Where beautiful voices begin..
Tamara Regensburger, soprano
It is exact, specific, and demands exact acoustics. A conductor's full score is a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time. It embodies many levels of physics from acoustics to architecture.
Music is MATHEMATICAL
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper, in a highly specific form with regard to exact placement and symmetry.
Music is a WORLD LANGUAGE
Many of the terms used in music scores are in Italian, German or French; for example tempo markings such as andante and allegro or markings like vivace or arpeggio. Embedded in the music are cultural lessons, not to mention that reading music in iteslf is like learning a different language altogether.
Music is HISTORY
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation, taking on the emotion of a nation, region, or a people. It is the only Art form we can hear something that people hundreds of years ago did, sound relics. Unlike paint, whose image is always there once created, Music is perpetually "Repainted" every time it is performed. The feelings and thoughts of countless generations are forever cast in sound.
Music is PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Music requires fantastic control of the body, and muscle control of the diaphragm, back, stomach, chests, neck, lips, jaw and tongue which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets. There are as many calories burned by a symphonic trumpet player in one performance than there are by a quarterback in a professional football game.
Music is ART
It allows a human being to take technical and somewhat difficult areas of learning and translate them into human emotion. It helps every person to recognize and understand beauty and to understand love, compassion, and how to live more fully within this world. Music inspires and touches people where words are not adequate enough, it translates universally and is connected to our souls.
This is why we study MUSIC
....it is NOT so that you may strive to major in music and build your future career on it. NOT so that you are expected to play music your entire life. NOT to simply relax. NOT just so you can have fun.
BUT: So you will be human. so you will recognize beauty, so you will be more sensitive, especially to all the thoughts and feelings of sound made throughout the ages, so that you may find a place to express yourself, so you will have something to cling to, so you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good - in short, more life!