Is music a spiritual weapon?

Thus far, I have been focusing on gratitude.  Now, I will turn to another spiritual tool, music.  Music has the power to inspire, heal, rejuvenate, transcend and helps us grow and learn, inside and outside the classroom.

Yesterday, there was a graduation at my school.  An 8^th grade graduating student told me how much my teaching him guitar has made an influence on his life.  He has played guitar for the last four years and he wants to play professionally, possibly teaching guitar to put himself through college.  That encounter made my day, my week, my year and possibly my life. Hearing that something I taught four years ago ignited a spark and passion for a student makes it all worthwhile.

Then the conversation got interesting.  He said, “You know I love to jam and rock out, but playing guitar is spiritual to me.  It is a spiritual weapon!  When I hear a guitarist I really like, for example Slash, who plays low and bluesy, the music just fills me up on the inside.”  Wow, I thanked him for sharing that with me.  Also, I told him I would call music more of a “spiritual tooI” because "weapon" has a destructive feeling to it, but what he said got to heart of something that I think about often, the power of music.

I feel the profound pleasure of creating music and now an even deeper satisfaction in teaching others to play guitar, opening up to the miracles that music brings.  I truly believe that music reaches parts of my spirit that nothing else has ever touched, that music opens up portions of my soul and allows transcendent nourishment that is inexplicable.  Recently, I played for two hours at a micro-brewery with a friend and the synergy and communication that music allowed between us was definitely transcendent.

In the classroom, a fellow teacher is now learning guitar so she can add it to her lessons.  Music is such a powerful tool (weapon?) in the classroom.  The students remember lessons more readily and more permanently when it is set to music.  Even if you are not a musician, you may find ways to bring more music into your classroom and into your life.  This year, a 4^th grade science student found a song about the water cycle on YouTube.  It was a rap and it was actually scientifically correct and very catchy.  To this day, I catch myself singing a portion of that song, “It rises to the sky from the sea below, then down to the ground as rain or snow.  I keep movin’, movin’ ‘cause I’m the water cycle. I keep movin’, movin’ ‘cause I’m the water cycle.”   The students even made up hand motions to accompany the song,

So, explore music, check out and enjoy new kinds of music.  I love to bring new genres of music into my Pandora playlist.  Be bold and adventurous and learn a new musical instrument.  This is a way to grow in fresh and sometimes surprising ways.  In the past, research made links between students learning music and doing better in math.  Now, research shows that students that learn music do better in all subjects and that learning music helps the brain to make connections that it would not normally make.  Mature adults are encouraged to learn to play musical instruments to keep the brain active and healthy.  I taught guitar to a woman whose retirement gift was a guitar a month of lessons.  What a thoughtful and potent gift.  I tell people to learn guitar by taking lessons or they can teach themselves by viewing lessons on YouTube.  Music is a gift.  Enjoy it.

Here are three relevant quotes about music:

“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” 
― Confucius, The Book of Rites

 “Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.” 
― Khalil Gibran

“Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.” 
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer