On Music and Beauty

Written by Kara Faraldi, Regents Music Teacher

One way we are embracing beauty, our theme this year at Regents School, is through music. Historically, music belonged to the seven liberal arts because ancient thinkers like Plato and Aristotle believed that music "was essential for a person's moral development." Music trains students to listen carefully, recognize harmony, and develop disciplined habits of attention. When students engage with music in this tradition, they are learning more than technique or performance; they are being shaped to love what is good and to recognize the order God has built into creation.

Thomas Aquinas' definition of beauty is that the object is "whole, harmonious, and radiant." Our chapel worship leader, Joseph Holm, once said that it has been proven that those who sing together synchronize their heartbeats. When we sing together, we are becoming more whole and harmonious in ourselves and with each other. We are becoming a beautiful thing! We are getting closer to living out what the Psalmist wrote when he said, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.” The act of doing music–singing, because that is something God calls us to—is embedding His beauty in us: the message of His Word and echoing the truth of our whole, harmonious, and radiant union with Him.

Consider how a simple chord— the harmonies of three, four, or more parts – tells our inward beings that we were created for something more than the cacophony of the world around us. Music is an audible reminder that there is a God who provides (and is) total “proportionality, unity, diversity, [and] harmony.” Perhaps God has used music throughout the ages to send us a message (Turley, 2019).

Composed music was meant to capture the cosmic music, the order and form by which God created the universe. God did not create randomly. There was sequence, design, thought, and intentionality in everything He did. Composed music was meant to harness that and give it an audible sound because there’s already an unheard music resounding through the cosmos that attests to this fact. Human participation in composed music brought a person closer to God’s true purpose for humanity: to be  those who worship.

Even if we don’t understand it very well, we can still learn from the best possible music. Our students can handle our musical heritage and be moved by it. We can handle our musical heritage and be moved by it, too. The heavens are still declaring the glory of God, the very source of all that is whole, harmonious, and radiant.

Music can both establish and destroy morality. For
no path is more open to the soul for the formation
thereof than through the ears. -Boethius

RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING

• Smith, Ryan. “Music in Classical Christian Education.”
• Musically Speaking - Substack by Jarrod Richey