Skyler responds to Christian music blog - By. N.L. Belardes

Skyler, keyboardist extraordinaire of Lostocean read my recent blog on Christian rock music and had something to say about it. Sorry that blog wasn't well written, but it did make a few points... and it stirred Skyler enough to make some friendly comments...

Here's what Skyler had to say:


after reading your post, it really got me going. plus i love talking
about these sort of things, it's quite interesting.

" If you like the music of the world, go listen. If you don't, then
don't."

That is a completley true statement. As far as what I believe, it's
always good to listen to music that is mentally stimulating in
different shapes or forms. I think thats the only limit i really have
for my own tastes. Why would someone want to intentionally listen to
bad music, when there is tons of great music out there?! Well then
there lies the problem: what is classified as "good" music in the
times we live in? Can people still listen to composers from Mozart to
Stravinsky and still be mentally stimulated enough to get something
out of it, rather than just listening to it casually? What about music
being currently released?

I think there are just a few elements that these really great artists
need to strive for. For one, you can't just be like every other band
to provoke any thought in the more-than-casual listener (if that is
your target audience). You have to have that element that makes you
unique. Another is that it is quite important (I know this may come
off as sounding pretentious, but I personally don't care) to have some
sort of musical knowlege about the instrument as well as the music you
are playing. If you just pick up a guitar, learn some chords, and
kinda have an idea of what you are doing, you are most likely not
going to make a big impact on the music scene whatsoever. Then after
that, you have to control a thing called "taste." You may be the
greatest guitarist that ever lived, and can outshred anyone that
stands in you way, but let's hear you write a spectacular pop song!
That's why its really important to know what your striving for
musically, so you don't end up throwing things in the mix that just
aren't going to work.

Most importantly, BE YOURSELF! I can speak for this, because everyone
in Lostocean are christians, and feel the same way about this. In our
case, our lyrics deal with how we view, feel, and interact with life,
and everything that goes along with it. So obviously this is where the
christian-influenced lyrics fall into place. Not all our lyrics are
about God, because we are not a praise band. Thats not the goal of
Lostocean. Now here comes the kicker: does this make us a christian
band? I mean, do bands that have no faith based lyrics in their music
go around telling people they are a secular pop/rock band? Doubtful. I
think that the whole Christian Rock fiasco is really bizarre, and
really takes away from the whole music creation process. It's become
such a cultural taboo to speak about religion in music. I could go on
and on about this, but I realize that this is already a huge comment.

Anyways, to conclude, I think if more musicians followed the things I
talked about, maybe we could have much more inspiring music to listen
to.

I don't know exactly why I decided to tell you all of this. Just
thought I'd say something.


-Skyler

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Monday, May 30, 2005. You can leave your response.