] So what if Nigel Clarke likes classical music?
IPUT it down to my backwardness re exploring the breadth of social media that I have no clue what Peter Bunting’s Probe series is about, but, as a trained musician, I am befuddled at the implied criticism of someone’s liking or preference for a genre of music, be it classical or pop.
It is almost as weird as the real-life incident of two brothers having a heated argument and the one who ran out of a sensible retort, saying, “Gweh, yu eat breadfruit!” So what?
At my occasional music seminars, I have had to chide Christians who proudly say that certain rhythms used by modern Christian artistes are “from the pit of hell”. To which I say mischievously: “So you are familiar with what hell likes or prefers musically? Very interesting!”
What I don’t like musically is not to be equated with what God can’t use and thus what I despise as not having any redemptive potentialities. I don’t care much for classical organ music, but I’ll use Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor to illustrate a point in a forthcoming public lecture.
None of us knows what God or the Devil likes or prefers musically — at least I don’t know. Those who think they qualify for the Godhead may know!
So, I am not bright enough to have caught the profound point of the implied criticism of liking or preferring classical music.
CLINTON CHISHOLM (Rev)
Academic Dean
Caribbean Graduate School of Theology