by Ryan Smith, D.M.A.
How much does your classical Christian community instill the art of music in its students?
Historically, music has held a high place in Classical Christian Education (CCE). The first important reason is more broadly philosophical, while the second is specifically Christian.
First, the ancients believed that music was essential for a person’s moral development. Plato wrote in his Republic, “Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful.” (Do not confuse this with the theological concept of grace, but rather as a personal characteristic of blessing and virtue.) To Plato, music was cosmological in nature, full of both mystery and meaning. Music that properly reflected the mathematical laws of the cosmos would edify the listener. It opened the listener’s ears to truth, goodness, and beauty.
Later thinkers, such as Boethius, Augustine, and Luther, both echoed and defended Plato’s assessment. Even the more suspicious John Calvin acknowledged Platonic thought in his Preface to the Genevan Psalter: “There is scarcely in the world anything which is more able to turn or bend this way and that the morals of men, as Plato prudently considered it. And in fact, we find by experience that it has a sacred and almost incredible power to move hearts in one way or another.”
It is this inherent power of music that theologians have recognized for millennia. This reality leads to a second, more Divine reason for music’s place of honor in CCE: the Bible instructs people to use music in the worship of the Triune God (Ps. 33:1-2, 47:6, 68:4, 96:1, 98:1-4, 150; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). Have you ever attended a worship service on a Sunday morning without any music? No, because Christians are a singing people, distinguishing them from all other major religions. Music is God’s idea, and He alone imbued it with significance. It is not surprising, then, that the development of Western classical music paralleled the Western church’s musical culture in its formative centuries.
In sum, a strong CCE program values music for its roles in moral development and in worship. Music is alone among the seven liberal arts with this unique function.
Here are five beneficial questions to ask yourself about your musical culture:
Listening: How do you cultivate an appreciation of great music through your listening habits? Are composers such as Bach, Mozart, and Brahms playing in your school and home regularly? By instilling an appreciation of the classics, you can train children to curate their tastes and avoid banal music.
Solfege: Do you teach your children solfege syllables as their key to reading music and singing in tune? The solfege system is the most powerful tool at our disposal creating confident singers. Listen to a friend’s non-auditioned youth choir singing Bach on solfege, and be amazed!
Singing: Do you sing folk songs, psalms, and hymns together regularly? The harmonic and melodic features of these musical forms build a reliable musical ear. An added benefit: the texts of sacred music will secure truth in their hearts.
Memorization: Music is a powerful mnemonic device. Do you regularly use simple songs to help students remember other disciplines? Music’s use for learning is a centuries-old pedagogical tool that will enable children to retain even more information.
Playing an instrument: What instruments are you learning to play? Find an instrument, teacher, and community where you can learn to play a musical instrument with competence until it becomes leisurely, and in some cases, monetarily beneficial.
Recommended Readings:
Jeremy Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Ada, MI: Baker Academic Press, 2007). This is a once-in-a-generation contribution to Christian thought about music.
David Erb, David Goodwin, Jarrod Richey, Steve Turley, and Kent Young. Raise the Song: A Classical Christian Guide to Music Education (Moscow, ID: ACCS Publications, 2019). This book contains valuable philosophical and practical steps for implementing music education in Christian schools.
Ravi Jain and Kevin Clark, The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education 3rd ed. (Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 2021). Jain and Clark’s treatment of music’s historic role in CCE is thorough and insightful.
Philip Graham Ryken, Derek W.H. Thomas, and J. Ligon Duncan, III, editors; Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R Publishing, 2011). See especially the chapters 10, 11, and 13.