speaker
I'll check out the Baroque Doctrine of Affect if I want to know the music theory.
01:04:11
Speaker
I've got a cool book for that.
01:04:13
Speaker
Or I'll look up my Catholic commentary, or I'll look up some sayings of the Church Fathers, like you were talking about earlier.
01:04:20
Speaker
But my favorite for the Bach Preludes is the work by Martin Luther.
01:04:26
Speaker
So far, it's my favorite.
01:04:27
Speaker
I don't think I'll find a more...
01:04:30
Speaker
appropriate or parallel resource because it makes sense in the time and yeah, the location.
01:04:36
Speaker
That is just fascinating because I feel that music is probably the art form that's the most sort of self-expressionistic in our day and age.
01:04:47
Speaker
Like
01:04:49
Speaker
As an actor or a director when I'm looking at a script and I'm interpreting that, I might still have my own interpretation, but I really do need to figure out what this person wrote and what they intended.
01:05:03
Speaker
I'm going to talk about Hamlet again.
01:05:05
Speaker
Everybody take a drink.
01:05:06
Speaker
Let's go Hamlet!
01:05:09
Speaker
Greatest acting opportunity of my life was I got to play Hamlet.
01:05:12
Speaker
But I...
01:05:14
Speaker
very similar to with Bach diving into what is happening in the air for Shakespeare at that time.
01:05:21
Speaker
Where is Shakespeare setting this story?
01:05:23
Speaker
It's happening right during the Reformation.
01:05:25
Speaker
Hamlet's going to college in Wittenberg.
01:05:28
Speaker
And Hamlet is also very, has a very Catholic understanding, but then also there's like these weird tugs of grace.
01:05:36
Speaker
It's, there's, similarly, there's this just crazy,
01:05:41
Speaker
you can see them wrestling with the issues of life and unpacking that in a very similar way.
01:05:46
Speaker
And so when I'm doing a play, I expect to see that.
01:05:48
Speaker
But when I'm playing a piece, I don't expect that.
01:05:52
Speaker
And so that's...
01:05:55
Speaker
So interesting.
01:05:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:05:58
Speaker
Well, let's talk about Hamlet for another second here.
01:06:00
Speaker
So as far as English goes, a Hamlet is a small town within the church.
01:06:07
Speaker
Right.
01:06:08
Speaker
Oh, within the church.
01:06:09
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:10
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:10
Speaker
And the dad's name is Hamlet Senior and Hamlet Junior, right?
01:06:15
Speaker
So we got Prince and King.
01:06:17
Speaker
And then Old Sweden is another one who's mentioned.
01:06:20
Speaker
Norway.
01:06:20
Speaker
Norway?
01:06:21
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:21
Speaker
Old Norway.
01:06:23
Speaker
Don't they talk about Sweden anywhere in there?
01:06:24
Speaker
Or is it just Norway?
01:06:25
Speaker
I think it's just Norway.
01:06:26
Speaker
They have a rivalry with Norway.
01:06:28
Speaker
Right.
01:06:29
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:30
Speaker
So do you know about the Stuer murders?
01:06:32
Speaker
I don't.
01:06:33
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:06:34
Speaker
Look up some Danish 1550s.
01:06:37
Speaker
Haven't looked at that in a while.
01:06:39
Speaker
Danish 1550s drama.
01:06:41
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:41
Speaker
The king...
01:06:42
Speaker
was being harassed by maybe some malicious insiders, and they were trying to make him look crazy.
01:06:51
Speaker
So they'd do things like make his bedsheets wet, and he'd go to bed, and he'd be like, why are all my sheets wet?
01:06:57
Speaker
I can't sleep in this.
01:06:58
Speaker
And they'd be like, oh, my lord, what are you talking about?
01:07:01
Speaker
They're perfectly dry.
01:07:02
Speaker
Gaslighting.
01:07:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:04
Speaker
And so they were trying to give him a reputation for being crazy.
01:07:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:07
Speaker
And he had some political enemies who he decided to throw a banquet for.
01:07:13
Speaker
And then when they arrived, he imprisoned them and murdered them himself.
