The year is 1974, I’m either 14 or 15 years old and I’m sitting in my dad’s car in front of the A&P listening to the radio.  Dad ran in to get something and I had decided to just sit and wait.  It’s dark and the only light in the car is from the lights in the parking lot. As I’m listening to the Top 40, a song comes on I’ve never heard before.  There’s something about it that catches my heart and I immediately fall in love.  The song is Mandy by Barry Manilow.  Now before you start laughing, either because you now know I’m the biggest nerd ever or you’re old enough to remember this too, I want you to notice the details in the story.  Every time I hear the song, even today, I’m immediately transported to that same night.

Music as a whole has a high profile in our country.  Ratings for shows like The Voice, America’s Got Talent and American Idol are sky high because people like to hear the music.  People get together socially to attend concerts, participate in community groups and sing karaoke at their local watering holes.  Surveys reveal that a high percentage of parents believe that music education is important for their children.  Which always has me scratching my head as to why we as music educators have to struggle so hard to get our subject matter taken seriously.  But that’s fodder for another day.  The point is, music is so important to most of us that it accompanies us from the time we’re born until the time we die.

Think about it.  Some parents begin having their children listen to music in utero.  At the very least, we’re singing lullabies or providing toys that play music.  Children naturally move, react and make sounds to music.  We start our children with lessons and encourage them them to participate in school music.  We use music to reflect our ethnicity or culture, to get married to, to celebrate with, to honor our country and military, to worship through and to send us on our way at the end of our lives.

Let’s face it, even if you think you’re not a music enthusiast, imagine a baseball game without the seventh inning stretch, basketball without the pep band playing the fight song, or football without a halftime show.  Imagine no oldies to listen to in your garage while you work on your car or while you shop at the grocery store.  Music in movies helps to tell the story, and there’s nothing like some blues music playing while you eat your barbecue.  Even in nature music is created by the sounds of the birds, insects and animals around you.  Let’s face it, you wouldn’t be here if your heart wasn’t beating in rhythm.

But let’s make it personal.  Music can transport us to another time and place and elicit long forgotten memories and emotions.  It has the power to change your mood, to give you energy, to make you laugh and cry.  You can literally feel the bass in your chest. It lights up parts of your brain that nothing else can. We’re learning that patients with dementia may not remember much, but when you play the lyrics to a song they knew as a teenager, chances are they can sing along.  Music is important because music is a natural part of all of us.  It has nothing to do with talent, it has to do with a natural expression of who we are, the making of a “joyful noise”; it’s part of what makes us more human.

I’m not saying that music is more important than other academic subjects, but I am saying it is AS important and fulfills an essential part of the human experience.  It has the power to connect us and as disconnected as we all feel right now, that’s not a little thing. I would challenge you to just take a regular day and see how often you come into contact with music and really experience how it accompanies YOUR life.