Creating Harmony

The following post is an introduction to a webinar on May 13 by Marc Hays and Matthew Bianco.

Harmony is a liberal art, or as Andrew Kern is wont to say, “a liberating art”—an art that sets its student free in a way that only truth can. Since considering the nature and purpose of a thing is central to thinking, speaking, and acting with propriety, then learning about the nature and purpose of harmony is central to wisely living the life of virtue, i.e., an appropriately lived life.

Two years ago, I resigned from my post as a curriculum developer and returned to my lifelong trade of land surveying in order to focus on curriculum development. This may seem a bit odd but, making a living as a curriculum developer meant that I had to focus on what my employer wanted me to focus on, rather than what I wanted to focus on, and rightly so. I was an employee after all. Now, by day I measure and subdivide land; but in the wee hours of the morning, I rise to consider harmony, to read about harmony, to write about harmony, and to discover and create harmonies as I develop a plan to incorporate the liberal art of harmony into the entire course of a child’s education.

You may be thinking, “There are plenty of music curricula out there,” and you’d be right, but I am not talking about developing another music curriculum; I am talking about a harmony curriculum. Music, as we generally use the term, refers to one part of harmony—one kind of harmony among the several kinds. However, the whole of harmony as a liberal art consists of the trinity of instrumental music, cosmic music, and human music.

 Musica instrumentalis, or instrumental music, is what we hear with our ears and feel in our chests whenever a singer sings or a musician plays. Cosmic music, or musica mundana, also known as the music of the spheres, is the harmony that structures the heavens. Ptolemy hypothesized the epicycles of the planets, Copernicus theorized heliocentricity, and Kepler discovered elliptical orbits by searching for the mathematical harmonies in the motion of the heavenly spheres. The third kind of harmony, musica humana, or human music, occurs within each person and within human society as a community of persons. If a person is physically healthy, then the body is working harmoniously. When a person is spiritually healthy, the human soul is in a harmonious relationship with its Creator. In the larger community, human harmony can be assessed and improved through a proper consideration of concordant and discordant relationships.

From a biblical perspective, the Preacher in Ecclesiastes alludes to human harmony as a resolution of tensions that come and go throughout our lives like the seasonal cycles of the year.

The Preacher explains:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-7)

The goal of my curricular endeavor is for teachers to teach, and for students to learn, harmony as a whole. If this all sounds a bit lofty, I agree. It is bigger than I am, so thankfully I am surrounded by the voices of those who have come before, as well as the voices of those who are still here now. Hence, on May 13, Matthew Bianco and I will be holding a public conversation about harmony in Plato’s Timaeus. Matt will be with me. Plato will not be joining us, but his writings will, so in a sense, he will be there, too.

This webinar is a first step for me, while at the same time, it is the continuation of something I’ve been pursuing my entire life. It is a continuation for me as I have been singing and playing musical instruments from the children’s choir at church to elementary band to high-school marching band and private piano lessons. I majored in music theory and composition in college participating in as many choirs, ensembles, and bands as would have me. As an adult, I’ve taught music in the classroom, given private lessons, and even written a couple of as-yet-unpublished music theory textbooks.

This webinar is also a first step for me. It is my personal launch into the current, public conversation about what the liberal art of harmony is and what it means to study it, to teach it, to learn it, and to apply it to the myriad of human relationships. I am thankful for the opportunity the CiRCE Institute has granted me, my friend Matt Bianco for joining me, and all of you who will enter into this conversation with me. See you on May 13.