"How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?"
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Moonbeams and Music by Dr. Carol Reynolds 16
his charming line from the song "Maria" in The Sound of Music reminds us that music cannot be held in the palm of one's hand or measured by physical parameters. Like a moonbeam, music's substance is intangible. Music springs to life from sound waves emanating from instruments and voices. These waves are received by the ear and pressed into our brains. The phenomenon we call "hearing music" triggers a complex web of responses and associations. It sets our minds and our bodies into motion. Even more marvelously, humans have the capacity to memorize, store, and recall vast amounts of music. Endless hours of musical compositions can dwell in our brains. This mental or remembered music exerts a discernable effect on our feelings and uplifts our spirits. From the womb until our last breath, music ranks as one of life's most powerful forces. With music as such a force, would we not expect it to be accorded a hallowed place in the formal instruction of our children? Tradition proclaims "yes," but the situation today is quite the opposite. Finding schools where music is taught seriously, including institutions engaged in the revival of classical education, is distressingly rare. The magnificent commitment to music evidenced in a school like Highlands Latin School in Louisville, KY, where serious choral training begins at the youngest ages, proves how much can be achieved, but also demonstrates the institutional constancy needed to achieve such levels. What makes the teaching of music so difficult? Do the logistics of required time and materials account for the problem? To a degree, yes. But our modern misunderstanding of music as entertainment is a bigger factor! After all, once music is labeled as an entertainment, the hapless label of "elective" is quick to follow. The first step in restoring music to its core position in a child's educational development may be to acknowledge its ephemeral nature. Real music exists solely in real time. It sounds only as long as the sound waves vibrate. To repeat the image above, it cannot be contained in the palm of the hand, which means that its benefits are harder to measure
Dr. Carol Reynolds is a widely acclaimed author, speaker, and educator. She regularly leads arts tours throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, recently in partnership with the Smithsonian Institute.
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