"Why do we teach music? What makes music different from every other subject?" My Brass Methods professor as well as academic adviser posed this very interesting question the other day. She posed this question in front of 9 Music Education Majors, so you would think this question would be answered quite quickly.
"Music is a unique form of expression."
"Yeah! It's an outlet for students who get bogged down with normal class" We thought we were so smart, getting the answer on the first try.
"But, doesn't art do that? That doesn't make Music different. What makes music different?" My professor's response left us speechless for a few minutes.
"Music teaches students to be quick thinkers and work together toward a common goal." So do sports, and any other cooperative learning activity.
"Music is like another language" So are other languages.
What makes music so unique from everything else? Because if music only has something to offer that other classes/organizations already offer at school, what's the point of even offering music? Why should we continue teaching music if it's only purpose was to benefit the other classes a student was taking, and didn't stand alone as an important and necessary subject? I pondered this question for a very long time. Probably two weeks now, in fact.
And It finally dawned on me, the above conversation is the exact reason why we should teach music in our schools and makes it so unique. Music cannot be explained. We try so hard to explain it using the notions we know true for other subjects, and music simply does not fit that mold. Music is something completely different from the other subjects, that it's nearly impossible to explain it. Therefore, it is just a sensation that only you can understand by experiencing it. By teaching students through music, we are allowing for them to come in contact with something so unexplainable, words don't need to be used. How powerful is that? You can reach students through this phenomenon and not even have to explain to them the value, they will simply know because they can experience it. Wow. What a cool thing.
And so it goes...
