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What is Music?
Music is science...
It is specific, and it demands exact acoustics. A
conductor's full score is a chart, a graph which indicates
frequencies, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once
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. The
notation is certainly not English, but a highly developed
kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The
semantics of music are the most complete and universal
language.
Music is history...
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its
creation. This environment often expresses the spirit of a
country and/or racial feeling.
Music is physical education...
It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands,
arms, lips, cheeks, and facial muscles. Music also develops
extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, 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 of these dry,
technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them
to create emotion. That is one thing science cannot
duplicate: humanism, emotion, call it what you will.
- Author Unknown
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