Music Is…
I. Music is a
Science. It is
exact, specific, and it demands exact acoustics. A
conductor's
full score is a chart, a graph that indicates frequencies,
intensities,
volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with
the most exact control
of time.
II. Music is
Mathematical. It
is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time
into fractions
that must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper.
III. 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 used symbols to represent ideas. The
semantics of music is the
most complete and universal language.
IV. Music is
History. Music
usually reflects the environment and times of its
creation, often
even the country and/or racial feeling.
V. 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.
VI. Music Develops
Insight and Demands Research.
VII. 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...
But so you will be human
So you will
recognize beauty
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.
Thanks to The Music Achievement Council,
c/o NAMM, 5140 Avenidaa Encinas, Carlsbad CA
92008-4391
