Editorial by - Tina Martin-Brown

Where words fail, music speaks. 
Hans Christian Andersen

Music is the shorthand of emotion. 
Leo Nikoleavich Tolstoy

Can you hear the music playing...?
Dictionaries and encyclopedias define music as "an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner." It is also defined as "any pleasing and harmonious sound" and "the sounds produced by singers or musical instruments." (Source: wordnet.princeton.edu) There are so many more definitions we could give to music, too many to explore here. Music is relative, subjective but also universal. It can mean many different things to many different individuals. The birds sing and we hear music, tribal drums a long time ago beat for life, death and many other reasons and yet still can be thought of as musical by others. If human beings lift their voices joyfully in unison or even in solitary it can still be called music. People use all sorts of creative objects to make what we call music. Even small babies learn at an early age to gurgle and hum. Many instruments have been created to make music, metal instruments, wooden instruments and any number of other materials that make a distinctive sound when manipulated for the sake of music. 

There are many theories regarding when and where music originated. Many agree that music began even before man existed. Historiographers point out that there are six periods of music and each period has a particular style of music that greatly contributed to what music is today. 
Renaissance means "rebirth" and in music this period brought about many changes in the way music was created and perceived. Musicologists have placed the beginning of written widespread music from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s when music was recorded in mass using a printing press. The Bay Psalm Book, Cambridge, Massachusetts, first book printed in British Colonial America, the entire Book of Psalms translated into English meter; indicating the dominance of religious music. Black slaves introduced songs based on Old Testament, stories in their worship services; It was the beginnings of Negro Spirituals. British soldiers sang "Yankee Doodle" to mock colonists; American adopted it as their own tune. "Johnny's Gone for a Soldier," adaptation of Irish folk tune, it was popular during American Revolutionary War. Then came the Star Spangle Banner, the first unofficial national anthem. Then the musical flood gates opened leading to operas, musicals, country western, gospel, blues , rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Now there Is every genre of music imaginable. Music alone could easily tell the complete tale of mankind. Where we have been, where we are right now and where we are going. If you could pick one song to be the theme song of your whole life so far, what would it be?