Why Teach or Learn 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 with the most exact control of time. Music is mathematical... It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions 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 racial 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 diaphragm, 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 BUT- Of what value will it be to make a prosperous living unless you know how to live? THAT IS WHY WE TEACH MUSIC!!!
Published by the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association
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