WHY SHOULD YOU LEARN MUSIC?
Music is mathematical…
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper. It is fractions moving in time.
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 history…
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation, often even the country and or racial feeling. Many of your own memories may be recalled simply from hearing a specific melody.
Music is a foreign language…
Most of the terms are written in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English. The notation is a highly developed shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language. (My husband calls it a “Secret Code!”)
Music is physical education…
It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, wrists, arms, lips, cheeks, and facial muscles. In addition to extraordinary control of diaphragmatic, back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ears hear and the mind interprets. We are athletes of the small muscles and the lungs!
AND ~
Music is art…
It allows a human being to take all these dry and technically boring, yet difficult, techniques and use them to create expressive communication in motion. That is one thing science cannot duplicate: humanism, feeling, emotion and passion.
WHY DO I TEACH MUSIC?
Not because I expect you to major in music (although some have!)
Not because I expect play the flute all your life (although some do!)
BUT ~
So you can relax
So you can invest your time
So you can have fun through expression
So you will recognize beauty
So you will become a feeling and sensitive person
So you will learn healthy competition
So you will discover confidence & value in yourself
So you will be closer to God
So you will have something that is all yours to keep
So you will have more patience and purpose
So you will live life more to its fullest
Because you will have more knowledge of how to live…
THAT IS WHY I TEACH MUSIC!!!
Adapted & Edited By Carolyn Cline Corbett, 2002
From a publication from the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association
