The whole thing

As you can imagine I love music.  I love how the notes can come together in unexpected ways to create something beautiful and full.  I love how instruments can blend together to grow a sound.  But even more, I love how music touches the soul and how it can give life.  

This past week I had a wonderful conversation with another music teacher on this very subject.  We discussed the fact that music can be just notes and rhythms or it can be so much more.  It's when the presenters and even the hearers feel the music because of the meaning of the songs that it comes alive.  Being a music teacher I know that music can be just about getting the notes right and presenting it with good technique.  Although there is nothing wrong with presenting a song with the correct pitches and rhythms, it is when a song carries emotions that it becomes powerful and even more that it points to who God is.  God has created beautiful things to show us His character of beauty and so when we enjoy His beauty and the fullness that is in it we experience Him and worship His awesome character.  

The other music teacher went to tell me of the words she shares with her students before a performance.  "This performance isn't about you (the students), it is now about the audience.  This is an opportunity to give a gift to the people in the audience.  The gift is not just a bunch of pretty notes, its a gift of life, a chance to fill people with joy, to give them moments of blessing to take with them, and to encourage their hearts, because that's what music can do.  It's not about how well you do, for then you are taking the music for yourself.  Sure the music is for us too, but when we work to create a performance the deep truth is that we are creating music for others, so don't steal that heart by trying to make it about yourself.  Let the music fill all of us as we give it away."  

As I look at another year of teaching my students in music my hope is to help them see how we can meditate in the fullness and emotions that music creates and to lead others to do the same for in it we see God.