When I lived in Austin, I contacted a church in the north suburbs about being a worship leader.  It was a small, storefront church, and we talked on the phone and decided it would be worthwhile to meet.  The pastor and his wife were friendly, and seemed to be true, honest people.  We liked each other, and decided to schedule a meeting with the band.

I would have been the "worship leader," which, to my way of thinking, means "bandleader," the guy who leads (yes, leads) a band that, in this case, would play no secular material of any kind.  Unless everybody in the band is all on the same page, musically and as friends, my experience has taught me that having one person with a vision who directs the band is the way to go.  Unless everybody in the band is literally inseparable from each other in their "normal lives" offstage, there needs to be someone with full veto power.  If there is any sense that the voice of somebody with no musical talent has as much say over the direction of the sound as the person who has been hired to lead the band, there is no reason to even begin.  If any hack can "donate" his time to the band, whether he can play or not, and since he's "worshipping" God by undermining the work of the people God has gifted and appointed to the service, you might as well give him the mic, a can of gasoline, and a match.  Tell him the band is his, and walk away, never to return.  There is nothing to be done in that situation.  It is hopeless.  The band is going to be terrible, and the sonic standards of the world will be lowered even further than they already are.

As hard as that is to imagine.  But if you think about it, we didn't get to this sonically- stale and deadly place overnight, and we didn't get here because we gave the reigns of our music culture to people with God-given musical talent.  We got here because we gave the sonic reigns of our culture to people who think they're engaging in a default act of worship, instead of art.

Inherently, they are all idolaters, engaging in worship.  It has nothing to do with music.  It never has, and it never will.

That guy won a Grammy, y'know.  And y'know why he won it, don'tcha?  Yep that's right.  The devil loves to turn everything into an act of idolatrous worship, so nothing beautiful, fun, or even remotely well-done can be allowed to exist.

So I met the band at the storefront church in N. Austin, and we tried a few standards.  A hymn or two from 100 years ago, songs from that general time frame.  It might have been on "Old Rugged Cross," or perhaps "Just a Closer Walk Contigo," but, like pouring ketchup in your soda because it tastes so good on your French Fries, and then forcing your girlfriend to put ketchup on her sundae because it's not only a great condiment, it's the only condiment that has ever existed and everyone should always eat it with everything, I noticed the guitar player was playing a Major 7th on every chord.  Every chord he played, in every song, was a Major 7th chord.  No variation of any kind.

It was like going to IHOP and noticing that all the syrup containers said "Ketchup."  "Where's the syrup," you might ask, and the waitress, who is an idolater of condiments, will tell you that you have your choice of ketchup and ketchup, because without ketchup there can be no righteousness, and nobody should ever eat anything without it.  "Why is there ketchup on my Key Lime Pie," you ask, when the real question is, "why isn't there any ketchup on my Key Lime Pie?"  Ketchup 7th Chords are the condiment of righteousness, and to eat a food or play a song without them is to commit a damnable act of lawlessness.  Popcorn, chocolate cake, gospel music, breakfast cereal, all these foods and more will send you straight to hell, unless you drown them in Ketchup 7th Chords.

That is what the guitar player said to me, when I told him to stop playing Major 7th chords on every chord.  Because he was an idolater of artlessness, and a control freak, he took umbrage with me when I told him to play straight chords.  It wasn't an artistic decision he was making, y'understand.  Like Sam Smith's performance at the Grammys, the guitar player's decision was one of idolatry, not art.

He told me he had to play Major 7th chords, because they were "church chords."  That's what he called them.  "Church chords."  Not Major 7th chords, which are of course beautiful chords..... used in moderation.

"Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand."
Philippians 4:5

Nope.  He couldn't give them their actual name, nevermind use them in a way that might actually glorify God (by being, y'know, beautiful and well-placed), nope.  God created ketchup, therefore we must use it on everything.  Church chords or bust.  Every chord a church chord.  Every song an unlistenable trainwreck of saccharine artlessness, comprised entirely of ONE THING.  Every dish requires ketchup; every chord requires a Major 7th; every tool is a hammer.  When the electrician gets here, give him a hammer.  How better to install the plumbing, than only with hammers.  Why is that guy using a paintbrush?  He's a painter?  Nonsense.  Give him a hammer.

