MUSIC, MELODY AND SONGS.

Written by: Ibukun Fadugba

Do you sing?

How many of us like to sing or like listening to songs?

Singing is a form of expression.
It is a beautiful art we engage in.

There is this sensation we feel when we sing. Songs carry an atmosphere of their own and the source of a song determines the atmosphere around the listener or singer of that song. These sensation can be either be divine, worldly or devilish.

Song writers write their songs to express their feelings, however, a listener gets that particular feeling while listening to the writer’s song.

Human feelings and senses are activated when songs are sang because you sing with your mouth and listen with your ears and digest those songs with your mind.

The Bible tells us to use psalms and Hymns to encourage ourselves.

There is so much music going on around, Christmas songs are blaring in every nook and cranny of the world. There is so much joy, beauty and serenity these songs gives to us.

What is music?

It’s a vocal or instrumental sound combined in such a way to produce beauty to form harmony and expression of emotions.

There are different types of music largely categorised as music Genre.

The following are the various types of music:
Electronic dance music,
Rock music,
Jazz music,
Country music,
Pop music,
Indie Rock,
Electro,
Techno,
Rhythm & Blues and Dubstep.

Here is a brief introduction to some of these;

1. Electronics dance music:
   This is a form of music produced by Disc Jockeys (DJ) who add dozens of tones to a piece to create a unique music.
2. Rock music:
   It is also known as Rock n Roll, it’s a form of music that started around string instruments but now uses other modern instrument. It’s being around since 1950s.
3. Jazz music:
   This type of music has its roots both in West African and European culture. It is said that jazz is “one of America’s original art forma” and boasts a unique combination of creativity, co- actions and interactions.
   It originated in the late 19th to early 20th century.
4. Country music:
   It originated in the 1920s, it is formed using simple forms of instruments ranging from electric and steel guitars to drums and mandolin or mouth organs.

A singers or artists can sing from any of these song category depending on their passion and abilities. This can be liken to how students go to school and major in a particular subject of interest, this is exactly how artists focus and channel their energy on the type of music they like or have preference for. This could be pop music or country music or better still a mixture of the categories.

As different people have separate preferences, taste and style. So it is with the kind of songs they pick to listen to.

Mood contributes a lot to our song preference

An individuals mood is a great determinant of what kind of song he would like to listen to per time.
When we feel happy, we listen to happy songs, when we feel energetic and vibrant we also listen to songs that are energetic. However, when we need encouragement we will want to get out of that feeling so we tend to listen to happy songs or songs that reassures and makes us happy.

Songs are very useful in any environment and one thing that binds people of all races and tribe is a song. It matters not where a song originates from (Europe, Africa or wherever) once it appeal to people, it is accepted and sang by all.

My big question to you today is what kind of songs are you listening to?

Songs can further be categorized as either
Secular,
Cultural or
Spiritual (Christian).

Secular songs are songs that glorifies self, makes the flesh feel good and appeals to sensual appetite alone. These kind of songs are sang by artist that love the world and it activities.

Cultural songs are songs that have traditional root. This songs are associated with tribes, ethnicity, cultures and even families.

Spiritual songs are songs that have spiritual foundation. They help to build up our spirit man. The recreated human spirit is the source of all spiritual songs by the assistance of God’s spirit in the person been used.

In Nigeria, we have different artists that sings all kind of songs from pop to jazz to juju to apala to fuji e.t.c. Nigerians are even the pioneer of some song genre.

Songs are good to listen too, but they need to edify

To edify is to build up, can these songs we listen to actually build us up intellectually, physically, spiritually, relationally and even socially?

Few songs are evergreen and have stood the test of time. Those songs don’t have an element of trash and gibberish in them. They are evergreen and transcend time and have been around from one age to the other.

Can we say for a fact that the songs we are listening to today will endure to the future like the next 20years?

If we do a census, we will observe that some songs sang last year are no where to be found today, they have not stood the test of time. They have faded with time.

We should reflect on this as song writers and singers.

We can actually attest to the fact that there are songs that cut across, that still have great importance and relevance till date even though they were sung generations back.

Most songs of these days are not encouraging, neither are they edifying nor profitable, it only sow seed of corruption and fruits of corruption are reaped at the end of the day.

Some people will say Christian songs are not full of the kind of vibes they are looking for, some even say christian songs are slow, sloppy and not high enough, they further say christian songs are not energising enough so it can’t be danced to. That’s why some christians say they prefer secular and worldly songs.

All kind of things are being said about christian songs.

This generation is highly blessed with the internet, if you do your research properly, you will find Christian songs that are edifying, glorifying and also bless the listeners.

Every human being is a collectors, we are daily gathering and storing informations directly and indirectly, consciously or unconsciously.

And it matters much what we store up in our subconscious mind.

My question to you is what Songs are in your songs collection?

Is it not a mixture of different song genre, like a dash of traditional songs plus a pinch of secular songs and packet of spiritual songs?

Just think about it,

Let’s dialogue

How is your musical collection if I may ask?

Would Christ be really impressed if He decides to pay your musical collection a visit?

Would you be disappointed or ashamed of yourself?

Am sure in our minds we are asking how can we restrict ourselves only to Christian songs? When there are a million and one secular Songs around.

Is it really possible to only listen to Christian songs with the bombardment from everywhere?

How can this be done?

For example, we go to parties and owambes and all sort of songs are played so loudly without remorse, eateries are not left behind, the Barber next door uses his loud music to call in customers that he is opened for business, people hawking wares also carry around their speakers and loud uncontrolled music are played in our environment every now and then which cause noise pollution.

