Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Those who were musicians, heads of Levite families, stayed in the rooms of the temple and were exempt from other duties because they were responsible for the work day and night.

• 1 Chronicles 9:33

David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their fellow Levites as musicians to make a joyful sound with musical instruments: lyres, harps and cymbals.
So the Levites appointed Heman son of Joel; from his relatives, Asaph son of Berekiah; and from their relatives the Merarites, Ethan son of Kushaiah; and with them their relatives next in rank: Zechariah, Jaaziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed-Edom and Jeiel, the gatekeepers.
The musicians Heman, Asaph and Ethan were to sound the bronze cymbals; Zechariah, Jaaziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Maaseiah and Benaiah were to play the lyres according to alamoth, and Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed-Edom, Jeiel and Azaziah were to play the harps, directing according to sheminith. Kenaniah the head Levite was in charge of the singing; that was his responsibility because he was skillful at it.

• 1 Chronicles 15:16-22

David said, “Of these, twenty-four thousand are to be in charge of the work of the temple of the Lord and six thousand are to be officials and judges. Four thousand are to be gatekeepers and four thousand are to praise the Lord with the musical instruments I have provided for that purpose.”

• 1 Chronicles 23:4-5

David, together with the commanders of the army, set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals. Here is the list of the men who performed this service:
From the sons of Asaph:
Zakkur, Joseph, Nethaniah and Asarelah. The sons of Asaph were under the supervision of Asaph, who prophesied under the king’s supervision.
As for Jeduthun, from his sons:
Gedaliah, Zeri, Jeshaiah, Shimei, Hashabiah and Mattithiah, six in all, under the supervision of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied, using the harp in thanking and praising the Lord.
As for Heman, from his sons:
Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shubael and Jerimoth; Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti and Romamti-Ezer; Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir and Mahazioth. (All these were sons of Heman the king’s seer. They were given him through the promises of God to exalt him. God gave Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.)
All these men were under the supervision of their father for the music of the temple of the Lord, with cymbals, lyres and harps, for the ministry at the house of God.
Asaph, Jeduthun and Heman were under the supervision of the king.

• 1 Chronicles 25:1-6

In the Lord I take refuge.
    How then can you say to me:
    “Flee like a bird to your mountain.
For look, the wicked bend their bows;
    they set their arrows against the strings
to shoot from the shadows
    at the upright in heart.
When the foundations are being destroyed,
    what can the righteous do?”

• Psalm 11:1-3

Clap your hands, all you nations;
    shout to God with cries of joy.
For the Lord Most High is awesome,
    the great King over all the earth.
He subdued nations under us,
    peoples under our feet.
He chose our inheritance for us,
    the pride of Jacob, whom he loved.

• Psalm 47:1-4

“Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak”

• William Congreave, The Mourning Bride

I worked for twenty years, roughly, at an engineering company.  We had piped in music, elevator music, throughout the building except in the elevator.  Although we did not have cable television in the building, cable was provided and the company paid for the basic channels, which came with about fifty music channels.

At first, the purchasing manager had control over what channel we would listen to.  He agreed with me, and a few others.  If the music had singers singing lyrics, those that listened to the music would sing along rather than do any work.  Since the music was piped into every speaker in the building, hearing the music was unavoidable.  It was amazing how few of those 50 channels were instrumental channels only.

We quickly learned who the listeners of the music were.  The draftsmen, or designers as they preferred, made their demands.  Country western was well liked by many of these people, but others could not stand the nasal tones of the singers, and the purchasing manager did not want singing anyway.  The 3-4 jazz channels were eliminated since many of these designers thought saxophone music to be offensive to their ears.  The alternative music channel sounded like we should be looking for UFO sightings at any minute.  No one wanted to admit that they were old enough to enjoy my favorite, Swing and Big Band music.  No one liked Rhythm and Blues, regardless of the subgenre.

So, the purchasing manager found a channel of show tunes, all instrumental.  Everybody hated it.  The only other option was an instrumental version of popular songs from 40-50 years ago.  Finally, success.

The next problem was that the music channel had exactly 24 hours of music on their loop for that channel, and many of the other ones.  That means that if Baby Elephant Walk came on at 10:38am on Monday.  You could set your watch to it.  At 10:38am on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday that same song would be on followed by the next song in queue, every day always at the same time.

Just in case you are reading this at 10:38am …

People would start singing the next song in queue before it started playing.  People were complaining that they had gone to a therapist and the verdict was that the music was driving two-thirds of the company staff crazy.

Then they started changing channels daily, mostly playing songs with lyrics.

That drove the creative people crazy.  I could not write textbooks while my brain was singing a song, a song I did not like.

Well, in time, the purchasing manager passed away.  The proposals manager decided to “fix” the problem.  While he worked on it, we had no music at all.  The creative people, like me, were more productive than they had ever been before.  But the people who claimed to be “designers”, which meant they made engineering drawings that all the information was dictated to them by engineers, and they decided which valve to buy, as an example, but even that was based on a standard.  You would think designers were creative, but everything was a copy of what they had done before.  They felt no music made the building a morgue.

The new music man then installed his personal playlist.  It had twenty or thirty different genres of music.  At Christmas, he had a Christmas playlist.  But he made sure of his timing.  I gave him five big band classics, and he made sure that there was at least nine hours between each.  There may be 8-9 Country/Western songs in an eight-hour day, but he had roughly 64 hours of music that never repeated a genre, two songs in a row.  Three days is 72 hours.  Thus, Monday morning’s last song would be playing when you came in early on Thursday morning.  The music all day Thursday during office hours had been playing Monday night, but few were around to hear it.

Finally, everyone was disappointed but everyone accepted the music. 

But then there was an economic downturn.  Those that were not working very hard were laid off.  Then more were laid off.  Then the essential core was left, me being one of them, and the music was turned off.  The bosses knew we were not very busy, and they refused to pay us to listen to music.

Eventually, under new management, I was let go.  Most of the time, I have no music on, unless I am looking for music for the reward of taking the quiz.  But lately, I turned to those same music channels from long ago.  I love saxophone music, thus, jazz became my channels.  It inspired me to make Sophia Yeggs’ boyfriend Emmett Dalton a jazz saxophonist.  And I have not set my watch to it, but I sometimes here the same songs roughly at the same time every day, but I like the music.  And most of the jazz music has no one singing, thus no intrusion of words I do not wish to think about.

So, David, before he died, set up the music that would go into the temple dedication.  That music had purpose and is useful in glorifying God even today.

But sometimes silence is wonderful also.

So, does music contain the charms that sooth the savage breast?  It depends on what savage breast we are talking about.

But I believe the right music at the right time can sooth many savages.  After all, we are sinners.  We all have a bit of savage in each of us.  And those that are saved will be making a lot of joyful noise in the next life, and no one will be sneaking off to the elevator to avoid it.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.