music to communicate

Last night I got to see a free concert at a bookstore in Portsmouth, two very different genres of music. But the solo acoustic guitar player and the seven-person-funk-jazz-rock band had something in common. And it's something that ties all musicians together. Notes, melodies, rhythms, and beats are their letters, sentences, and punctuation marks. These artists have the gift of being able to communicate their thoughts to the audience through music.

I especially noticed last night how powerful this tool of communication can be. Music has always been able to penetrate me deeper than a painting or a poem can, but I don't really have an explanation for why. It just does. The first musician I heard last night, in addition to being a talented singer/songwriter, is a music teacher for little kids in New York City. What a wonderful job, I thought, being able to light up the worlds of young people every day with happy sounds and being able to teach others the joy of creating music. Also, you can teach children other subjects in the context of songs. He sang us a song about shapes that he sings with the kids in school; it goes, "A shape is the outline of a thing..." and throughout the chorus everyone makes the shapes with their bodies and sings along.
Children can learn about shapes as well as other larger concepts through the music they create. I remember in elementary school how a good portion of our concerts were songs from other cultures; we sang in Hebrew, Spanish, and African. Simply exposing children to music of other peoples will plant a seed of curiosity in them. Music can communicate a part of us that other mediums cannot.