[CHRISTIA] A LOOK AT THE ROCK BEAT
Samuele Bacchiocchi
Samuele Bacchiocchi, Andrews University
A PERSONAL NOTE: The few comments below on the effects of the rock
beat, are excerpted from the chapter "A Closer Look at Rock Music,"
soon to be published in the symposium on THE CHRISTIAN AND ROCK
MUSIC. If you are interested to read the whole chapter, you can
access it at my website: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com There
you will also find the four other chapters dealing with the nature of
rock music.
The Effects of the Rock Beat. There is a wealth of
documentation produced by knowledgeable experts in the field of
psychology of music, physiology of music, philosophy of music, and
sociology of music, which explains the various negative effects of
the rock beat on humans and animals. These experts examine rock
music, not from a spiritual, religious perspective, but from social,
psychological, and physiological perspectives. Since chapter 8 deals
specifically with the effects of rock music, only few studies will be
cited in this context.
Some studies indicate that an important reason why rock music
affects the body in a way that is unlike any other type of music, is
the unique character of the rock beat, technically referred to as
"anapestic beat." The anapestic beat of rock music consists, as
noted earlier, of a weak-strong sequence: da-da-DA. This anapestic
beat stops at the end of each bar or measure. It is as if the music
stops and then starts again, causing the listener to subconsciously
come to an halt at the end of each bar. This is the opposite of the
so-called dactylic or waltz-like beat (DA-da-da) which reflects the
heartbeat (LUB-dub-rest) and other rhythms of the body.
Psychiatrist Verle Bell offers a graphic explanation of how
rock beat causes addiction: "One of the most powerful releases of the
fight-or-flight adrenaline high is music which is discordant in its
beats or chords. Good music follows exact mathematical rules, which
cause the mind to feel comforted, encouraged, and 'safe.' Musicians
have found that when they go against these rules, the listener
experiences an addictive high.
"Like unscrupulous 'diet' doctors who addicted their clients
to amphetamines to ensure their continued dependence, musicians know
that discordant music sells and sells. As in all addiction, victims
become tolerant. The same music that once created a pleasant tingle
of excitement no longer satisfies. The music must become more
jarring, louder, and more discordant. One starts with soft rock, then
rock 'n' roll, then on up to heavy metal music."19
John Diamond is a respected medical doctor, who has conducted
extensive research on the impact of music on the human body. His book
Your Body Doesn't Lie contains a wealth of information on this
subject. After a study of over 20,000 records he found that the
rock beat affects the body negatively in several ways. For example,
he found that the stopped anapestic beat weakens the body because it
goes against the normal rhythm of human physiology, thus affecting
the heart and blood pressure. The rock beat sets in motion an
automatic fight-and-flight response, which causes a secretion of the
hormone, epinephrine.20 The body reacts to the beat with muscle
weakness, anxiety, and aggressive behavior.
Diomond relates the unexpected way in which he came to
research the effects of the rock beat. "Several years ago my research
on the effect of music took an unexpected turn. Shopping in the
record department of a large New York store, I became weak and
restless and generally ill at ease. The place was vibrating with
rock music. Later I did the obvious thing-I tested the effect of
this music . . . Using hundreds of subjects, I found that listening
to rock music frequently causes all the muscles in the body to go
weak. The normal pressure required to overpower a strong deltoid
muscle in an adult male is about 40 to 45 pounds. When rock music is
played, only 10 to 15 pounds is needed."21
In his book Tuning the Human Instrument, Steven Halpern
reports several studies on how the rock rhythm affects the mind and
the body. One of them is similar to the study of Dr. Diomond. He
wrote: "Dr. Sheldon Deal, a nationally known chiropractor and author,
and by no means an old fuddy-duddy categorically putting down all of
Rock and Roll per se, demonstrated the effect of the standard Rock
'n' Roll beat on muscle strength of the body. Using tests basic to
kinesiology [that is, movement dependent on stimulation], he showed
that the rhythm arrangement that we hear all the time in pop music,
that is, 'short-short-Long (---), has a definite weakening effect on
the subject's strength. . . . This effect held true whether the
subject liked the style of music or not. In other words, how one
'felt' about the music, tastewise, was irrelevant in terms of how the
body 'felt' . . . a common denominator cutting through most
subjective reactions is that of sexual arousal."22
Other scientific studies have produced similar results.