So, how is it possible then to train our minds and ears to adopt spiritual songs alone with all this?

Well the Bible gives us the answer to this, we are told to renew our minds always and guard it diligently because out of it flows issues of life.

The human mind is a processor.

Our mind is a processor, it processes all the good, bad and ugly things we feed it with whether by what we see or what we listen to.

What is processed by the mind like the polaroid photographs of old is transfered to the brain to further process and then it is relayed back to be acted upon

That is why some songs can instill fear, anger, and different awful feelings and even bad vices in the mind of the listeners.

I will paint a picture here, for instance if a particular song focuses on a vices like drinking and smoking and a particular person listens to that kind of song for a given period of time, there is a 99% chance that the person’s personality and disposition to life might be changed and negatively altered in that direction due to the junk he has fed himself with through music overtime.

In movies, sound are used to create an atmosphere of tension, fear or even happiness because the mind is been worked upon to be accustomed to the kind of feeling that the producer has portrayed in the movie. That’s how some sounds from songs in movies have had effects on people in real life

Am sure a lot of us can relate to the fact that what we hear and listen to matters a lot.

The human mind is a Powerful Equipment.

The mind is a powerful human Equipment created by God and it responds to how we engage it. An individual can consciously help to train his/her mind to grow positively by the type of informations it is exposed too constantly.

There is a saying that,

A bird takes flight with what is in it’s mouth

In essence, you can’t feed yourself with carnality and reap spirituality nor feed yourself with bad things and ripe good things.

It’s impossible,

Life is GIGO…..

GIGO

Garbage In Garbage Out

So here is a call to work on our minds consciously and continually,

Para adventure you resolve to stop listening to songs that don’t build up then you need to know the following;

• You cannot help yourself, because by strength shall no one prevail.
• You need to ask for the help of the Holy Sprit, It is only Him that will nudge you when you begin to shake and tap you feet to secular songs you are used too, He will tap your conscience and help you make amends
• You must ensure your mind is already made up to stop listening to such songs, if you are unwilling there is nothing the Holy Spirit can do to help.
• You need to consciously build a collection of edifying songs, listen to then always, play them even when you are sleeping. This helps your spirit man to soaks in christian songs.
• Consciously learn lyrics of christian songs. What you take out time to learn becomes part of you.

There is no vacuum in life, if you stop listening to secular songs and don’t learn or listen to spiritual songs chances are you will return back to the vomit of the old songs you are used to, so the mind has to be engaged intentionally and positively.

Engage the mind intentionally and positively.

Songs are also very important because there is a connection between what we listen to, what we see and what we say out with our mouth.

There is work of art I saw growing up. It’s about three monkeys one touching its mouth, another it’s eyes and the last one ears.

The interpretation of their gesture means “see no evil”, “say no evil” and “hear no evil”.

The Bible says life and death are in the power of the mouth and it is only a matter of time because what we hear or see or say becomes our reality eventually in life.

A man is really what he says out of his mouth, for by their fruit we shall know them and an apple does not fall far from its tree.

God enjoys songs, He like us to sing to him, to praise him, to extol, to worship and to acknowledge his supremacy.

The bible tells us to sing songs and make melody in our heart unto the Lord.

Good Melody and Music have a lot of advantages. Listed below are some advantages of Singing

• it heals the heart
• it heals the body
• it Inspires
• it bring self realisation
• It’s changes our countenance.. You can’t sing a good song and be dull
• It conditions the atmosphere around our life’s. God is present around us because he inhabits the praises of His people. David is an examples of a singer per excellence, he turned everything around him to a song to worship God.

David encouraged himself always in the Lord through Psalms.

What is the meaning of psalms?
A psalm is a sacred song or hymn written and sang to worship God.
God enjoys songs so much an entire chapter in the Bible is dedicated to Psalms.

Where are hymns today?

Hymns are absent in Churches today because people feel they are outdated.

Hymns are beautiful and rich. Churches and even individuals need to incorporate hymns back into their worship life again.

Hymns have meanings and they help to bring God’s presence down and make our thanksgiving and worship to God very robust.

Hymns are powerful, they create a line of communication between man and God.

The world is modern and a lot of people have forgotten about hymns and spiritual songs since some people believe that this is a new age and those kind of songs are now “old School”

It is worthy to note that 100years ago, the people then referred to themselves as “modern” and bubbling and it is an obvious fact that the next generation in another 100years will still refer to their own time as modern too because this present modern time will be “un-modern” to them

That is the more reason hymns, spiritual songs and edifying songs should be sang repeatedly and transfered from one generation to the next so there be no lack of edifying songs in the Body of Christ.

There is a need to conciously choose the genre of songs we listen to because the younger folks around us will naturally internalize those songs either those songs are good or bad and they will repeat them and then carry them along and transfer those songs to the next generation.

In conclusion, Songs are good, sweet and melodious to listen to and edifying and spiritual songs are the very best because they build us up in every aspect of life. We must make it a habit to listen and sing out edifying songs at all times.

This is also the time to encourage ourselves with spiritual songs and also encourage our friends, family and loved ones to do likewise.

Now is the time to stop listening to junks music and start listening to soul lifting edifying songs carrying God’s presence.

KEYS

• Songs can either be secular, cultural or spiritual
• Songs creates an atmosphere around the listener
• Songs affects the human mind
• Songs affect peoples behavior

Action Point

Watch your choice of songs because in the end, your mind is a product of the things you have seen, heard and listened to and It’s only a matter of time the fruits will be obvious to see.

It's time to go for Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual songs.

Thank you for reading.

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