Catholic Music (Part 1)
The first part of a look into Catholicism and the modern music industry.
Why Catholics are so Bad at Marketing
The Catholic Church and the Catholic laity are good at a lot of things - marketing Catholicism is not one of them. There are very good reasons for this. Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s an altogether bad thing.
First of all, Catholicism is not a commodity - it is an all-encompassing faith and world view [...]
Distortion Simulates Screaming
Anyone who is familiar with a guitar amplifier knows that there are two different knobs – one usually called the “pre-amp” or “gain” and the other called “post-amp” or simply, “volume.” The pre-amp is the knob that creates the distortion or the fuzziness of the guitar sound, and the post-amp creates the actual loudness [...]
The Importance of Tradition
If you want to get more satisfaction out of playing (and listening to) music, it is helpful to study music theory and music history. To know why Beethoven wrote the way he did, you should know what came before him – in the music of Mozart and Hayden. If you want to know why Miles [...]
Time for Artistic Renewal
The time for for renewing our culture into one of light and life via new intellectual and artistic paradigms has never been so ripe as it is today. Communication on a worldwide level is so simple now. The Internet, for one, is a tool that can possibly assist in bringing us closer. In every region, city, [...]
Christian Songs
You do not have to have the word “Jesus” in a song for it to be a Christian song. There are a lot of ways you can promote the Gospel by telling a story that parallels a Biblical theme, the life of a Saint, or merely has a Christian moral theme. You can find your [...]
G.K. Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton was an English convert to Catholicism in the early 1900’s. His writing is delightful and extremely orthodox. He covers many genres including fiction, philosophy, history, and social commentary. One of his better known works is a series of mystery stories about a priest named Father Brown.
Chesterton’s essays and stories will educate your Christian [...]
Words Have Power
Choose your words very carefully - once they leave your mouth or your pen they have inherent power.
Being vs. Making
Being a good person and making good art are two different goals. You can be a good person who makes lousy art, or you can be a sinful person who makes aesthetically pleasing art. These two goals are governed by two different virtues: The Virtue of Prudence and the Virtue of Art.
A person who posesses [...]
The Saint Musicians
To call someone a “Saint” means to say that that person lives (or lived) a life of Heroic Virtue. Virtue means an accumulation of good habits. Good habits are an accumulation of good actions. Good actions have to be practiced, just in the same way that your musical instrument has to be practiced. Repetition of good and [...]