"Researchers at Louisiana State University found that listening to
hard-driving rock music increased the heart rates and lowered the
quality of workouts in a group of twenty-four young adults. In
contrast, easy-listening or softer music lowered heart rates and
allowed for longer training sessions."23
In another study on the effects of rock music, "Researchers
at Temple University found that university students exposed to
recordings by the Beattles, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Led
Zeppelin, and other similar bands, breathed faster, showed reduced
skin resistance to stimuli, and had an increased heart rate compared
to those exposed to random background noise."24
Rock Rhythm and Sexual Response. Sexual arousal is one of the
best known effects of the rock rhythm. Rock musicians are well aware
of this fact and exploit it to their advantage. Gene Simmons of the
rock group KISS was asked on Entertainment Tonight if parents should
be concerned about teens listening to their music. With candid
frankness Simmons responded: "They should be concerned because we
are into girls-that is what rock is all about-sex with a 100-megaton
bomb, the beat."25
The rock beat stimulates sexual responses. In her article
"Music, The Beautiful Disturber," published in Psychology Today,
Anne Rosenfeld points out that music arouses "a range of agitated
feelings-tense, excited, sometimes sexual-through pronounced and
insistent rhythms, . . . artfully used to heighten the sexual tension
. . . drumming may produce these powerful effects by actually driving
the brain's electrical rhythms."26
Salem Kirban explains how the rock beat causes a sexual
response: "Rock music appeals to the body's glands and sensuous
nature. The low frequencies vibrations of the bass guitar . . . the
driving beats of the drum have a direct effect on the pituitary
glands. The pituitary gland produces hormones that control the
sexual responses of male and female. With the incessant beat of rock
music, a radical imbalance occurs in the brain. The end effect is an
overload of hormones that can cause moral inhibitors either to drop
or to be wiped out completely."27
The secretion of the hormone epinephrine, caused by the
abnormal stimulus of the rock beat, results in an overstimulation of
he sex glands without a normal release. Bob Larson notes that this is
"the prelude to the release that will occur in the parked car after
the dance, and it is a direct cause of the bodily obscenity that
occur on the dance floor. I speak not only from medical counsel, but
also from personal observation when I state that girls who erotically
give their bodies to the frenzied gyrations accompanying rock
rhythms, may be undergoing a sexually climactic condition. . . . We
must also realize that unconscious emotion, because of its nature, is
influenced by many factors, one of which is vibrations (e. g. the
deep bass sound found in rock music). . . .The sex-related emotions
generated by the vibrations in the unconscious seek expression in
conscious thought and activity. I have observed couples who actually
undergo an imaginary sex act in their minds and bodies while dancing.
This abnormal, musically induced, simulated orgasm is both
psychologically and physiologically destructive. Neurosis is the
direct result. It is also sin!"28
Pleasure-oriented Church Music. The capacity of the rock beat
to cause a sexual response is a most important factor to be
considered by those who wish to adopt sanitized forms of rock music
for church worship. Changing the lyrics does not eliminate the effect
of the rock beat, because, as we shall now see more fully below, the
beat impacts on the body, bypassing the master brain. Ultimately the
question is: Should church music stimulate the people physically or
inspire them spiritually?
You can access the rest of the chapter at my website:
http://www.biblicalperspectives.com
Christian regards
Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D.,
Professor of Theology and Church History,
Andrews University
4990 Appian Way
Berrien Springs, MI 49103
Phone (616) 471-2915 Fax (616) 471-4013
E-mail: <sbacch...@qtm.net>
<SBacch...@csi.com>
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Steve Dawson
>A LOOK AT THE ROCK BEAT
>Samuele Bacchiocchi, Andrews University
>
> The Effects of the Rock Beat. There is a wealth of
>documentation produced by knowledgeable experts in the field of
>psychology of music, physiology of music, philosophy of music, and
>sociology of music, which explains the various negative effects of
>the rock beat on humans and animals. These experts examine rock
>music, not from a spiritual, religious perspective, but from social,
>psychological, and physiological perspectives. Since chapter 8 deals
>specifically with the effects of rock music, only few studies will be
>cited in this context.
Funny, you talk about the "philosophy of music" while not interviewing one
musician (classical, rock, or otherwise).
