Music: An Integral Part of the Montana Life

Ilse Mari-Lee | Director, Montana State University Honors College

Hello. I’m Ilse Mari-Lee. I’ve lived in Montana longer than anywhere else in my life. I’ve been here for 22 years now. I moved from South Africa, where I was born. I love Montana because of the high plains and the open skies and, you know, maybe the Dutch people in Manhattan resonate with me. If I go to their farmers market, they look like my cousins!

But today I would like to talk to you about the power of music.

I’ve been at Montana State since I first moved here and have loved teaching here. What an incredible place to call home and what an incredible place to raise a daughter, and to experience life to the fullest. The beauty of the natural surroundings, the integrity and work ethic of the people, what an incredible place.

I started researching the state when I realized I had the job and knew I was going to teach Cello at Montana State University. I thought, “Boy, are there even Cellists in Montana?” Well there are eight symphony orchestras in the state of Montana. And all these orchestras are doing well. The Bozeman Symphony sells out with subscriptions and ticket sales to all of their performances. It is extraordinary. Many orchestras in the country would love to have statistics like that. In Bozeman we have an opera company; we have an opera company in Billings. We have organizations such as Classics for Kids or Arts without Boundaries, which provide students with instruments who can’t afford them. Every student in the fifth grade and above in Montana will have the opportunity to take an instrument, whether it is in band, choir, or orchestra.

As a mom driving to school in the morning, taking my daughter to school, I look at bus stops and they are full of little kids with trumpets and cellos. And of course the cellos always get a little smile from me. But there they are, going to school, and part of their curriculum is music.

So let me talk about the positive aspects of music. We know that music can uplift, and music can make you feel good, and music can bring you to tears, and music can be the soundtrack of your life in many, many ways. But now we are beginning to understand what music can do as an educational tool. The statistics are out there. Rather than have me bore you with numbers, just go to the Music Educators National Conference website and look at the statistics at what will happen if a student has the opportunity to take music in school. Suddenly their SAT and ACT scores will sky rocket. It’s just incredible what a gift it is to the development of the brain, of critical thinking, firing across both hemispheres of the brain, with music.

Nothing else can do it like music.

Music provides the enjoyment of actually living in a piece of art. You don’t have to go to a museum to experience Beethoven, you go to the symphony orchestra, you listen to it on you mp3, or you play it on your cello. You experience the art. This is very important. We know that music can uplift. We know that it has great benefits intellectually in the development of our students. As stewards of the land and as stewards of the future generations of Montanans, please don’t let that fall away in your school district. If you’re on the board in your school district and someone wants to argue that music should not be part of the curriculum, you can remind them that Plato felt that music was part of a classical education.

Gymnastics for the body; music for the mind.

And make no mistake, we would not have had an Einstein if we didn’t have a piano or violin teacher. He felt that all his inspiration came from music. Research that. You’ll find it. It is very, very, extraordinary and very powerful.

Music therapy, we know now, can help students with ADD. People with constant symptoms, such as Alzheimer’s can have their conditions alleviated with music therapy. One of my very good friends, a music therapist, will go to hospice patients and not only comfort the patient, struggling in their last days or hours of life, but also give comfort to the people around. In those moments, music is of special importance.

We value the transformative power of music.

Now I know there has always been this generational gap between the music I listen to and the music you listen to. But I was pretty hip when I was your age. And I do listen to AC/DC, Grateful Dead, and Guns N’ Roses, and I really shock people with my knowledge of Rock. But be careful what you let in. When you listen to music I want you to be very careful and ask yourself, “What does this music make me feel like? Do I feel anger? Are these lyrics something I buy into?” You have to remember that the minute you let it in it’s going to have an effect on you. Music is so powerful. It can be a drug, it can be a drug that makes you feel positive. But it can also take on emotions and make you feel out of control. It can depress you. As much as it can uplift, it also has the power to make you feel downtrodden.

Listen to this. This is Aristotle 2,300 years ago: “Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul…when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued with the same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form.”

Just think about it. Your whole character can be shaped by the music you are listening to. Be careful out there.

And from a physiological standpoint, when you have that mp3 ear bud in your ear canal, 83 decibels and above can cause hearing loss. Most of them are capable of producing up to 100 and 115 decibels. If the person next to you can listen to what you’re listening to, it’s way too loud. Remember, hearing loss is irreversible. It can be gone forever. Nothing is as frustrating as to be in a conversation and not be able to zero in on one particular conversation, a skill which only humans and dogs can do. It is that precision and those edges of sounds that we lose when we damage our earl canals.

You’ve seen people with hearing aids struggling. Their worst case scenario is to be in a crowd because they can’t distinguish what is near from what is far. So guard you ears. It is the only pair you will ever have. Be careful is all I’m saying.

We live in a country with so much opportunity, so much freedom. Because we have the opportunities for all kinds of recreation, make sure to guard what comes in. Just as you’re eating good food or supporting local businesses, make sure that the music that comes in is healthful and good for you. Because believe me, it can uplift.

I wish for all of you, in your lifetime, the opportunity to go and hear a phenomenal concert. Whether the concert is the Rolling Stones or the Grand Teton Music Festival or Aspen Orchestra, I want you to walk into a concert where the musicians on stage just make your jaw drop. I want your jaw to drop because they are that good, they know their craft. Let me give you an example: Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. I want you to listen to that last movement and feel as though you are lifting out of your feet. I want you to soar. Music can do that.

I want you to experience music that can uplift, that can really restore your soul and make you feel good and make you feel humanly alive and grateful that you’re experiencing life at such a heightened state.

If I reflect on the last 20 years here in Montana I think of hundreds of concerts I’ve given, honestly hundreds of them, many of them in Reynolds Recital Hall on campus. Probably one of my favorite memories of all the 20 years was touring with Classical Guitarist Stuart Weber. He is really a Montana composer. We traveled across the state, me with my cello and him with his guitar.

We were in Kalispell, and we played in a park, right there in the center of town, near the gazebo. It started raining at the concert, but it didn’t matter; it was one of those magical summer evenings in Montana. Cello and guitar are so intimate, and the more we played, the more people got into the concert. We played throughout the rain, and afterwards many people came up and expressed their appreciation, but there was one I will never forget. A real cowboy came up to me. He had his black cowboy hat on his chest and he said, “Ma’am, I’ve always loved the guitar. But the cello can make you cry.”

I thanked him very, very much, and felt that as an artist and a musician that was it. That was the highest compliment and the highest praise.

I think of myself as a Montanan. I think of myself as a Montanan with an accent. I’ve come to call this place home, and I believe Montana is a state that is in great hands. I think of our educational system. I think of our state, the beauty of the country. I think of our wide open spaces. I would like to say to you today that I, Ilse Mari-Lee, believe that the state is in good shape because we take care of our own. We have music in the schools, music in the orchestras, and we have great opportunities for students and access to great music.

Let’s keep it that way.

Thanks.