Jean-Marc Nattier French painter
Every night at my dinner table when I grew up, my mom would light candles on the dining room table and put on some kind of music. My father used to play a "horn" as he would call it, and was of the Glen Miller sort of musician. He wiggled and danced and always whistled through life. A businessman in the day, but played at life and always loved having music around.
This is one habit I picked up and found myself providing in my own home: music every night--even if we had cereal or toast and cheese, we just made music and candles and talking an anchor in our day. Without realing it, this music had profound influence on my children's tastes and appetites on their lives. I then began to see that music helped in so many areas.
Giving my children Michael Card's lullabys at night (sleep sound in Jesus) when they went to bed, Steve Green's music to verses for children as they readied for bed; or Avalon or Rich Mullins or Josh Groban when we washed dishes or cleaned house, seemed to smooth the way.
Riding in cars on long trips to conferences found all of us constantly listening to and sharing music of every sort--from classical to celtic to Christian worship music to indy artists. We all got through so much of life with music as our companion. With Clay as a guitarist and both of us singers, we had melodies surrounding our home morning, noon and night.
Scripture tells us to, "make melody in our hearts to God," and he commanded the Levites to have those who played music every hour of the day. Angels sang at the birth of Jesus, David had an orchestra playing with choir singing when bringing in the arc of the Lord. Music honors God, and somehow is a mysterious part of life and beauty for us in His design and creation. Even the stars sang, Job tells us, at creation--melody must have been in God's heart from the beginning.
How fun it was to me to read these articles and see just how important music is to our brains and to helping cultivate happiness, well-being and even undergirds intelligence development. Enjoy these articles.