Church chords.  Ridiculous.

It was clear that the pastor and his wife weren't willing to really give me control of the band and let me purge it of idolatrous faux-worship, so the worship leader job didn't work out.  It was a mild disappointment, but no big deal.  I don't blame them for not wanting to tell the guitar player to get out of the band.  I understand that that might have been a level of discomfort they were unwilling to accept.  They could have just told him to listen to me, but that's okay.  He was obviously not the type who was capable of listening to anything.  Probably, he couldn't even hear what he was doing.  Nobody who plays Major 7th chords on every chord is going to actually continue to do it, if they can actually hear what they're doing.

Apparently, it was asking a lot.  So, it wasn't meant to be.

No big deal.

So what's the point?  Surely I have something new to add to this tiresome, dead-end conversation?  Even if I am depressed from listening to Christian jocks talk about how demons will get in your hands if you play Rock & Roll, since apparently demons only inhabit musical instruments, and there are no demons in any footballs or basketballs, because those items are spiritually neutral.  Perhaps it's because those items don't require any study, and the talent required to manipulate them effectively is of the "motor memory" variety.  Perhaps it's the inherent intellectual vacuity of sports, that makes them spiritually neutral.  I'd ask, but I don't think I'd get a thoughtful answer.  It's okay.  I don't mind if you idolize my trade by telling me it's an inherent act of worship, and is inherently either righteous or unholy, and that to engage in it as a skilled craftsman is impossible, while sending your kids to secular schools to play on secular football teams, as secular sportsmen, even if they're Christians.

No, I'm not going to make that point again.  Those people are so ubiquitous, so hardened and deaf, and so apparently incapable of repentance, that they have driven me out of my homeland.  The people who put what I do on a pedestal while acting like what they do is just part of normal life have had the same effect on Western Civilization as the BLM and Antifa people.  Both sides think the other side is unviable.

To my disconsolate dismay, I believe both of them are right.

Every tool is a hammer.  I like ketchup on my cake.  Every hamburger requires a layer of frosting.  There is no use for variation.  Every chord should be a church chord.  If I play a "devil chord," I may just get sick and go to hell.

The video above comes from the exact opposite place as the Christian "church chord" phenomenon, while somehow being exactly the same.  In like manner as the Ketchup 7th Chord people feign holiness and righteousness to conceal their unthinking idolatry, the "devil's frequency" people pretend to have a scientific basis for their self-righteous opinions.  The religion is one of "vibes" and "frequencies" instead of righteousness (or self-righteousness) and redemption, but the end result is the same:

Art is anathema.  It never occurs to us that musical intervals, like basketballs, can be manipulated by the skillful hands of people with God-given abilities.  Nope.  Unlike basketball, house building, car repair, or animal husbandry, sound manipulation is an inherent act of worship.  If a musician ever plays anything other than "Old Rugged Cross," demons will enter his hands.  If any chord at any time does not contain a Major 7th in it, the soul of the player will be forever damned.  If you don't put ketchup on your milkshake, you are condemned to hell already.  If you ever play a flatted 5th, surely you will die.

That's what the video posted above says.  "721" and "528" refer to frequencies or hat size or amplitudes or idolatries, or something, but whatever they are, 721 and 528 refer to the flatted 5th, also called the Tritone.  A useful, dissonant, and "scary" musical interval.  From the video above:

"When you play 721 with 528, it creates such an annoying
and dissonant energy, dis-easing, stressful, that if
you continue to listen to it, you could die."
Video Advice Channel

Apparently, the Tritone is the hemlock of musical intervals.  If you put a flatted 5th in your drink, it could kill you.

Better put some angelic healing ketchup on it.

From the description of the video above:

"A deep healing sleep music based on 528Hz + 741Hz to boost immune system and for that deeply calming, relaxing sleep."

