FREE ESSAY ON MUSIC IN EDUCATION

MUSIC IN EDUCATION

MUSIC IS EDUCATION
THESIS STATEMENT
Music in education is essential to our children because it increases their listening
skills and is a common 
method of communication for cultures worldwide.
Music is Education
There are schools attempting to eliminate teaching musical arts to our children. The
board of 
education claims they must provide education by concentrating on the basic academic
courses, but what 
they don't realize is that music is a major part of basic education. We must not allow
them to pull the 
teaching of music out of our school curriculums because music is an essential form of
communication. Our 
children do not have to be fluent in the arts to receive the value of broad exposure to
the different musical 
dialogues. Deprivation of a very valuable part of education occurs if we do not teach
them to appreciate a 
wide variety of music.
Metaphorically speaking, we often associate the terms language and grammar with the term

music. This association leads us to believe that music is a form of language, possibly
because no symbol 
system other than language has the same potential as music of infinite productivity and
precision. It takes 
a multitude of directions and phonetic-type symbolism to produce a pleasant sounding
musical 
composition. This relates very closely to the requirements of everyday language. The
primary objective of 
any spoken language is to convey a person's thoughts in a comprehensible fashion, but we
must remember 
that everyone thinks and comprehends everything differently.
Musical language contains vast quantities of words to help people understand how original

composers intended to play a specific piece. Musical language also has directions that
allow and encourage 
some scope of original interpretation and minor departures from the written score,
resulting in no two 
performances sounding exactly alike.
The English language, as we know it, carries a very strong parallel to these same
interpretable 
words. Dialect and slang are just two of the many connotative forms to speak different
languages. All 
languages contain these variations and reinforce the need for striving toward
understanding a basically 
generic language. It would be very difficult to speak to a non-English speaking person
and clearly convey 
a message unless both persons were familiar with basic terminology. It would be just as
unlikely to 
communicate a musical message to someone not educated or interested in musical
interpretation.
The term music in itself has many different connotations. One in the United States may
not have 
the same perceptions as one whose origin is France or Australia, or elsewhere in the
world. In my travels 
through Europe and South America I had a hard time finding any truly original, locally
produced music. 
The majority of the music I searched through were also popular in the United States. It
was very easy to 
find foreigners singing an American song using their interpretation of our language. The
entire world 
seems to be able to communicate with music and seems to understand it enough to share
their own musical 
interpretation. 
Music is a language of it's own and depending on how we speak it, it too can accomplish a

multitude of results. People are no more able to understand a foreign language without
education than they 
are to understand the unspoken language of music without proper musical education. A
single score of 
music interpreted with a few of many available musical directions can tell as many
stories as there are 
variations. For example, playing Cristofori's Dream by David Lanz entirely
lento-pianisimo (slow and very 
soft), creates a very peaceful and tranquil mood. Played again allegro-forte (lively,
brisk, and loud), emits 
an uplifting feeling. Yet, by using both interpretations progressively and regressively
within this identical 
musical score, one could feel depleted and elated in the same timeframe. This is perhaps
the most 
ascribable reason to pursue a knowledge of musical semantics. Within music one expresses
many 
emotions, speaks many languages, conveys complex messages, and !
tells many stories.
Music can be a selfish form of conversation and it is not always necessary to have a
recipient to 
convey a message. One has only to listen while playing music to communicate with
themselves, yet most 
would suspect the stability of a person who attempted this scenario by simply talking and
responding while 
alone. Music merges the physical aspects of harmony with a sublime and metaphysical
effect creating an 
inner peace. Seldom will words alone be capable of accomplishing what just one musical
composition can 
communicate when we teach our children to appreciate music. With all available forms of 
communication, one should never forget that listening carefully to music--as we should
listen to others 
speak--can clarify the true meanings of all languages.
We should all strive to include intuition and intellect into language of any form.
Intellect enlarges 
our range of instincts through newly absorbed information and enables us to reflect and
analyze all forms of 
language. If communication is the purpose for language, we must then realize that speech
is not the only 
form of communication, for life without smiles, hugs, sign language, and even music would
be very 
unfulfilling. We must continue to educate our children in the musical arts and teach them
yet another form 
of communication.