01:07:17
Speaker
Oh my.
01:07:17
Speaker
Wow.
01:07:18
Speaker
And I think they were the stewards.
01:07:19
Speaker
And I think that's why they're called the steward murders.
01:07:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:21
Speaker
He went into each jail cell and murdered each one of them by himself.
01:07:24
Speaker
Right?
01:07:24
Speaker
And like 50 different people.
01:07:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:26
Speaker
Crazy, right?
01:07:26
Speaker
Okay.
01:07:27
Speaker
You think I'm crazy?
01:07:28
Speaker
I'll show you crazy.
01:07:30
Speaker
Well, at the time that Hamlet was written, King James was king of Scotland before and became the first king of Great Britain.
01:07:40
Speaker
Elizabeth handed it to him to unite the nations.
01:07:43
Speaker
And then his wife was Anne of Denmark.
01:07:45
Speaker
So the Danish family line and the Danish history was real close to her.
01:07:49
Speaker
Real close and personal.
01:07:51
Speaker
Like these were, you know, relatives basically.
01:07:54
Speaker
This was in her recent history.
01:07:56
Speaker
For us, it would be, because that was 1610s or so.
01:08:00
Speaker
When was Hamlet?
01:08:01
Speaker
Like 1605 or 1610?
01:08:02
Speaker
Something like that.
01:08:03
Speaker
I don't know.
01:08:04
Speaker
I know Tempest was 1610.
01:08:05
Speaker
15 something years previously.
Hamlet's Story as a Conspiracy Theory
01:08:07
Speaker
Right.
01:08:07
Speaker
It'd be like for us nowadays, the JFK assassinations.
01:08:11
Speaker
For them, it was the Stewart murders.
01:08:13
Speaker
Super crazy.
01:08:13
Speaker
Well, anyway, so Denmark, super tiny country...
01:08:17
Speaker
It is a Hamlet in comparison to Norway.
01:08:20
Speaker
Norway is huge.
01:08:21
Speaker
And so this idea that like maybe the Norwegians were like, we would like Denmark.
01:08:26
Speaker
How can we get it?
01:08:28
Speaker
Like, hmm, let's see their king just died.
01:08:30
Speaker
Let's dress up as king and trick the dumb prince.
01:08:33
Speaker
He's still a college student, right?
01:08:35
Speaker
This idea that he's going off to hang out with his college buddies is important because, oh, he could be jerked.
01:08:41
Speaker
So anyway, so I like to interpret Hamlet.
01:08:43
Speaker
Wow.
01:08:44
Speaker
Not as a real ghost story.
01:08:45
Speaker
Right.
01:08:46
Speaker
I like to interpret it as a sort of conspiracy theory.
01:08:49
Speaker
Oh, wow.
01:08:49
Speaker
Where Norway in particular is trying to come in.
01:08:53
Speaker
That's a fun interpretation.
01:08:54
Speaker
And take over Denmark by tricking the prince to slaughter the royal family from the inside out.
01:09:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:00
Speaker
Because right at the end of the play, who walks in?
01:09:03
Speaker
Fortinbras.
01:09:04
Speaker
Boom.
01:09:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:05
Speaker
Hey, baby.
01:09:06
Speaker
The plan worked.
01:09:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:08
Speaker
That is interesting.
01:09:08
Speaker
Thank you.
01:09:09
Speaker
We'll take this castle.
01:09:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:11
Speaker
Wow.
01:09:11
Speaker
Isn't that fun?
01:09:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:13
Speaker
I know, right?
01:09:13
Speaker
That's so fascinating.
01:09:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:14
Speaker
So...
Q&A: Intentionality in Art Creation Today vs. Historical Masters
01:09:15
Speaker
A question this keeps bringing to mind, just with art in general, but of course music, there's such intentionality to these pieces and to this writing.
01:09:25
Speaker
Does it feel like we've lost that in the creation of our art?
01:09:29
Speaker
Or are we just seeing so much more art today?
01:09:31
Speaker
Because obviously...
01:09:33
Speaker
Beethoven and Bach are the greats of their time that have sustained until now.
01:09:37
Speaker
That's a good question.
