WE NEED MUSIC

 Why Classical Education, Acoustic Instruments, and the Arts Remain Essential to Human Flourishing

A NOURISH Essay by: Dr. Bobbi Kline  | Edited by: Lennard Goetze

We tend to speak about music as entertainment. We listen to it in the car, play it while exercising, stream it while preparing dinner, or attend a concert because we enjoy the experience. Music is consequently treated as something desirable, but optional—a cultural enrichment rather than a human necessity. 

I believe we should reconsider that assumption.

Music is not simply something human beings invented to entertain themselves. Across cultures and throughout human history, we have sung, hummed, drummed, danced, created instruments, painted, sculpted, and found ways to express experiences that ordinary language could not adequately contain. Art and music appear repeatedly in the human story because they address something fundamental within us. We are, in a very real sense, responsive to art.

From the perspective of NOURISH, that matters.

If nourishment means supporting the whole person—not merely supplying the body with calories, vitamins, medications, or exercise—then we must ask a larger question: What does a human being actually require in order to flourish? I would argue that music belongs somewhere in that answer.

The Brain Has to Work

I came to this question partly through my own experience as a classically trained cellist. Anyone who has seriously studied a string instrument understands that playing it is an extraordinarily complex activity.

Consider what is happening neurologically and physically. The two hands are performing very different tasks simultaneously. With the cello, one hand determines pitch, position, intonation, and vibrato while the other controls the bow—its speed, pressure, placement, articulation, and direction. Meanwhile, the musician is reading notation, maintaining rhythm, listening for intonation, anticipating what comes next, interpreting the composer, adjusting posture, responding emotionally, and, when playing with others, listening continuously to the ensemble.

The brain is extraordinarily busy. As I reflected in our conversation, instruments requiring two hands to operate independently demand significant neurological coordination. That makes learning an instrument relevant not only to artistic development but potentially to the way we think about keeping the brain engaged throughout life.  This becomes particularly interesting as we age. We readily discuss supplements, exercise, puzzles, diet, sleep, and other approaches intended to support cognitive health. Yet perhaps we should also think more seriously about activities that require the brain to remain actively engaged in complex, coordinated learning.

Learning music is difficult. That may be one of its greatest benefits.

Why Traditional Music Education Still Matters

This is also why I am concerned when traditional music education is regarded as expendable. Education is increasingly being mediated through screens. This is not necessarily good or bad in itself. Technology has created remarkable opportunities for access and learning. But we should be curious about what happens when one type of human activity replaces another.

Reading on a screen, for example, is not necessarily neurologically identical to reading a printed book. Different modes of receiving information ask different things of the brain. The important question is not simply whether new technologies are efficient, but how they may be changing the way our brains interact with information and the physical world.  The same question should be asked about music.

A child holding a violin is doing something very different from pressing “play.” A student sitting at a piano is not passively consuming content. A cellist learning Bach cannot swipe past the difficult measure. The student must remain with it. Listen. Adjust. Fail. Repeat. Listen again. Traditional music education therefore teaches something increasingly rare: sustained attention.

It also teaches discipline without eliminating creativity. It requires respect for structure while encouraging interpretation. And when music is performed collectively, it demands something else that our society urgently needs—the ability to listen to other people.

Music education is social education. Dr. Kline emphasized that learning and playing with others introduces an important interpersonal dimension beyond the production of the music itself. The experience can involve communication, cooperation, shared attention, enjoyment, and belonging.

An orchestra cannot function if everyone insists on being the soloist. That is not a bad lesson for civilization.

There Is Something Different About the Real Instrument

There is another distinction worth preserving as technology advances: the physical instrument itself. We can now synthesize astonishingly convincing sounds. Digital systems can reproduce orchestras. Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly become increasingly capable of composing and reproducing music.

But an acoustic instrument is a physical event. A cello vibrates against the body of the cellist. Strings move. Wood resonates. Air moves. Sound enters the room not merely as information transmitted through a speaker but as vibration created by natural materials in physical space.

