Issue Seven

We are living in remarkable times, in a period perhaps unprecedented in human history. Not only are these times of difficulty and challenge, but they are times that present extraordinary opportunity.

In some ways we seem to be at an auspicious turning point in human history. Who will shape the direction humanity will take? Who will create the future? Much of it will fall to the next generation, the young people in our midst everyday. But how will we prepare this next generation for that overwhelming responsibility, for the enlightened vision needed to guide the direction of the future?

In the recent past, a number of reports examining the level of excellence in education in the United States have been published, sharing important evaluations of the quality of education in this country. In terms of education we are, quite simply, a nation at risk. Reports state that the educational foundations of our society are being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our future as a nation and as a people. Although these reports are mainly concerned with evidence that young people are not fully trained to perform basic skills, many of them addressed the importance of art in education, raising an issue that has been dear to my heart: that music and art are imperative to the education of all. I firmly believe that music and art are at the center of the human psyche, the surest road to knowing ourselves and to understanding the world around us.

The reports raise the alarming fact that in not providing arts education, we are no longer nurturing the creativity of young people. Creativity is key to our future–and that beautiful, personal gift of all human beings is often stifled. Children who are born with an extraordinary curiosity, who hate to go to sleep at night because being awake is such a wonderful adventure, whose artistic and literary creations are so filled with imagination and dimension–grow increasingly more concerned with approval and become less poetic, more analytic, more predictable. Somehow we turn their art into homework; their imagination into routine.

The non-nurturing of creativity is a true crisis, one of the most serious concerns facing us. If problems facing our world are to be solved, they will be solved by creative people with creative ideas. If we are going to make advances in medicine, psychology, physical science and technology, these discoveries will be made, as well, by creative people. If we are ever to allow a golden age to flower through its art and music and literature, this too will be brought about by creative people.

How can we nurture what is truly our most precious resource: the creativity of the human being?

Anthropologists and historians have studied a great number of societies. Before the 20th century, virtually every society they have analyzed has placed at the center of its priorities music, art and religious experience. The only way we know many of these past cultures is through the beautiful and telling remnants of their artistic life.

What happened in the 20th century? What is happening in our own society? And, most important, how can we nurture the creative process to rectify our skewed priorities? I feel strongly that music holds the key to that process, that reclaiming of creativity.

Recent research about the structure of the brain and nervous system and their relationship to music has yielded astounding results. Different aspects of music–tone, pitch, melody and rhythm–are processed in different parts of the brain, making music one of the most complex experiences the brain encounters. Practicing an instrument actually triggers physical changes in the brain. Intensive practicing of an instrument leads to a discernable enlargement of parts of the cerebral cortex, the layer of gray matter closely associated with higher brain function. Many of the world’s doctors, scientists and mathematicians have played musical instruments since childhood.

Let me use Albert Einstein as an example. As he would often explain, his music was in some ways an extension of his thinking process, a method of allowing the subconscious to solve particularly difficult problems. Einstein’s son remembered that whenever his father felt that he had become ensnared in an especially daunting problem or situation in his work, he would take refuge in his music. This, he found, would usually resolve all difficulties.

Albert Einstein’s wife shared an especially interesting memory. “The Doctor (as she referred to Einstein in public) came down in his dressing gown as usual for breakfast but he hardly touched a thing. I thought something was wrong, so I asked him what was troubling him. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I have a wonderful idea.’ And after drinking his coffee, he went to the piano and started playing. Now and again he would stop, make a few notes and report: ‘I’ve got a wonderful idea, a marvelous idea.’ I said: then for goodness sake tell me, don’t keep me in suspense. He said: ‘it’s difficult; I still must work it out.’” Mrs. Einstein told us that Einstein continued playing the piano and making notes, then went upstairs to his study, remaining there for two weeks. Every day she sent up his meals, and every evening he would come downstairs, play the piano, and then return to his work. Eventually, Mrs. Einstein said, he came down from his study looking very pale. “That’s it,” he told her, wearily putting two sheets of paper on the table. And that was the theory of relativity.