01:09:38
Speaker
There's so much intentionality in everything you're talking about.
01:09:42
Speaker
It sounds like he has to do a research paper as he's writing each note practically, and that's not...
01:09:50
Speaker
the way I would write music, I would start making low tunes.
01:09:53
Speaker
I mean, maybe he knows all of that already, but... That's the thing.
01:09:55
Speaker
He knows it already.
01:09:57
Speaker
Okay.
01:09:57
Speaker
I think part of it is to keep it interesting, he needs some kind of inspiration.
01:10:01
Speaker
Sure.
01:10:02
Speaker
You know, and he was living at a time when if they needed to have an orchestra, they couldn't just have auditions.
01:10:09
Speaker
Right.
01:10:09
Speaker
They needed to get some kids from the community and raise them.
01:10:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:10:12
Speaker
and then teach them everything you need to know.
01:10:14
Speaker
We need an orchestra in 20 years.
01:10:16
Speaker
Start making kids.
01:10:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:17
Speaker
It was pretty much like that, you know, and they couldn't just make instruments either.
01:10:20
Speaker
They couldn't just order some.
01:10:22
Speaker
Right.
01:10:22
Speaker
They had to like plan this out and have them made.
01:10:25
Speaker
And so he needed to teach his own music students how to play.
01:10:30
Speaker
And that's what these were.
01:10:31
Speaker
These were educational pieces.
01:10:32
Speaker
And we see little snippets of several of the preludes in works that he used to teach his own son.
01:10:38
Speaker
Some of them were copied by his wife.
01:10:40
Speaker
He had two wives, and there's some in different, they call them different hands, different, like, what do you call it?
01:10:47
Speaker
I'm not sure which one.
01:10:49
Speaker
I'm thinking of the notebook for Philip Carl Emanuel, or what's his name?
01:10:54
Speaker
One of Bach's kids.
01:10:54
Speaker
Bach had like 20 kids.
01:10:55
Speaker
Oh, wow.
01:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, so anyway, he had to teach his
Bach's Educational Approach and Church Tensions
01:11:00
Speaker
students.
01:11:00
Speaker
And so it's a question as to why he didn't say, this is going to go through the book of Genesis.
01:11:07
Speaker
Right.
01:11:08
Speaker
Verse by verse, chapter by chapter.
01:11:10
Speaker
And you need to read it not in alphabetical order like it's published.
01:11:13
Speaker
You need to read it in the order of the circle of fifths.
01:11:15
Speaker
And after we go to the sharps, we're going to go through the flats.
01:11:18
Speaker
So it goes, you know, C major, no sharps, no flats.
01:11:21
Speaker
Then G major, one sharp.
01:11:23
Speaker
Then two sharp, three, four, five, six, seven.
01:11:25
Speaker
And then the second story of creation in Genesis 2 starts one flat, two flat, three flat, four flats.
01:11:30
Speaker
And he wraps it up in those four pieces because he has a lot of flexibility.
01:11:34
Speaker
People sometimes ask something like, how could he do that?
01:11:38
Speaker
How could he plan it?
01:11:39
Speaker
Well, it's because you can make a piece as long or as short as you want.
01:11:42
Speaker
Some of them are only 20 measures and others are 180.
01:11:45
Speaker
He had more of a story to tell and fewer key signatures to work with, so he just made one of them really long.
01:11:51
Speaker
He can make them in sections and movements if he wants.
01:11:54
Speaker
Now...
01:11:56
Speaker
Is it thought that people would figure this out at the time or that he would tell people at the time or it's just something that he alone knew?
01:12:04
Speaker
There's reason to believe that he had pressure from the church or the town that...
01:12:11
Speaker
paid him to not do this kind of stuff.
01:12:14
Speaker
Really?
01:12:15
Speaker
Why is that?
01:12:16
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:16
Speaker
So the first time Bach was ever publicly censured was by the elders of his church for, it's cute when you see translation in like old timey language, like for putting trills in places that confuses the audience or confuses the worship.
01:12:33
Speaker
That does seem like a very weird nitpicky thing for a theologian at a church to get hung up on.