As I said in the interview, synthesized classical music is simply not the same experience as an actual vibrating instrument. With strings, there is the vibration of the instrument and its natural materials—the wood, strings, bow, and resonance.

I want to be careful here. I am not claiming a physiological mechanism that has not been established. In fact, in our conversation I specifically noted that this is something I would like to see researched more carefully: What is the effect of acoustic vibration on the body and brain, and how might that differ from electronically reproduced sound?

That is a scientific question worth asking. But experientially, musicians already understand that there is a difference. You do not merely hear a cello. You feel one.

Music Nourishes More Than the Ear

Perhaps the most important reason to preserve music, however, is the simplest. Music allows us to feel.

It can create joy, but it can also help us experience sadness, longing, anger, tenderness, grief, hope, and transcendence. It gives form to emotions that sometimes resist ordinary language. That is not peripheral to health. It is part of being human.

In my conversation about NOURISH, I described music as something capable of helping us transcend on what I would call a soul level. But this is not only a spiritual or philosophical idea. Our experience of art also intersects with the body, stress, emotion, social engagement, and physiology.  This is where our definition of nourishment needs to expand.

We need nutritious food. We need movement. We need sleep. We need meaningful relationships. We need purpose. And I believe we also need beauty. We need art. We need music.

Not everyone needs to love Beethoven. Not everyone needs to play Bach. One person may find transcendence in Mozart and another in jazz, gospel, folk music, rock, percussion, singing, or simply humming a melody to a child. But we should resist the idea that because music cannot always be quantified in the same way as blood pressure or cholesterol, it is somehow less essential.

Schools should continue teaching it. Communities should continue supporting it. Parents should expose children to it. Musicians should continue performing it. Craftspeople should continue preserving the instruments that make it possible. And we should continue handing these traditions forward.

Because when we teach a child to play an instrument, restore a century-old cello, preserve the history of a musician, fund a school orchestra, or simply sit together and listen carefully to beautiful music, we are doing more than preserving the past.

We are nourishing the human capacity to feel, to listen, to learn, to connect—and ultimately, to remain fully human. — Dr. Bobbi Kline

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WE NEED MUSIC — PART II

The Cognitive, Physiological, and Social Dimensions of Music in an Increasingly Digital Society

A NOURISH Essay by: Dr. Bobbi Kline

In Part I, I considered music as more than a form of entertainment or cultural enrichment. Music occupies a significant place within human development because its creation and appreciation engage cognitive, emotional, physical, and social processes simultaneously. This broader perspective is consistent with the philosophy of NOURISH, which approaches health not simply as the absence of disease, but as a condition influenced by the many experiences and environments that support human flourishing.

There is an additional dimension to this discussion that warrants consideration. Contemporary society is experiencing a substantial transformation in how people learn, communicate, consume information, and experience art. Reading increasingly occurs on screens. Education is frequently delivered through digital platforms. Social interaction is mediated through electronic devices, and recorded or synthesized music is available almost continuously.

These developments have created substantial benefits and should not be characterized simply as detrimental. Nevertheless, technological efficiency should not prevent us from examining whether different forms of human activity engage us differently. The relevant question is not whether digital technology should be accepted or rejected, but what may change cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally as technologically mediated experiences increasingly replace embodied ones.

Music as a Complex Cognitive Activity

My own perspective on this subject is informed in part by my training as a classical cellist. Playing a string instrument requires a degree of simultaneous neurological and physical coordination that may not be immediately apparent to someone listening to a performance.

The two hands perform substantially different functions. In playing the cello, the left hand manages pitch, position, intonation, and vibrato, while the right hand controls the movement, pressure, speed, and placement of the bow. These movements occur while the musician reads notation, processes rhythm, listens critically to the resulting sound, anticipates subsequent passages, maintains physical positioning, and interprets the expressive requirements of the composition.

In the interview that prompted this essay, I reflected specifically on the independent use of both hands required by string instruments, piano, guitar, and other instruments. Such activity requires substantial coordination and cognitive engagement. I also raised the possibility that continuing to engage in complex musical activity may be relevant to maintaining an active brain as people age.

