TOEFL Essay: the Importance of Music【海外投稿】

謝振禮老師海外投稿
    >People listen to music for different reasons at different times. Why is music important to many people? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
    Music pleases people and nobody likes noise. The opposite of noise is either sound or silence. Music is sound, no noise, from silence. As an art form whose medium is sound, music does not deal with thinking in words. In fact, when words leave off, music begins. The importance of music to many people largely lies in its magical expression in sound what words may fail. In fact, after silence what comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. Music works wonders in joining people together because of the power of its truth and beauty.
    Truth is embodied in music.. In many cultures, music is an essential part of life, regardless of what languages are spoken. Music is the language of truth, the universal language. Words can lie but music doesn't. The truth of music sticks to memory. Great music penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. That is probably why a good song outlives all sermons. At its best, music can prevail as a higher revelation than wisdom since people do not need any brains to music. Also, in many cultural activities like dancing, music plays an indispensable role. The true spirit of dancing goes with music. Dancers would look insane when music is not heard. In short, music is true to life.
    Much as painting, music is beauty. Musicians paint their pictures on silence just as a master painter does on canvas. The sound of music is heart's delight. Being a thing of beauty, a piece of great music is a joy forever. No other medium is like music in demonstrating that kind of beauty which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. It is so much akin to love that there are more love songs than anything else. It may be because love is beautiful with all its foolishness. And it seems anything too stupid to be spoken is sung. In the words of William Shakespeare: "If music be the food of love; play on."
    People listen to music at different times for different reasons, or for no reason at all. For a very few who think they do not know how to appreciate the sound of music in truth and beauty, try noise. As a matter of fact, there is no need to know about music to appreciate good music in which passions abound. Indeed, in music passions enjoy themselves. It may be said that all sounds of the earth are music because it is in the air. Besides, masterpieces of music are timeless. And what other reason to listen to music more practical than saying that music is the best means people have of digesting time? Those romantic about music may steal a line from John Keats: "Truth is beauty; beauty, truth." And music is both.