I commend you for including Discovering Music in your learning plan this year! An inspiring and informative journey awaits you, for I consider Dr. Reynolds to be one of the most effective teachers I have ever known. How I wish that such a resource had been available during the years my wife and I were homeschooling our five children, or, for that matter, in the many times I have taught introductory music history courses on the college level!
During the eight years Dr. Reynolds and I served as colleagues at Southern Methodist University, our office doors stood a few feet down the hall from the main music history classroom. I cherish fondly the memory of her classes letting out: of chattering students pouring past my open office door, some bounding with enthusiasm and others staggering with minds “blown” by the breadth and depth of what they had just learned. A short time later Dr. Reynolds herself would pass by, handouts and student essays a-flutter in the crook of one arm while with the other she towed a red Radio Flyer wagon overflowing with scores, recordings, books, and primary source materials.
Why does Dr. Reynolds inspire such learning and enthusiasm among her students? It is clear that at the heart of her effectiveness lies a deep passion for sharing knowledge about music. But passion, while necessary, is not sufficient for excellent teaching. A clue is provided by that red Radio Flyer wagon. Dr. Reynolds has never been one to “teach the textbook.” Rather, she encourages students to learn directly from an abundance of primary and secondary sources, from live performances, from expert guests, and even, when possible, from “field trips” to Europe, where she herself has spent much time living. Her rich approach stimulates critical thinking and enables students to make their own direct connection with the past—an awareness of “the presentness of the past.” This integrative approach means that her students don’t simply learn about music, they also learn how music relates to other aspects of history and culture. When students think integratively, they discover that knowledge comprises not a static list of facts to master, but rather a dynamic and ongoing process of growth and discovery. And that is something to be excited about!
This very notion—that music is related to every other aspect of history and culture—is one that modern education has all too often forgotten. When school budgets are cut, music and the other arts are often first to go, because they are perceived as peripheral rather than central to learning. Earlier eras, however, regarded the study of music as integral to personal formation. The ancient Greeks, for example, included music among the seven liberal arts—so called because they represented areas of learning that every free citizen should possess. When the Greek liberal arts tradition passed into the Latin West through the writings of Martianus Capella, Boethius, and other writers around the 5th century A.D., it exerted a profound and lasting influence on Western Christian thought. In the writings of Boethius, for example, “music” encompassed much more than what we think of music today. Boethius divided music into three types. The highest of these is musica mundana, the “music of the spheres,” the mathematical harmony that governs heavenly bodies, the seasons, and the cosmos as a whole. Second is musica humana, the harmony that governs the human body and soul. Third is musica instrumentalis, music made by voices or instruments, which renders audible the same principles of order evident in the cosmos and human beings. Although our understanding of the cosmos and of the human body has come far since the fifth century A.D., music remains a powerful construct for understanding our world.
Music also offers us a key to understanding ourselves. Music’s power derives in part from the ways it expresses every aspect of what it means to be a human being. As human beings made in the image of God, we are spiritual, creative, relational, volitional, rational, emotional, and physical. Music integrates these facets of our humanity, not only making us more whole as persons, but also connecting us to one another in community. Through music the trinity of composer, performer, and audience can share intense communion of movement, thought, and feeling. Music both expresses and shapes virtually every aspect of our human identities, including our culture, ethnicity, race, nationality, gender, generation, and religious affiliation.
Because music itself is so deeply integrative, the study of music needs also to be approached integratively. This is precisely what Dr. Reynolds’s course offers, in a way that has never been done before. Through the medium of video, this veteran of the college classroom integrates discussion of musical works, composers, primary sources, guest experts, and visits to historical sites. I warmly commend to you Dr. Reynolds’s Discovering Music course. Happy learning!
Dr. Michael Dodds
Head of Music History
University of North Carolina School of the Arts