But, I thought 528 + 741 would kill you?

Perhaps they mean "sleep" in the Biblical sense.  Is this deep, healing death music, that will boost your immune system for a deeply calming, relaxing death?

Or is it just bad art?

Or maybe it's good art, I don't know.  I stay away from art forms that presume to kill and/or heal me.  Music created by fake Christians is high on that list.  Amy Grant is pushing for gun control in the aftermath of the Nashville shooting, after all.  Because her sound is drowned in ketchup, I've never even been able to get through the intro of any of her songs.  And now, perhaps, I know why.

Is Amy Grant a truly Christian artist (either would suffice), or an early pioneer in the idolatrous religious act of smothering true art in unholy, self-righteous ketchup chords, holding condiments of saccharine disingenuity over the nose of the real music languishing in the convalescent home of the culture she helped to destroy, until it suffocates and dies?

God knows the heart, but by their fruits you will know them.

"I am not a Christian artist,
I am an artist who is a Christian."
Johnny Cash

So, wherefore the tendency of people to turn music into medicine, faith into religion, poppies into dope?  

Can't we just dig the creation in the pure form God has blessed us with?  Or must we cut it with pride, sacrilege, and powdered bleach, to get more bang for our buck, more healing for our feeling, more forgiveness for our sin?

This is another video full of poisonous, beastly, disgusting music by which we may detoxify our bodies, while perhaps losing our souls.  I didn't say it.  The congregants themselves have decided on a rebellious course of mutiny.  From the comment section:

So, which is it?

Will the music actually kill you?  Is the Tritone, the so-called "devil's interval," the true hemlock of musical intervals?  If we play the devil's interval with a Major 7th Ketchup Chord, will that cancel out the damage?  Or merely sound insane and terrible (or possibly amazing)?  Will a black hole be created?  Will the world implode from the force of the collision of the molecules of sound bouncing all around each other in the amoral, empty abyss of endless healing bliss?  Or is that just a really nice way of saying we're all going to die and burn in hell, unless we drown our souls in ketchup?

How can we atone for this apparently-reflexive need to idolize everything?  Shall we make a religion of certain frequencies, and exile other sounds into the outer darkness?  Must every chord be a Ketchup 7th Chord, if we are to truly be forgiven?

I'm inclined to doubt it.  And anyway, nevermind the sonic alchemist quacks, who claim to be able to turn art into medicine.  If I want to "detoxify my body," or boost my immunity (to stupidity perhaps), I'll listen to John Coltrane.

Yadig?

Not too many ketchups on those fries.  The perfect amount.

A beautiful sound, seasoned by a master.

But when did A Love Supreme become A Burrito Supreme, ordered from the drive-thru by people who have Doritos for blood, and who smother everything in ketchup?

Can there be forgiveness without mercy?  Mercy without love?  Love without mercy?  Is love our default setting?  Is it something we can dial up, like a radio station that plays nothing but happy, healing vibes?

Or are we totally deceived, and incapable of doing the one thing we need to do to "transcend" the issue once and for all, which is to cop to the fact that we are in fact sinful, and naturally deceived?

"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
Jeremiah 17:9

Shall we labor to show ourselves approved, by abstaining from certain notes?  Can we be saved or healed by certain frequencies?  Can our sins be atoned for by 528?  Do we even have sins that need to be atoned for?  How did we get from condiments to condemnation, anyway?

Does the Holy Spirit = MC squared?

Can we truly achieve righteousness without ketchup?  Or will it be our denial of our need for ketchup, that finally destroys us, and carries us away?

Or,

Is there an alternative?

Is it possible that music is just music, and that intervals are simply intervals, and that the need to project a religious nature on them (about which not even the "spiritual" secularists can agree) is in fact a huge red flag masquerading as a tiny hint, knocking like the Saviour, at the door of our soul?

A door we have boarded up with stubborn, dogmatically-inflexible plywood?

Another contemplative quandary, albeit one that makes me hungry.