Music is a Science

It is exact, specific; it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.

Music is Mathematical

It is rhythmically based on the subdivision 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. Also, many songs we study are from other cultures.

Music is Physical Education

It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, back stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

Most of All, Music is Art

It allows a human being to take all these dry, technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion. That is one thing science cannot duplicate: humanism, feeling, emotion.