This observation should not be interpreted as a claim that musical training constitutes a treatment for cognitive aging. Rather, it illustrates a broader principle: learning an instrument represents a form of sustained, multidimensional engagement. It requires sensory processing, motor coordination, memory, concentration, auditory discrimination, timing, and continuous correction.

This is one reason music education should not be viewed exclusively as preparation for a musical career. Its educational value extends beyond the ability to perform a composition.

Digital Learning and the Importance of Embodied Experience

A related issue concerns the rapidly changing relationship between human cognition and digital technology.

During the interview, I referred to research discussions concerning differences between reading from a screen and reading from a printed book. My point was not that one medium is inherently superior to the other. Rather, different methods of interacting with information may require different patterns of cognitive activity. As digital technologies become increasingly integrated into daily life, it is reasonable to examine how these changes may influence the ways in which the brain processes information over time.

Music provides an instructive example of this distinction.

Listening to a recording and learning to produce music are fundamentally different activities. A student learning cello must establish a physical relationship with the instrument. The learner encounters resistance, repetition, errors in intonation, difficulties in coordination, and the gradual development of fine motor control. Improvement requires sustained attention and repeated correction rather than passive reception.

Traditional music education therefore preserves an important form of embodied learning. The value of this process does not depend upon opposition to technology. Digital tools can expand access to instruction, repertoire, recordings, and educational resources. The more appropriate objective is to ensure that technological convenience does not inadvertently displace forms of learning whose value derives partly from their physical and cognitive demands.

Music as a Social Activity

Musical participation also has an important interpersonal dimension. Although individual practice is often solitary, much of musical culture is inherently collaborative. Orchestras, chamber ensembles, choirs, bands, and other musical groups require participants to coordinate their individual performance with the actions of others.

During the interview, I emphasized that learning an instrument and playing with other people involve forms of social interaction whose value extends beyond the music produced.

Ensemble performance requires listening, attention, adjustment, cooperation, and awareness of other participants. A musician must understand when an individual part should become prominent and when it should support another. Timing must be shared. Interpretation must be negotiated, either explicitly through rehearsal or implicitly through attentive performance.

For children and adolescents in particular, these experiences represent another dimension of music education. Participation in an orchestra or ensemble is not simply instruction in musical technique; it also introduces students to a structured form of collective activity in which individual competence and group responsibility are interdependent.

This social dimension deserves greater consideration at a time when many forms of education, work, and recreation are becoming increasingly individualized and digitally mediated.

Acoustic Instruments and the Physical Experience of Sound

The distinction between acoustic and electronically reproduced music raises another area worthy of scientific and cultural consideration.

An acoustic string instrument produces sound through a physical sequence involving the movement of the strings, transmission of energy through the bridge, resonance of the wooden body, and displacement of air. For the musician, particularly with an instrument such as the cello, this is also a tactile experience because the vibrating instrument is in direct physical contact with the body.

In the interview, I observed that synthesized or electronically reproduced music does not provide precisely the same experience as an actual vibrating instrument. I was particularly interested in the combination of vibration and natural materials, including wood and strings, that characterizes traditional acoustic instruments.

It is important, however, to distinguish observation from established scientific conclusion. I specifically acknowledged that I had not researched the physiological or neurological consequences of this distinction and suggested instead that it would be an interesting subject for investigation.

Questions concerning the physiological experience of live acoustic music, bodily responses to vibration, and possible differences between live and electronically reproduced sound should therefore be presented as areas for research rather than established findings. This distinction is important, particularly when considering music within the context of health.

Nevertheless, the experiential difference remains relevant. The production of acoustic music involves a direct relationship among the musician, the instrument, physical materials, vibration, and the surrounding environment. Preserving acoustic instruments therefore preserves not only a historical technology for producing sound but also a distinctive form of human interaction with sound.

