Articles by author: Peter Kalkavage

Music as a Liberating Art (Excerpted from The Neglected Muse: Why Music Is an Essential Liberal Art [Part V*])

by Peter
Tuesday, 30 April, 2013
categories: Articles, Big Ideas: Truth, Beauty, Goodness and more!, Classical Christian Education, College and Post Graduation

The study of music has several goals. One of them is to improve, through education, students' aesthetic taste: to introduce them to truly great music in an effort to beget a love for all things graceful and well formed. As a music teacher, I hope that the study of...

Learning from a Simple Melody: Scarborough Fair (Excerpted from The Neglected Muse: Why Music Is an Essential Liberal Art [Part IV*])

by Peter
Wednesday, 03 April, 2013
categories: Articles, Big Ideas: Truth, Beauty, Goodness and more!, Classical Christian Education, College and Post Graduation

Music education that aims at real knowledge requires careful attention to the elements of music: tones, time-values, intervals, etc. Students must learn to read music and correctly identify notes on a staff. Soon after this "basic training," they should look closely at...

Music Shapes Us (Excerpted from The Neglected Muse: Why Music Is an Essential Liberal Art [Part III*])

by Peter
Thursday, 28 February, 2013
categories: Articles, Big Ideas: Truth, Beauty, Goodness and more!, Classical Christian Education, College and Post Graduation

Even apart from [its] profound connection with mathematics, music is pre-eminent among the arts for the order and clarity, the sharply defined character, of its elements. Music moves us, sometimes to overpowering emotion. It does so through well-defined structures,...

Music's Connection to Math and Nature (Excerpted from The Neglected Muse: Why Music Is an Essential Liberal Art [Part II*])

by Peter
Monday, 04 February, 2013
categories: Articles

Music, amazing in its power over our emotions and character, is even more amazing because it is eminently capable of being studied. Traditionally, music is one of the seven so-called "liberal arts." Liberal, here, has nothing to do with its current, political usage. It...

The Neglected Muse: Why Music Is an Essential Liberal Art (Part I)

by Peter
Monday, 21 January, 2013
categories: Articles, Big Ideas: Truth, Beauty, Goodness and more!

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. –Plato Music transcends the classroom, the concert stage, and professional recordings. It pervades life. Mankind has long used music in all sorts of ways, to celebrate, to lament, to dance, to...