God's Pedal Tone Endures: Listening Deeper on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

By Julian Reid 

A unique feature of music is the way one sustained sound can sit underneath other harmonies layered on top of it. This concept is prevalent across genres: American jazz standards, Celtic bagpipe music, Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. In musical terms, this steady sound that sits underneath others is called a “pedal tone” (or “pedal point,” but we’ll stick to pedal tone in this article.) It might be such a common musical device because it has such symbolic value for the world that we live in. This way of sounds interacting illustrates how humans interact with each other, the rest of God’s creation, and God too. The pedal tone is an apt metaphor to describe what is going on today – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – in a country contending with its foundational racism. The pedal tone can remind us of God’s intentions for this gift of a world we inhabit.

Amazing Grace, Player Unknown

Notice how the pedal tone is sustained here (by contrast with the repeated pedal tone in Miles Davis’ piece below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpZiPZwwXhM

The chaos of the last few weeks in the US has corroborated King’s prophetic diagnosis of this country’s sickness: the sound of racism in our country is a deep, sustained tone. COVID continues its rampage, soaring to new lethal heights in areas like LA and disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities. A largely White mob stormed the US Capitol on January 6, attacking with impunity the sacred halls of power central to the American way of life. And now, on the verge of the inauguration, the country sits with bated breath, wondering if there will be more White violence in support of the twice-impeached current president. To say the least, this is a time of dissonant harmony.

The pedal tone is a helpful metaphor for explaining our situation. COVID and the insurrection have exposed the pedal tone of racism that has been the sustained sound in the life-song of this country. Though the US has taken steps to address the problem, we have never stopped the sound altogether. Instead, we have sought to obscure its presence by placing various harmonies on top of it (Emancipation of some of the slaves, the Civil Rights Movement). But COVID’s effect on Black and Brown people and the relative ease with which the White Trump supporters broke into the Capitol demonstrates that the pedal tone remains underneath the rest of the US’ music. The mob’s brazenness that caused the death of the Capitol Police officer and the trashing of Congress harmonized with the President’s hatred, fear and insecurity that stemmed from his loss of the fair presidential election.

We can extend the music metaphor even further. January 6 was an antiphony on top of this pedal tone. In Western Classical music, an antiphony is when two groups of singers sing a short phrase back and forth to one another (commonly found in Catholic and Anglican musical worship settings). In the context of the US, the short phrase that was being recited by both the President and his supporters was that the US needed to become their country again. Because the US needed had been lost by the other side, they were going to wrest it back from the hands of their enemies however possible, even if needing to delegitimize the election and commit insurrection.

Core to Black musics is the concept of call-and-response music, which in Western Classical terms is a version of antiphony. Here’s an educational video by Jazz at Lincoln Center demonstrating it. Antiphonal singing is huge in American music in part because of the centrality of Black musics to the US soundscape. May we walk by faith, not by fear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMgNTwZW5gY

For fullest explanation, I want to interweave the musical with the theological. In theological terms, Satan and sin are pedal tones that our fallen world sustains. In Scripture this is exemplified by the presence of Satan in Luke’s Gospel and of sin in Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

In Luke 4, the Holy Spirit sends Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, where he was tempted by the devil. After he successfully wards off the devil’s allures, “He (Satan) departed from him (Jesus) until the opportune time” (v. 13). Then Satan retreats to the background for much of the rest of the Gospel until he reemerges at the Last Supper (ch. 22). That is when he enters Judas and leads him to hand over the Messiah to the Jewish authorities, portending Jesus’ grisly death. Luke’s portrayal of Satan’s activity shows us that the devil’s sound was sustained throughout the gospel even if he went unnoticed in-between Chapters 4 and 22. The dangerous pedal tone is the one we ignore.

Similarly, in Romans 7, Paul confesses how sin is a pedal tone for him. Even though Paul is one of the most robust theologians the church has ever known and one of the great church leaders, he still has this pedal tone of sin that sounds in his life.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Here Paul confesses that this war within him does not abate, even as he writes one of the foundational treatises on Christian theology for the worldwide church! (Ironically, perhaps that’s why it is so good.)

Nevertheless, the pedal tone can provide us some good news still. The pedal tones of Satan and sin are not the deepest sounds we know. God’s tone is deeper. Throughout Israel’s journey in the wilderness, after they fled Egypt, God consistently provided manna from heaven for them so they would not starve. That is a different pedal tone, a pedal tone of grace. When God instituted the Ten Commandments for them at Mt. Sinai, God said that they were to keep the Sabbath day so they would remember that God their liberator had freed them from captivity in Egypt when living under oppressive political and economic rule. That is the pedal tone of justice. When the Second Person of the Trinity left all divine splendor and came to us as a human newborn so that we could be restored forever to relationship with God, that was the pedal tone of mercy.

Miles Davis' "Someday My Prince Will Come"

Paul Chambers (bass) plays the F pedal tone underneath much of the melody, and then breaks away after the melody gets going. One day the prince of peace will surely come. Notice how the pedal tone is repeated, in contrast to the bagpipes’ version above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBq87dbKyHQ

As musicians and music lovers, God invites us to use music’s pedal tone as a means of spiritual formation. The pedal tone can remind us that sin and Satan persist even when we create beautiful harmonies on top of it; may our labors for justice never forget that. But, more importantly, may the pedal tone remind us that God’s grace persists all the more. So even though our labors for justice and care are met with the sustained sound of sin and Satan, may we remember that God’s pedal tone endures. Indeed, no matter what happens in the coming days surrounding the inauguration, this earth and heaven shall one day pass away and God’s will be the pedal tone that remains. “Hallelujah” is the true unending hymn.

Julian Reid is the Editor of the Deus Ex Musica. An artist-theologian, he is a founding member of The JuJu Exchange as well as a regular preacher and solo performer. He holds degrees from Yale College and Candler School of Theology at Emory University. You can learn more about him here.

Title Image taken from: https://www.pakmusic.org/special-events-for-2020/