01:12:41
Speaker
I know, right?
01:12:41
Speaker
Like nowadays we talk, like there's always this problem with like the tension between the music ministry.
01:12:47
Speaker
Put that jungle music away, right?
01:12:49
Speaker
Like, it's like, no, everybody's always so picky about the music.
01:12:52
Speaker
Well, back then it was trills and places that confuseth.
01:12:58
Speaker
But he uses trills to do things like show a sort of a magical miracle act happening like the wizard would like... Oh yeah!
01:13:05
Speaker
Oh great!
01:13:06
Speaker
That translates, yeah!
01:13:07
Speaker
You know, Fantasia does that sort of thing, Sorcerer's Apprentice or whatever.
01:13:11
Speaker
But he also uses it to denote sight.
01:13:14
Speaker
And that happens because the first time we see him appear is when, I think it's the first time we see him.
01:13:21
Speaker
One of the first times we see him appear in the preludes in the order of the circle of the fifths and in the Genesis order that I use is when the creation of the sun and stars are happening.
01:13:33
Speaker
Oh, sure.
01:13:33
Speaker
They twinkle.
01:13:34
Speaker
They twinkle.
01:13:34
Speaker
Right?
01:13:35
Speaker
Look at them.
01:13:36
Speaker
They kind of get lighter and brighter.
01:13:38
Speaker
And so musically, it's kind of like just a small rise and a fall, just a note apart.
01:13:43
Speaker
And it just sounds like a twinkle, right?
01:13:45
Speaker
So he uses that to denote sight.
01:13:48
Speaker
Same thing then when Noah, after the flood, is found drunk in his tent and his son comes in and sees him naked, put a little trill there to denote sight.
01:13:57
Speaker
It's like, okay.
01:13:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:00
Speaker
And you can change the trill.
01:14:02
Speaker
If you want to make it sound dissonant, it's a jarring trill.
01:14:06
Speaker
And people might wonder, why on earth would Bach choose those notes for that thing?
01:14:09
Speaker
It's because he didn't like what he saw.
01:14:12
Speaker
Or it was something wicked about it.
01:14:13
Speaker
And so you can use chords and intervals and all sorts of patterns to make it not sound so good.
01:14:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:18
Speaker
But when it's beautiful, it can be very good.
01:14:20
Speaker
You can use rhythms that help denote joy.
01:14:23
Speaker
There's all sorts of ways.
01:14:24
Speaker
That's what the doctrine of affect is.
01:14:26
Speaker
It's like, how does it create an affect in our heart?
01:14:30
Speaker
How does it hit with the audience to sound like it's supposed to... This story illustrates.
01:14:38
Speaker
So did you say he wrote music for basically all of Genesis?
01:14:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:43
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm not done with the research to know how far it goes.
01:14:47
Speaker
Okay.
01:14:48
Speaker
But I've gotten to about the first 20 preludes.
01:14:51
Speaker
It's 24 preludes and 24 fugues.
01:14:54
Speaker
Okay.
01:14:54
Speaker
Fugue means flight in Latin.
01:14:56
Speaker
And so it seems to start right around the time that Abraham is taking off and leaving for the promised land.
01:15:03
Speaker
I still have to learn a lot about my Genesis history here, but that, I think, is the point.
01:15:09
Speaker
And so the first 12 chapters of Genesis are the primeval history, and that's up through Tower of Babel.
01:15:17
Speaker
Is that the last story?
01:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, because then that's when you move.
01:15:20
Speaker
They separate and you go to Abraham.
01:15:22
Speaker
Boom, yeah.
01:15:23
Speaker
So I think Abraham starts around the Fugue 1, and I don't even know which one is going to be the starting one yet.
01:15:30
Speaker
Wow.
01:15:30
Speaker
But some of the ways that I find this stuff is when something is really unusual musically, it's usually doing some kind of work for illustrating something.
01:15:39
Speaker
Right.
01:15:40
Speaker
And so it's easy to kind of, that's how I have to triangulate where does a section start and end.
01:15:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:46
Speaker
And so I found some that are pointing at, oh, who is it that gets the...
