"Why teach Music?
Music is a science. It is exact, specific; 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. Also, many songs we study are from other cultures.
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.
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." (Hartzog)
Eddie Cavazos, Nichols Music Teacher
Hartzog, C. (2013, October 19). Why Study Music?. Christopher J Hartzog Music. https://christopher-j.net/?s=why%2Bmusic