My personal experience with Buffalo’s own Nobel Laureate Dr. Herbert Hauptmann was also very telling. I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Hauptmann during a panel discussion concerning the nature of creativity. After the session, he spoke to me privately about an experience he had had that he had found interesting and rather mystifying. He had been struggling with a very difficult problem without much success, and, feeling discouraged, had decided to set his studies aside for the day and return home. While driving, he switched on the radio to WNED, and listened with pleasure to Bach’s sixth Brandenburg Concerto. When he arrived home, he sat for a while in his car to be able to finish listening. When the piece ended, Dr. Hauptmann told me that he suddenly realized that he had unlocked the answer to his puzzle. It subsequently took him 17 hours to write it out in full, yet at that moment he knew that he had found the path to the solution.

On a more mundane level, research conducted at the University of California at Irvine has shown that exposure to music–simply listening to music–actually enhanced intellectual ability. Not only did listening to Mozart improve test performance, but young people who study piano were found to perform better in science and math than their counterparts who don’t.

Why should this be so? One obvious reason is that both scientists and artists are creative individuals who must learn to pay close attention–both to detail and to the broader context. Scientists, like artists, are people who notice things. They not only see things that other people ignore, they frequently can discern hidden links among disparate aspects of reality.

Studying music helps put things in context, sharpen details, hone observations. It sorts the essential from the peripheral, forges connections, finds patterns and discovers new ways of seeing familiar things–exactly the tools any creative person needs.

I remember that when I was about to receive my master’s degree, our college was visited by a number of computer companies, recruiting musicians for high-level training in computer science. Why would they seek musicians, most of whom knew nothing about computers? The simple and powerful reason is that musicians are trained to be problem solvers, to work diligently at solutions, to understand one of the most fundamental lessons of life–that things that are worthwhile take time, energy, patience and dedication. Those personal skills were exactly the traits sought by computer science firms.

The age of instant gratification in which we find ourselves does not foster creativity. The myriad of options for entertainment is not conducive to the very important lessons of hard work and dedication. But music does teach those skills. I find that those young people in the school band or orchestras are most often the ones on the honor roll, on the student council, on the dean’s list. Why? I am certain it is because music has taught them the skills that help them succeed at all their endeavors–cooperation, discipline, respect for themselves and for others, dedication, and the value of hard work. Best of all, those lessons are learned within a context of great joy. There are frankly few things as inspiring as the satisfaction and happiness on the faces of young musicians after performing.

This leads to the aspect of our emotional response to music–as players or listeners. We know that music can affect levels of various hormones such as cortisol, testosterone, and oxytocin and can trigger the release of endorphins, the body’s natural opiates. Using PET scanners, scientists have shown that the parts of the brain involved in processing emotion “light up” with activity when a subject hears music.

We have just begun to scratch the surface of the mystery of music and the brain. I am certainly not a scientist, but I absolutely believe that music can have a tremendously beneficial effect on life and on learning. Music changes us. It allows us to discover parts of ourselves we have not discovered before. It can transform us. It can nurture and stimulate all aspects of creativity. And, at a time when the very survival of the human race seems threatened, few things could be more important than nurturing creativity, humanity and appreciation for beauty. I believe that children who learn to appreciate beauty will never destroy it.

I often tell parents that music education is one of the single greatest gifts they can give their children. A music education encourages high achievement, fosters a suppleness of mind, a tolerance for ambiguity, an appreciation for nuance. It helps us to think and work across traditional disciplines, to integrate knowledge in unique ways. It teaches us to work cooperatively. It builds an understanding of diversity and the multi-cultural dimensions of our world.

Music can help us to truly understand the concepts of quality, excellence and beauty. As the only art form existing solely in time, music is the least limiting. Sibelius said “music begins where words end,” and that sense of wordless communication is powerful. Listening to music offers a tremendous personal freedom. Every person’s response to music is unique and irreplicable, drawing from each person’s entire life experience and deepening it.

So often we cannot express our reaction to music in words–the experience seems somehow beyond that. But we have been moved, touched, changed at the core our being–we have taken a step on our voyage of self-discovery.

Technology hurtles us forward at increasingly dizzying speeds. But the soul, silent pilgrim that it is, trudges forward slowly, never willing to be hurried. That quiet, slow journey is how we will know ourselves. It is as if there is an internal landscape, a geography of the soul–the map of ourselves. We will search for its outlines all of our lives. I believe that music can be the extraordinary vessel that transports us on that continuing journey exploration.