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Why Teach Music? |
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“Why Teach Music” Music is 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 History Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation, often even the country and/or feeling. 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 these Things, but Most of All, Music is Art It allows a human being to take all 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 is 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. Of what value will it be to make a prosperous living unless you know how to live? That is Why We Teach Music |