01:15:53
Speaker
the daughter like Sarah and what are the girls names?
01:15:58
Speaker
Oh, are you talking about Rachel and
Symbolism and Emotional Responses in Music
01:16:00
Speaker
Leah with Jacob?
01:16:00
Speaker
Thank you.
01:16:01
Speaker
Yes.
01:16:01
Speaker
That's who I'm talking about.
01:16:02
Speaker
Right.
01:16:03
Speaker
So he's betrothed to one.
01:16:05
Speaker
Right.
01:16:06
Speaker
And then the other one marries him.
01:16:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:08
Speaker
There's this part.
01:16:09
Speaker
And get him drunk.
01:16:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:10
Speaker
Right.
01:16:10
Speaker
Exactly.
01:16:11
Speaker
So it's a 14 year thing because he's supposed to work for seven years and work for seven more years.
01:16:16
Speaker
A series of 14 notes in a row is how he can denote the time.
01:16:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:20
Speaker
Each note represents a year.
01:16:22
Speaker
Beethoven does similar things with how many measures are in the birth sequence to show how long Elise was pregnant.
01:16:29
Speaker
And then the birth of Cain and Abel.
01:16:31
Speaker
You can find nine months of notes.
01:16:33
Speaker
Like each note represents one month of pregnancy.
01:16:36
Speaker
And then a happy birth.
01:16:38
Speaker
And then, well, no, no, no.
01:16:40
Speaker
bad birth right right and then the second one yeah see and the way i'm remembering that is because i remember how it sounds and so the first sequence is nine of like waiting you know it's kind of like a tic-tac-y kind of sound too like like time passing uh and then a few measures later we have the birth of abel yeah and after the nine months it's happy because okay we got a good one got a good one right so
01:17:06
Speaker
Wow.
01:17:07
Speaker
Stuff like that.
01:17:07
Speaker
So anyway, so the fugues do seem to still be going through Genesis.
01:17:10
Speaker
I'm just not sure if he completes it.
01:17:12
Speaker
Sure.
01:17:12
Speaker
But there's also Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2.
01:17:15
Speaker
So 20 years later, he did another set of 48 pieces.
01:17:19
Speaker
And I haven't even begun to look at that yet to figure out what's in it because I'm just trying to stay focused.
01:17:23
Speaker
sure i'm the one man that is just crazy so has it been hundreds of years and you're the first one to figure this out i don't think so because i think beethoven uh either figured it out or his teacher i think is more likely okay beethoven writes really positively about his teacher uh in correspondence they stayed in touch later you know like i've stayed in touch with several of my teachers
01:17:49
Speaker
He says his name is Christian Nefa.
Freemasonry's Influence on Thought and Brotherhood
01:17:52
Speaker
This guy was a member of the Freemasons and the Illuminati.
01:17:55
Speaker
Oh, wow.
01:17:56
Speaker
And I know from personal experience that Freemasonry is very symbolic.
01:18:01
Speaker
And I wouldn't say that it directly, I was a Freemason for a while.
01:18:05
Speaker
I'm not anymore.
01:18:06
Speaker
Oh.
01:18:06
Speaker
Yeah, I know, right?
01:18:09
Speaker
Rewind.
01:18:09
Speaker
I want to go back in your story.
01:18:12
Speaker
Go ahead.
01:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:18:13
Speaker
So symbolically, the Freemasons are all about different types of imagery, handshakes, gestures, right?
01:18:21
Speaker
The words that we use, the numbers.
01:18:24
Speaker
A lot of these things, the types of higher-order thinking that I talk about, huh?
01:18:29
Speaker
Once a Freemason, always.
01:18:30
Speaker
Maybe.
01:18:33
Speaker
There's a lot I like about it.
01:18:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:36
Speaker
Overall, I really don't know much about it.
01:18:38
Speaker
I mostly give it a thumbs up.
01:18:39
Speaker
It's great.
01:18:40
Speaker
And a lot of really great guys, too.
01:18:41
Speaker
So if any listeners are out there looking to connect with some really great guys, there is also a female version, too, the Eastern Star.
01:18:47
Speaker
Oh.
