Why Teach Music?

August 10, 2009

Why Teach Music?

Music is a Science

It is exact, specific; and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor's full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.

Music is Mathematical

It is rhythmically based on the subdivision of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper.

Music is a Foreign Language

Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English - but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

Music is Physical Education

It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

Music is All of these things, but most of all

Music is Art

It allows a human being to take all of these dry, technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion. That is one thing science cannot duplicate: Humanism, feeling, emotion, call it what you will.

That's Why We Teach Music!

Not because we expect you to major in music

Not because we expect you to play or sing all your life

Not so you can relax

Not so you can have fun

BUT - So you will be human

So you will recognize beauty

So you will be sensitive

So you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world

So you will have something to cling to

So you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good

- in short, more life.