> Some studies indicate that an important reason why rock music
>affects the body in a way that is unlike any other type of music, is
>the unique character of the rock beat, technically referred to as
>"anapestic beat." The anapestic beat of rock music consists, as
>noted earlier, of a weak-strong sequence: da-da-DA. This anapestic
>beat stops at the end of each bar or measure.
Anapestic beat is *not* unique to rock music.The following definition is
from an online dictionary of *folk* music at
http://www.cgrg.ohio-state.edu/~spencer/FF/F.html#foot
foot-- in the analysis of lyrics ( prosody), it's the unit of meter, which
corresponds to the beat of the tune. In general,there will be two or three
syllables per foot, and one to eight feet per line, with the most common
being four (tetrameter) or five (pentameter).
There are four main kinds of meter - four ways of accenting the syllables
within the foot: anapestic, dactylic, iambic, and trochaic. These terms are
from classical scholarship, when they thought that Latin prosody would
transfer nicely to English, so we're stuck with them. While folkies don't
introduce songs by pointing out the anapestic pentameter, the terms are
used all the time in musicological writings. In the examples below, the
caret (^) indicates the accented syllable, which in rhythm would be the
downbeat:
Anapestic: three syllables per foot with the accent on the third.
"As I roved out one morning, all on a fine day..."
^ ^ ^ ^
Dactylic: three syllables per foot with the accent on the first.
"Saddled and bridled and gaily rode he..."
^ ^ ^ ^
Iambic: two syllables per foot with the accent on the second.
"As I came in by Fisherrow.."
^ ^ ^ ^
Trochaic: two syllables per foot with the accent on the first.
"I don't know but I been told..."
^ ^ ^ ^
>It is as if the music stops and then starts again, causing the listener to
>subconsciously come >to an halt at the end of each bar. This is the
>opposite of the so-called dactylic or waltz-like >beat (DA-da-da) which
>reflects the heartbeat (LUB-dub-rest) and other rhythms of the body.
Are you suggesting that the only music we should listen to are waltzes?
> Psychiatrist Verle Bell offers a graphic explanation of how
>rock beat causes addiction: "One of the most powerful releases of the
>fight-or-flight adrenaline high is music which is discordant in its
>beats or chords.
Sounds more like the music of Philipp Glass than rock music.
>Good music follows exact mathematical rules, which
>cause the mind to feel comforted, encouraged, and 'safe.' Musicians
>have found that when they go against these rules, the listener
>experiences an addictive high.
*All* music follows exact mathematical rules. That's the reason why the
time signature is expressed in a fraction and why instruments can be tuned
to each other. Most Western music is based upon the same tonal scale and
uses the same notations to represent pitch and timing. So the same
mathematical rules that brought you Beethoven or Bach also bring you The
Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Musicians like people to enjoy their music.
What makes a rock musician more evil than a classical musician? Is it
equally as sinful to listen to rock music as the Carmina Burana?
> "Like unscrupulous 'diet' doctors who addicted their clients
>to amphetamines to ensure their continued dependence, musicians know
>that discordant music sells and sells. As in all addiction, victims
>become tolerant. The same music that once created a pleasant tingle
>of excitement no longer satisfies. The music must become more
>jarring, louder, and more discordant. One starts with soft rock, then
>rock 'n' roll, then on up to heavy metal music."19
This sounds an awful like those drug messages. Can you define the
difference between "soft rock", "pop" and "folk music"? Or is this all
based on your likes and dislikes?
<snip>
First, you have dwelled on groups who are well over 30 years old. At least
two (The Beatles and Led Zepplin) have broken up. Paul McCartney (of The
Beatles) has written at least 2 classical pieces that have attained a level
of recognition in that music community. Pretty much you've stopped at a
point in musical history where relatively few people listen. There are
other groups and styles that have taken center stage and you are still
arguing over those who have long since left the building. It's easy quoting
Salem Kirban and a pretty much discredited Bob Larson. Larson usually tried
to tie rock to a "jungle" beat. I guess that would get too many groups
against you if you used that tactic. In short Sam. try updating your
message.
Second, in trying to discredit one type of music you wind up discrediting
it all.Almost all western music has the same basic foundational principles.
Consider that not all Classical music uses the same foot just as not all
Rock or Folk orJazz uses the same foot in their respective genres.
Generalization doesn't work.
Steve
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