Does the Music Make Them Do It?: A Problem of Association

Many Christians believe rock music renders the listener helpless to the temptation of evil.

The Subject of rock music is highly controversial in some evangelical Christian circles. Christians whose musical tastes were formed before rock music became popular, or who were raised in environments where it was not heard, often voice their displeasure at the loud, raucous music. Some even feel that rock music is infused with satanic powers. On the other hand, young Christians who listen to rock music protest this position by pointing out that they have maintained their Christian commitment even while listening to this music. To compound the issue, many of the Christian musicals now being sung by teenagers in the church have quasi-rock music backgrounds. While the argument continues, some pastors have taken decisive action.

During the winter of 1977, a syndicated story with an accompanying photo appeared in our local newspaper. The photo showed a pastor and some of the young people from his church standing before a large bonfire. The young people were throwing their rock records into the fire. The reason given for the burning of the records was that young people so often commit the sin of fornication to a background of rock music that these young people wanted to rid themselves of this influence. The rather clear implication of the story was that “the music made them do it.”

Although there are many different sub-styles of music suggested by the term rock music, the picture of guitar-playing young people dressed in gaudy outfits yelling into a microphone with the volume of the music so high that only noise is perceptible, has caused many Christians to believe that all rock music has the power to render the listener helpless to the temptations of evil. Is this true? Can rock music cause the listener to be so mesmerized that he or she cannot resist the sins of the flesh? A look at the findings of three widely separated bodies of knowledge might shed some light on this emotional issue. These involve: (1) the historical roots for the idea that music can affect character; (2) research results from the psychology of music; and (3) sociological studies done on the effects of rock music on the listener.

The idea that music has the power to affect character is not new. Plato, in The Republic, argued that music could (1) strengthen a person, (2) cause him to lose his mental balance, or (3) cause him to lose his normal will power so as to render him helpless and unconscious of his acts. Whether a person was affected positively or negatively, according to Plato, depended upon the type of music used. Certain scales (from which the music was composed) and instruments were thought to have specific ethical powers. The soft-voiced kithara, a stringed instrument, and the austere-sounding Dorian mode (scale) were thought to be ennobling. On the other hand, the raucous-sounding aulos, a reed-wind instrument, and the Phrygian mode were thought to have the power to incite people to violence and immorality.

Plato and the Greek philosophers were well aware of the music of the southern Asiatic peoples with their festivals known as bacchanals. The “belly-dancing” associated with the music appeared to the philosophers to be degrading and orgiastic. The “good” music of the Greek culture was more quiet and austere, and these philosophers felt that their music was heartening and virtuous. The Greek philosophers assumed that because the southern Asiatic people’s behavior at their festivals was associated with certain types of music (and instruments), the music must have made them do it.

The early church fathers were well versed in the philosophy of antiquity. The Greek emphasis on the separation of body and soul seemed harmonious with the Scriptures, and the church fathers adopted the Greek view of the influence of music on behavior. The music of the pagan cultures in which churches were established was sensual and directed toward sensual pleasure. It was this sensual appeal of the music that concerned the early church fathers. To be emotionally moved apart from the thought expressed in the text of the song was an offense against God for St. Augustine. Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:2 underlines the point. The emotional effects of music have always been a subject of controversy. Today, some evangelical churches exploit such effects freely (even using quasi-rock musicals), while other churches feel that to use music common to our pop culture is an offense toward God.

Happily we live in a society that has advanced in the knowledge of how music affects us physically and emotionally. Investigators concerned with the psychology of music have sought to document the physical and emotional effects we all experience in music from time to time. They have found that music does, at times, affect us physically and emotionally. Music can produce marked physical changes in heart and respiratory rate, blood pressure, neural response in the skin, dilation of the eyes, and muscle contraction and relaxation. This list suggests that music’s physical effects can be formidable. Such physical changes, however, can also occur at an exciting basketball game or in an erotic encounter.

I say the word can rather than does, because not everyone responds to the same music in the same way unless the music is associated with ceremonies that everyone understands and has experienced. Important variables determine physical response to a given piece of music: the degree to which music is important in our lives generally; the degree of familiarity with the specific piece of music and/or the musical style being heard; whether or not we like the music being heard; our mood at the time of the hearing; the abruptness of tempo changes in the music being heard (P. R. Farnsworth, The Social Psychology of Music, p. 213). From this, we can see that identical physical responses to a given piece of music are not assured in all people.

Much of the music used as background in stores and restaurants is designed to create in us a specific response. We have all felt the effects of such music on our moods. The success of music in changing our moods, however, tends to be related to certain nonmusical associations we have made with that music. These associations are both general and specific. Television serials and commercials, schools and colleges, even specific behavioral responses, become fixed in our minds with particular themes associated with them. For example, Rossini’s William Tell Overture conjures for many of us the old television character of The Lone Ranger, or the playing of Across the Field rouses in Ohio State University alumni feelings of loyalty or nostalgia. These responses are general because large groups of people have developed similar associations with the music and the nonmusical object.

Highly personal associations can emerge when we hear music which we encounter at a time of emotional stress or exhilaration. Psychologists call such an association “classical conditioning” or “signal learning.” These can be either unconditioned responses to an unconditioned signal (when the association is made without repetition of the event that produced the association), or conditioned responses developed through repeated experiences of the musical signal and the nonmusical event over a period of time.

Let me illustrate the unconditional response to an unconditioned signal. When I was fourteen years old I began playing the trombone. The sound of the trombone had completely taken my attention, and it became the most important thing in my life. I was also beginning to listen to orchestral music, and the sound of the trombones in orchestral recordings would give me an emotional “charge.” As a sophomore in high school (a year later), I experienced my first real “crush” on a girl. Within a few days of this emotional experience, I heard Wagner’s Tannhaüser Overture with its magnificent passage for the trombones. Somehow in all of this, the feelings I experienced for this girl became an unconditioned response to the signal of Wagner’s Tannhaüser Overture. I still get a vivid image of the girl, and experience the feelings I had for her whenever I hear this overture—even though the conditioning was set twenty-five years ago. When I tell this experience to my students and play the music, they look at me as though I had lost my mind. The trombone melody in the overture is a solemn, hymn-like tune that would more likely be associated with a high liturgical service than with feelings of infatuation for a girl. The point here is that this was a very personal experience, and the musical signals in such associations have meaning for no one except the one having been conditioned.

On the other hand, conditioned signal learning occurs through repeated association of the musical signal with the nonmusical event. One such conditioned signal learning experience is that of the “altar call” in our evangelical churches. Hymns such as “Just As I Am” are used only at the conclusion of the service. The conditioned responses to such hymns (signals) may range from one of feelings of release from guilt, to unexplained feelings of guilt among the members of the congregation. These hymns are used at this point in the service because they tend to produce a thoughtful, introspective mood in the congregation. It is thought that such a mood will cause the nonbeliever to examine himself and to respond positively to the “altar call.” While the “altar call” hymn does work on the nonbeliever at times, it also works as a signal to believers, who have not divorced their faith from their feelings, to produce invalid and seductive feelings of guilt. This conditioning is resistant to our efforts to be free of it, and Christians must be conscious of its effects upon them.

Undeniably, we do respond physically and emotionally to music. Specific responses to music, however, are dependent upon individual musical tastes, musical environments, and musical associations that may vary from one person to another. Those investigating physical and emotional response to music have even found it difficult to get consistent responses to the same piece of music even within the same individuals, since one’s moods and how one feels physically vary from time to time. So our emotional and physical response to music can be unpredictable.

Beyond this general interest in the effects of music on our emotions and feelings, there has been concern about rock music as a vehicle for social protest in recent years. The rock festivals of the 1960s, such as at Woodstock, with their revelations of drug use and illicit sex, caught the attention of sociologists, and studies were conducted into the effects of rock music on the listener.

In one study, by J. P. Robinson, R. Pilskalu, and Paul Hirsh, researchers asked their subjects to list their favorite kinds of music by record title and to indicate whether or not they used drugs (and what kind). The records listed were categorized as (1) protest rock; (2) soul, motown, or rhythm and blues; (3) all other pop hits; (4) show tunes; (5) country-western; and (6) all other music. A score of three was given to a respondent listing a protest rock record for all three favorites down to a score of zero for a respondent listing no protest rock records as his favorites. The study showed that those who used drugs tended also to listen to protest rock music. However, a majority of those listing protest rock as their favorites used no drugs at all. The authors summed up their findings by emphasizing that listening to protest rock music in no way constitutes a cause for drug use. The study (“Protest Rock and Drugs,” Journal of Communication, XXVI [August 1976], pp. 125–136) simply affirms that those who use drugs may also listen to protest rock music. The authors did admit, however, that not all third variables had been studied. One of these variables was the relationship of the lyrics of the music to drug use.

Another study by Robinson and Hirsh looked at the degree to which teen-agers from white middle and lower middle class families, and from black families, understood the lyrics of protest and psychedelic rock music. When these researchers asked teen-agers in the various social classes to “translate” the lyrics of the rock songs, two-thirds of the teens clearly didn’t understand the message of the songs, and the third who did were the white middle class teen-agers who listened to this music regularly. When asked whether they were more interested in the sound or in the meaning of the lyrics of the songs, 70 percent of the teens said they liked a record more for its beat than for its message (“It’s the Sound That Does It,” Psychology Today, III [October 1969], pp. 43–45).

The only clearly negative effect that has been found for those listening to rock music has been in inner-ear damage due to excessive volume associated with rock music. Not all people, however, will suffer the same damage when exposed to the same decibels of sound for the same period of time, because of differences in resistance to inner-ear damage.

Now we return to the story in the newspaper referred to at the beginning of this article. Was the burning of the rock records by the pastor and his young people an appropriate action toward reducing temptation to the sin of fornication? The answer would appear to depend upon who committed the sin of fornication. If the young people burning the records were guilty of this sin and the rock records had become a signal for conditioned responses because of the associations of the music with the act of fornication, then the burning of the records was an appropriate move as a means of reducing temptation. Jesus spoke to the problem of temptation when he said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members, than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matt. 5:29). I have talked with persons who were heavy drug users, and after conversion they had to quit listening to rock music, even the rock music in some churches, because of the associations it had for them. We must separate ourselves from musical signals, or any other kind of signal, that tends to produce conditioned responses in us that are not Christian, until we have been freed from the associations these signals bring to mind.

If the pastor, in the newspaper story, was burning the records in hopes of preventing the sin of fornication among his young people, our evidence here would suggest that the move was, at best, ineffective. In this case, the pastor was looking at the wrong cause of the sin. Jesus had something to say about what defiles a man when he encountered criticism about eating the proper food (a parallel to hearing the proper music, in that both involve the senses): “For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile” (Matt. 15:19–20). We decide to do what we are going to do based either on our will to please God or our fleshly desires.

In the case of the studies in protest rock and in the psychology of music, how much one is “into” the music and looking for the message was a crucial factor in the degree to which the music affected him. The music could have its effect only if the person desired to let it affect him. The pastor, in this case, might better have used his time in helping his young people to examine their motives and in encouraging them to bring their motives under the authority of Jesus Christ.

G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.

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