Notes of Change: The Symphony to Come
by Alternative Voice Staff
Could it be possible that a drawn out adagio by a lone cellist voiced an entire nation’s feelings of indignant outrage and defiant refusal to be reduced to the ground? After his opera theater was destroyed and 22 of his neighbors killed by a mortar, this is how Vedran Smailovic responded—playing on the streets of Sarajevo, undaunted by NATO’s violent aggression. Under the right circumstances, could the soul-force of a single person playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations fearlessly, in the face of great evil, inspire a single soul, or even the souls of an entire planet?
Few have paid much attention to the role of music as a force for change in past revolutions, and even fewer have perspective of the true potential of music as a stimulus for change in these times. What has been understood at times has been lost or deviously abused: "...the music of a peaceful and prosperous country is quiet and joyous, and the government is orderly; the music of a country in turmoil shows dissatisfaction and anger, and the government is chaotic; and the music of a destroyed country shows sorrow and remembrance of the past, and the people are distressed. Thus we see music and government are directly connected with one another." (From an old Chinese writing.) Observe what Hitler and Mao (to name just two) did recently with music in their totally-controlled societies where extreme perversions of song were used to distort and channel the people’s minds and hearts in the wrong ways, justifying their diabolical methods. The latent power within music can be used in two ways: right or wrong.
Listen to the voices of the long lines of civil rights protesters, marching into Birmingham singing, "We have walked through the shadows of death. We’ve had to walk all by ourself. But we’ll never turn back, no we’ll never turn back, until we’ve all been free..."—and met with snarling German shepherds, shotguns, firehoses, and clubs. Martin Luther King, Jr., (named after the religious revolutionary Martin Luther who was also a musician) said, "An important part of the mass meetings was the freedom songs. In a sense the freedom songs are the soul of the movement. ...These songs bound us together, gave us courage together, helped us march together. We could walk toward any Gestapo force. We had cosmic companionship, for we were singing, ‘Come By Me, Lord, Come By Me.’ ...With this music, a rich heritage from our ancestors who had the stamina and the moral fiber to be able to find beauty in broken fragments of music, whose illiterate minds were able to compose eloquently simple expressions of faith and hope and idealism, we can articulate our deepest groans and passionate yearnings—and end always on a note of hope that God is going to help us work it out...."
Not only are we called upon to recognize the strings of transformational music reflecting aspects of divine pattern that have appeared in history (unfortunately this is largely confined to more recent times when music began to be written), but we are challenged to bring a whole new musical paradigm for the healing of a world of hurt.
Thirty years ago Thomas Mapfumo called upon his brethren in Rhodesia with his "Chimurenga" music, meaning music of struggle for human rights, political dignity, and social justice. He played an essential role in the liberation of the nation, which became Zimbabwe. "In my music, I am trying to rebuke people in high positions who abuse their power and are destroying the country and making life more miserable for the millions of Zimbabweans who are suffering as a result of their actions. ...I will keep telling it like it is," he says, still facing bans of his music these days, exiled from the homeland he’s a hero in, which ironically is led by the dictator Mugabe, who Mapfumo once supported in the fight for independence.
I heard of the heroic individuals behind B92, the "guerrilla radio," transmitting out of Belgrade, Serbia, undermining Milosevic’s regime (which included almost total control of all media sources, and which was stolen in election partially through his domination of the broadcast media in 1990). They persevered through being shut down four times, playing an essential role in the ultimate casting-out of Milosevic from office.
I heard of the politically-motivated assassination attempt on Bob Marley, to which he responded with the "One Love" concert a few days later, his arm and stomach wrapped from the gunshot wounds. He stood between the Island’s two opposing politicians in the heat of election battle, holding their hands together over his head as he exhorted the divided Jamaica to overcome hatred with love. "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds...How long shall they kill our prophets, While we stand aside and look?"
And Pete Seeger who has tirelessly offered his musical talents, writing and performing his whole life in support of awareness and social change. "Now, somebody will ask me, ‘Pete, how can you prove these songs really make a difference?’ And I have to confess I can’t prove a darn thing, except that the people in power must think they do something, because they keep the songs off the air. But this has been true throughout history. Some-where in Plato’s Republic, he says it’s very dangerous for the wrong kind of music to be allowed in the republic."
Of the risks Billie Holiday took in the 1930s–1950s singing, "Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees," shocking audiences, stirring all kinds of emotions and controversy. "Strange Fruit" was called "the first significant protest in words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism."
Thirty-five years ago the students of Paris launched what was to turn into one of the greatest national strikes in world history. As they took over the Latin Quarter in protest, they sang the "Internationale": "Arise, you pris’ners of starvation, Arise you wretched of the earth; For justice thunders condemnation, A better world’s in birth. No more tradition’s chains shall bind us, Arise, you slaves, no more in thrall, The earth shall rise on new foundations, We have been naught, we shall be all. ‘Tis the final conflict, let each stand in his place, The Internationale shall be the human race."
Long has the voice of the oppressed cried out, and long has music accompanied this fight for justice—even though the texts and scriptures of time have hardly taken note. Long have the governments taken measures to stomp out that which has subverted their measures of control. Little have the music revolutionaries been recognized for their worth in encouraging and fueling change. To their benefit, it may just be this apathy and disregard for music as "nothing more than entertainment" by many leaders that may allow it in through the back door as the tool our planet needs to strike the gong of the heart. However, communication conglomerates continue to swallow up radio stations and choke the progressive sounds off the public airwaves. Clear Channel Communications banned John Lennon’s "Imagine" and Cat Steven’s "Peace Train" from their 1200 stations’ playlists during the Bush Administration’s preemptive war against Iraq. What will it take for the public to hear today’s global change music, such as Gabriel of Urantia’s "The Freedom Song" (about the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian environmental activist) or "Wake Up America" (a challenge for the citizens of this country to stop being fleeced like sheep by those in power)?
The days are ripe for the agents of planetary change to come forth with their guitars and djembes, their bagpipes and voices. Are you willing to contribute your musical skills and the scores of your forming souls to the grand orchestral movement forming? Are you willing to demand that radio stations and media corporations unchain their doors to visionaries’ music? The time has come to set down the guns and pick up the trumpets to herald in a new music with a new message, music with the power of truth to set a heart free and unite group consciousness in unequivocal demand for an end to the enslavement of the soul and for the cultivation of the spectrums of universal sound. Could it be so beautiful that even our planetary neighbors would play it for their children?
Did you know... Makes you wonder—who does corporate media denounce today who the world will honor tommorrow? |