Are They Musical Convictions or Preferences? Part 1

 

Are They Musical Convictions or Preferences? Part 1

 

What the music educator firmly believes about the nature and value of music at its deepest levels should exude from that musician’s musical convictions.  A musical conviction is the strong feeling of being sure that what that musician believes about music is true and therefore must be followed.   A musical preference is different in that it is a greater liking for one musical alternative over another.  As the reader can see there is a dramatic difference between the two terms.

I am not only passionate about my about my philosophic music convictions, I am also passionate about the philosophical preferences that I have which I earnestly believe are important to excellence in musicing. However, there is something that I have learned over the years that has helped me.  I have learned that some of my preferences do not matter enough to cause me to break fellowship with other musicians who disagree with me. In the light of what words spoken do to relationships, most musical preferences really do not matter as much as we think they do when the waves of adversity and disagreement are blowing.  At these times we all find that we need Christian musical friendship more than having our way musically.   What we need to do in these times is let the blessed Holy Spirit be our rudder to help us stay out of “foot in mouth disease” and remain on course musically.