01:18:48
Speaker
You know, the main thing that drew me into Freemasonry was the mantra that it's taking good men and trying to make them better.
01:18:54
Speaker
Uh-huh.
01:18:55
Speaker
You know, and I thought, I would like to see if they can live up to that.
01:18:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:58
Speaker
And in a lot of ways, I do.
01:19:00
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:19:00
Speaker
But like any organization, just
01:19:02
Speaker
So yeah, nobody's perfect.
01:19:03
Speaker
So it's fine.
01:19:06
Speaker
It's cool.
01:19:07
Speaker
It is fun to be a younger Freemason though, because a lot of us are looking for mentors.
01:19:12
Speaker
I was talking earlier about if I had somebody really smart who could help me through some of these struggles,
01:19:17
Speaker
There's a lot of that, but the kind of wisdom you get, I'll say, is a mix of perspectives.
01:19:22
Speaker
A belief in God of some kind, higher divinity, or in order, is required for some kind.
01:19:28
Speaker
So no atheist can be a Mason.
01:19:31
Speaker
But it ranges from a lot of different worldviews.
01:19:35
Speaker
which can be a great thing.
01:19:36
Speaker
Like create some dialogue and people get to know other people and, you know, learn why people and have those nice discussions in a group that at the end of the day is kind of required that you are still like brothers.
01:19:47
Speaker
Right.
01:19:48
Speaker
You know, it's like a brother.
01:19:49
Speaker
It kind of forces you to have a good faith dialogue instead of just tearing each other apart.
01:19:55
Speaker
Yep.
01:19:56
Speaker
That's interesting.
01:19:56
Speaker
And just like when brothers fight in real life, you know, mom or dad or somebody will be like, let them work it out.
01:20:01
Speaker
Let them work it out.
01:20:03
Speaker
But it,
01:20:03
Speaker
There's also a point where they'll be like, okay, okay, break it up, break it up.
01:20:06
Speaker
You go to your room.
01:20:07
Speaker
But then the next day or later that day, they'll be like, okay, now you guys say you're sorry or make up or whatever.
01:20:13
Speaker
I'm sorry.
01:20:14
Speaker
Fine.
01:20:16
Speaker
It's good like that.
01:20:17
Speaker
That's what the Freemasons like.
01:20:18
Speaker
Okay.
01:20:19
Speaker
It can be like that.
01:20:20
Speaker
It can be like a lot of things.
01:20:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:23
Speaker
Man, well, I think we've got to probably wrap it up here.
01:20:27
Speaker
I'm curious.
01:20:29
Speaker
I mean, I feel like we could just keep going.
01:20:30
Speaker
This is insane.
01:20:31
Speaker
We'll do a part two.
01:20:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:34
Speaker
Do you have any plans for publishing anything?
01:20:38
Speaker
Sharing the insights?
01:20:39
Speaker
Or are you still just deep in the research phase trying to get...
01:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, it is researched enough that I'm starting to get public, which is why I'm here in the first place.
01:20:49
Speaker
Right, yeah.
01:20:50
Speaker
Everyone's gonna know now.
01:20:52
Speaker
I know my girlfriend is super encouraging about me being vocal about it.
01:20:56
Speaker
She hears about it at dinner.
01:20:59
Speaker
I've got some great discovery.
01:21:00
Speaker
She's like, you should be making a YouTube channel.
01:21:02
Speaker
You should be telling people about this.
01:21:04
Speaker
Oh yeah.
01:21:05
Speaker
pretty introverted and I like to, you know, so it's a, it's a little bit of a stretch for me to, well, props to you for being on a podcast.
01:21:12
Speaker
Thanks.
01:21:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:13
Speaker
I know.
01:21:13
Speaker
Right.
01:21:14
Speaker
It's, uh, it's okay.
01:21:15
Speaker
We're introverted too.
01:21:16
Speaker
So we're just three introverted guys doing a podcast.
01:21:19
Speaker
This is probably my favorite way of being public and introverted.
01:21:22
Speaker
Sure.
01:21:22
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:23
Speaker
Three dudes in a room right now.
