Summary 《The Power of Music》

Summary

《The Power of Music》, this article mainly talks about the benefits that music bring to our human beings in a way of health and science study. The author own four general ideas.
The first point of him is the music can be used for communication of the patients who have lose their language function, which the given example by him is about a patient used computer system to compose music in case of expressing himself. Then by the following, the author introduced his second point, which is music has the power to heal, especially rhythm, though nobody can explain what the reason it is. According to one of the study researcher said, "Music helps us organize our movement", there is no doubt that music possess some kind of strange power. The third view of author is music can reduce the pain of the patients, in which he has given a series of statistics to prove this statement. The last benefit he mentioned about is music therapy also improve mental state and functioning in people, which the example is taken through the recovery of premature infants in terms of immune function. After all, the music bring to us is enormous which we should take great advantage of it.


response:

What in my mind after reading this passage is this world is full of miracles which some of them we even have not realized, like for me as a musician I have never experienced that music is so powerful and amazing, only after reading what author presented. The confusion I have is, if music really can make so much differences in one's recovery and health condition, why not put this music therapy in a practical way? As a matter of fact, I have to confess that, as my observation, there is no hospital playing music, even as their background music. Why? Are there still disadvantages that author hiding from us? Does that mean there are still exceptions like some patience will get furious and impatient when they get injury? What's more, as a student of music, the self-experience somehow did not show so much special cases as the way I grew up. As the situation is, I am merely in average range of intellectual way, and I also have the same amounts of illness and sickness as the same age of teenagers who do not touch music so often. We still have tons of questions and unknown in the music field. Anyway, as I believe, no matter what are there more it will exhibits to us in the future, the influence will always be positive, just like what the music did in last hundred and thousand years before.

Genre of music by composers in different eras

During music history, music has been changed different periods and changed the different style. I think my prefer part is Classical music and the Romantic music. There is a big contrast between Classical music and Romantic music.

Before Classical music and Romantic music,In the 17th, composers were keen to create harmony, and there is no large-scale organization. Until the late 17th century, everyone thought vocal music is more important than instrumental music.

In Classical period, the functional tonality is very simple and harmony is very clear, the composers not used more modulations in their music. For Example Mozart, in his music ,melody and harmony is very simple and clear .the classical period music make me more relax feeling.
In 19th period, musical language has become more complicated and complex; the composers used more modulations and became dramatic in their music. For example, Brahms’s music,creating an exciting emotion in his Sonata for Viola OP.120 No.2. This piece's melody is very romantic and beautful. I like this passion in romantic period music .

Between late 18th century and 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began. Many music halls were established to satisfy the middle-class listeners. Because of the Industrial Revolution, the society became more and more developed. In the 19th century, the age of orchestra came, and it gave birth to composers who created illustrious symphonies. For example, Mahler Symphony No.5. In the late 19th century, there was a debate between the absolute and poetic schools of thought.

Strategies in learning a musical instrument

Strategies in learning a musical instrument

As a musician, study music is considered as part of our daily activity. We are demanding to practice every day. During the practice, we will face a lot of problems, such as technique, passion and rhythm. Most of the people think that having a good teacher is very important, but I think, how to the practice by ourselves when we are alone in the practice room is more important. The good practice methods can help us to improve faster and perform better.

Firstly, practicing basic skills such as play open strings in slow tempo every day. The purpose of it is to let us observe our clear basics problems in our playing. For example, when we are playing the open string, we only need to concentrate on our right hand and don't need to consider about our left hand, we can listen to the sound we produce more carefully. This way of practicing can be used as a warm up exercise to relax our fingers. When we practice, the basic point is we should always practice with a metronome; to ensure our playing is following the tempo of the music and not follows our own feeling. If the music is very lively or intense, we tend to rush and play faster than the true speed, especially when the 16-notes come. Therefore, the metronome becomes an important tool during our basic skill’s practices.
Secondly, we should start the practice in slow rhythm. Which tempo is comfortable and control when we practice a new piece? I think the first thing is to make sure the piece can be played smoothly. When we practice in slow rhythm, the finger actions always follow our instinct and feeling instead of the muscle memory of the fingers itself. So if we more play slow tempo to practice, we can make sure every note can be memorized by finger. Slow practice helps us more clearly analysis music and help us improve our intonation. When we keep practice very fast, we didn’t have time to practice the perfect intonation and the exact tempo. We may not even recognize if it is wrong. But when we more use the slow tempo practice, everything can be much more easily.

Finally, we should be serious and very hard in major class .If the major teacher tell us this melody how to playing is better and where is we’re playing wrong notes or some problem, we need to take note, because this is a good methods to prevent us from getting forget teacher‘s ideas after major class. When we back to practice room, we need use teacher‘s idea correct the problem by ourselves.

In conclusion, I think music need talent, but if musician just only have talent is not enough .How to strategies in learning a musical instrument is very important. So as a musician, we not only need to hard practice our instrument but also need to good methods improve study. If we have good strategies in learning a musical instrument, we will become a good musician.

What is music means for me ?

What is music means to me ...
what happen with my life? There are lots of changes by music , so music is my life.Fistly, before playing viola ,I was playing Violin for 10 years, when I have memory I was playing violin. So my childhood memory is all about music,and my life all abuot violin .At frist, I didn't like the violin.Therefore I should practice violin while other little freends were playing other interesing toy. But my mother never let me give up practice. So under the force I played it. But when I was 12 years old, I decided to go to Cheng Du to study my violin. And after I came to Cheng Du, I become activity to music.Music has affected my life in such a way that I need it everyday like when i'm having trouble socially, emotionally and in the family. I can safetly say that music has got me through the tough times at school and at home and humbled me and made me a better person. Another reason is becauce I study music for so many years and I think I will continue , it is just like my family. Maybe everything will change, but my music will follow me all my life. When I came to singapore I was changed to the viola . ,because my major teacher told me ,my hand is very big ,if I play viola ,I maybe play than violin ..Now ,I like the viola too,it’s very imporntent in my life…Study more instrument ,make me feel  very happy …..In conclusion,I will devote myself to making  fantastic music and I will never stop loving music .It always be a part of me forever.