Why I 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 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 Italian, German, or French; and the notation certainly is not English – but is 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 time of its creation, often reflecting the country and/or feeling. 

Music is Physical Education – It requires fantastic coordination of the fingers, hands, arms, lips, cheeks, and facial muscles, in addition to the extraordinary control of the diaphragm, back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

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                                 Music is all of these things, but most of all,

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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 the one thing that science cannot duplicate; humanism, feeling, emotion – call it what you will.
 
AND THAT IS WHY I TEACH MUSIC!
Not because I expect my students to major is music… Not because I expect you to play your instrument 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?