Art, Emotion, and the Broader Definition of Nourishment

The larger significance of music becomes clearer when considered within a whole-person framework.

Health is frequently discussed through measurable variables: nutrition, physical activity, sleep, cardiovascular function, metabolic markers, medications, and other clinical indicators. These are essential components of health, but they do not encompass the full range of experiences that influence human well-being.

Human beings also respond to relationships, nature, creativity, meaning, beauty, and opportunities for emotional expression. During the interview, I discussed art as something associated with joy and stress reduction and situated music within the much longer human history of artistic expression, including singing, humming, percussion, visual art, and other creative practices.

Music is particularly relevant because it provides a means of experiencing and expressing a broad range of emotions. Joy is only one of them. Music can also facilitate experiences of sadness, anger, longing, grief, reflection, and connection. I described this capacity as allowing people, at times, to transcend ordinary experience and suggested that this emotional dimension constitutes an important aspect of nourishing ourselves.

The word “nourishment,” in this context, should therefore not be restricted to nutrition. As I stated toward the conclusion of the interview, what nourishes us may be understood on what might be called a “soul level,” while also recognizing that these experiences occur within—and affect—a physiological human organism.

Preserving Music as Part of Education

This broader perspective has implications for how society approaches music education.

The justification for maintaining music programs should not depend solely upon producing future professional musicians. Most students who study an instrument will pursue careers in other fields. This does not diminish the value of their musical education.

Music provides an environment in which students practice concentration, coordination, interpretation, repetition, listening, cooperation, and creative expression. Classical training is particularly valuable within this context because it connects these processes to a substantial historical repertoire and a pedagogical tradition transmitted across generations.

The objective should not be to position classical music in opposition to contemporary forms of music. Nor should preservation imply resistance to technological development. A healthy musical culture can accommodate classical, jazz, folk, popular, electronic, and emerging forms while continuing to preserve the educational traditions and acoustic instruments that have contributed to centuries of musical development.

What warrants concern is not change itself, but the possibility that valuable forms of human learning may disappear simply because their benefits are difficult to quantify or because newer alternatives are more convenient.

From the perspective of NOURISH, the continuation of music education therefore represents more than cultural preservation. It represents an investment in forms of cognitive engagement, physical coordination, social participation, emotional expression, creativity, and human connection that have accompanied societies across generations.

Music should remain available not only for those who demonstrate exceptional talent, but for children and adults who may benefit from the process of learning, practicing, listening, and participating.

The preservation of music education is ultimately not an argument for returning to the past. It is an argument for determining which elements of the past remain important to human development as we construct the future.

Music, and the human experience of creating it, deserves to be among them.

— Dr. Bobbi Kline

 

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EXTRA

Barrie Kolstein and the Responsibility of Preservation

Additionally, this is why the forthcoming memoir of Barrie Kolstein is particularly timely. Kolstein represents a world in which music is not separated from craftsmanship, education, mentorship, history, and stewardship. His family story reaches deeply into the history of American classical and jazz music and into the preservation and restoration of the instruments through which that music was created.

The story begins prominently with his father, Samuel Kolstein, an accomplished musician who studied at Juilliard and developed from pianist into bassist under the influence of the renowned Frederick Zimmermann. What followed became a remarkable American tradition of musicianship, instrument restoration, bow making, mentorship, and innovation.

The Kolstein workshops became gathering places for significant musicians. The memoir describes a world populated by figures such as Scott LaFaro, George Duvivier, Milt Hinton, Percy Heath and many others—not merely as famous names, but as musicians whose instruments, friendships, teaching, and stories became intertwined with the Kolstein family.

Barrie ultimately represents something larger than the occupation of luthier. He represents stewardship. One of the most compelling examples is the restoration and preservation of Scott LaFaro's famous Prescott bass. Rather than treating the instrument merely as property to be bought and sold, the Kolsteins preserved it, restored it, made it available for significant performances and recordings, and ultimately donated it to the International Society of Bassists so that the instrument and its history could be shared with future generations. That is what cultural preservation looks like.