01:21:24
Speaker
Right.
01:21:24
Speaker
It's pretty introverted.
Research and Future Publishing Plans on Bach
01:21:26
Speaker
So, but yeah, my website has, uh, more and more stuff coming out.
01:21:30
Speaker
Okay.
01:21:30
Speaker
I'm making the new courses.
01:21:32
Speaker
And like I said, I,
01:21:33
Speaker
I will delete four videos for each one that I publish.
01:21:37
Speaker
Or more sometimes.
01:21:38
Speaker
Some that have been deleted 20 times or more.
01:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, right.
01:21:43
Speaker
I'm working on the Preludes course, and when I discovered all the symbolism stuff, I had to make it.
01:21:47
Speaker
I have made it about 10 times.
01:21:50
Speaker
At least 10 times.
01:21:51
Speaker
Like, anyway, so I'm just starting to publish that.
01:21:55
Speaker
And I'll have downloads for people that want to check this stuff out.
01:21:59
Speaker
I would love to put some links up to the books that I'm talking about, the Martin Luther commentary and such.
01:22:02
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
01:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, share briefly.
01:22:05
Speaker
So you mentioned the Martin Luther commentary.
01:22:06
Speaker
Were there any other resources for you that you're like, these are great for an artist or a believer who's developing?
01:22:13
Speaker
So for the believer side, I would just totally go with Martin Luther for starters.
01:22:18
Speaker
If you want to dig into this.
01:22:20
Speaker
It is so fascinating to try to apply the science, modern science, to a lot of these questions he has.
01:22:26
Speaker
One of them was about, he just straight up says something like, we know that there's more water being withheld from
01:22:35
Speaker
from the outside of the earth and that must just be by god's power because there's more water than land sure and he's talking about ratios or something i guess but when we think about like ice caps for example as a way for god to pool the water into one place that seems to be the theological problem he has he says how how how is it that god would put all the water into just one place how would he pull it into one place
01:22:59
Speaker
Well, you think about ice and ice caps.
01:23:01
Speaker
Go up.
01:23:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:02
Speaker
Bingo.
01:23:03
Speaker
Right?
01:23:03
Speaker
It's like, well, there are ways of doing that.
01:23:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:05
Speaker
But he says, I don't know how.
01:23:07
Speaker
And he maintains his faith anyway.
01:23:08
Speaker
He doesn't let those questions tear him apart like a young me.
01:23:12
Speaker
Right.
01:23:13
Speaker
You know, he says, not sure yet, but I believe enough that I'm going to let that one just kind of work itself out over time.
01:23:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:20
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:23:21
Speaker
So, good ones.
01:23:22
Speaker
One or more is the Bach Well-Tempered Clavier.
01:23:24
Speaker
And Marjorie Warnell Ingalls.
01:23:26
Speaker
This one is more for the musicians who want to start to understand a perspective on the way that the music creates different feelings.
01:23:36
Speaker
She, however, doesn't seem to understand how that same work that she's writing about is organized into Genesis.
01:23:44
Speaker
Idiot.
01:23:46
Speaker
Oh, no.
01:23:47
Speaker
I wouldn't even joke.
01:23:49
Speaker
I have a great debt to this lady.
01:23:52
Speaker
But like most people, boy, how easy to miss.
01:23:55
Speaker
Right.
01:23:57
Speaker
It's a subtext to music, which is crazy to me that instrumental orchestral music can have a subtext.
01:24:03
Speaker
But that is just so cool.
01:24:06
Speaker
And one that's so rich.
01:24:07
Speaker
I'm shocked.
01:24:08
Speaker
I'm going to continue to be shocked because I'm just getting into it.
01:24:12
Speaker
In 10 years, I will know hopefully so, so, so much more about this.
01:24:16
Speaker
Well, man, that's amazing.
01:24:17
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on, chatting with us.
01:24:19
Speaker
I'm glad we had a space to give you a nice long form opportunity to go through it.
01:24:25
Speaker
Thank you so much.
01:24:25
Speaker
Thanks.
01:24:26
Speaker
It's been great, guys.
01:24:27
Speaker
This was fun.