Music, in the genres of the lullaby, have been God-sends for sleepless parents throughout the ages. Different genres and composers have different seasonings for the eyes, ears, hearts and minds of the audience. Some enhance learning at an early age. Some promote better outcomes for health concerns. Some calm and relieve stress. Some inspire dance and movement. Some bring us closer to God (Music is Meta). There is power in rhythm, there is power in virtually all forms of music; coming with a very small carbon footprint.
Early tastes in music are probably universal, of nature. Soon, nurture enters the auditorium. In this case, nurture is not always is rarely free of the bias of the hood, our family of origin, our friends and classmates, and of course the material promotions of the sounds of radio, TV, movies and CD's. Universal concepts of the skeleton of music include harmony, but discord is now common. The words of the muse are sometimes captured, but more commonly, our music has become a simplistic formula that "harmonizes" with the economic interests of the industry. It goes without saying that music has maintained itself in classical and operatic genres, and there is integrity in virtually all current forms of music. Complete freedom of musical expression is a hard fought journey, and some muse like thoughts will never be shared on the main-stream. Gee, has social media come along at a critical time?
I believe that we all have the gifts needed to play, sing and dance to the music. These gifts are rarely nurtured without an equally critical voice of parents and society feeding the "I'm not good enough" guarantee of failure. When I can get my students to relax, their progress in most instruments is very rapid, and easy. We are also all potential muses. We have our stories and our views, and many ways to remember the words and music. Go forth and express yourself my friends.
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