My Email Has Changed!!! It's now cjmendoza@cps.edu. Please Make a Note of
It!!!!
WHY STUDY MUSIC?
MUSIC IS A SCIENCE
It is exact, specific, and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s score
is a chart which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody,
and harmony all at once in 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, lips, cheeks,
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 accumulated knowledge and skill and use
it 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.
Not because we expect you to play or sing all your life.
Not so you can relax.
Not so you can have fun.
BUT
So you will be more human.
So you will recognize beauty.
So you will be more sensitive.
So you will be closer to an infinity beyond this world.
So you will have something to cling to.
So you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, and more good.
In short, more life!
