Music

A True Story from My College Days

A couple days ago, Robert Collins posted about music frequencies — 432Hz vs 440Hz.
I won’t go into that here… but it reminded me of a story.

Back in 1984, I was attending Northland Baptist Bible College. And yes, just from the name, you can probably guess what kind of school it was.

I had to take a required music class. I wasn’t musical and didn’t have much interest in music, but the class was required.

At the time, bands like Michael Jackson, Metallica, The Police, Van Halen, and AC/DC were dominating the airwaves. Heavy metal was really starting to take hold.

Of course, my school condemned all “worldly” music — and they had a stack of evidence to back up their claims.

One day, a guest lecturer came to class to reinforce the point. He shared the results of an experiment:
Plants were placed in separate soundproof rooms. Some were exposed to classical music, others to heavy metal.
The plants that heard classical music grew strong and thrived.
The ones exposed to heavy metal shriveled up and died.

This, of course, was presented as proof that heavy metal music is ungodly and killing people.

I raised my hand.
“Sir, I’m a farm kid. One thing I’ve learned is that if you plant something in clean washed sand and another in cow sh*t, the one in sand will die, and the one in cow sh*t will thrive.
So if we’re comparing outcomes… it would seem classical music is the cow sh*t.”

Let’s just say… I was swiftly removed from class.
Shortly after, the school and I came to a mutual agreement that I was not a good fit for their campus.
(There may have been some girls involved in that decision too…)

The real point — aside from the humor — is that people will always find “evidence” to support their viewpoints.
Sometimes that evidence doesn’t hold up when you take a step back and think practically.

Mr. Collins has an opinion about musical frequency standards.
Maybe there’s something to the 432Hz idea, or maybe it’s subjective.

Yes, some 18th-century classical music used 432Hz, but with the rise of electronic instruments and other factors, 440Hz became the standard.
Some theorize that 432Hz has better effects on the human body, but so far there’s no solid scientific evidence to support that claim.

Still… in some circles, you don’t need scientific proof to hold a firm opinion.
We all do this to some degree. But Christians? We’re notorious for it.
That’s why we’ve got so many denominations and divisions — everyone’s got their “proof.”

Well, happy posting. I still enjoy reading the posts and the responses.