THE ETERNAL SONG

All music – regardless of time, place, or style – springs from the same fundamental human impulse. It is our shared heartbeat, our communal story, a gift we give to each other across generations. When we make music in the present moment, we are in dialogue with every musical moment that has ever happened. In a very real sense, when you play a note, you join a cosmic melody that has been sounding since the first human sang or drummed. Present Music is about being aware of this grand context as we create and listen.

Imagine music as a great tree: the deepest roots are the drone of a bone flute in a cave, the clap of stones together, the earliest lullaby – simple expressions of life in sound. From those roots grew branches – different cultures, styles, innovations – spreading in myriad directions. Some branches seem far apart (say, Tuvan throat singing vs. French Impressionist piano music), but trace them down and they join at the trunk. With Present Music, we don’t lop off the branches and separate them; we climb to see how they all connect. We water the roots while enjoying the freshest fruits. We honor the folk singer and the DJ, the violinist and the beat-maker, seeing them as collaborators in the human project of music.

In this view, music is a continuum, not a competition. It is astonishing and beautiful that a 250- year-old piece by Bach can bring a room to tears today – that tells us the core of melody and harmony truly touches something universal. It is equally astounding that a teenager on a laptop can create a sound that no one has heard before – that tells us the human creative spirit is inexhaustible. Both truths co-exist. Present Music is the philosophy that welcomes both, that says yes to tradition and yes to innovation.

By analyzing and teaching music through melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, atmosphere, we give young musicians the tools to time-travel and teleport: to learn from any era or culture and to contribute something new that is meaningful. We free them from the false narrative that you must choose between being a curator of the past or an iconoclast of the future. In Present Music, those are the same mission.

Ultimately, music is about connection – between people, and between people and the cosmos. There’s a reason we describe a great groove as “in the pocket” or say singers “resonate” with the audience. When music truly happens, everyone involved feels present and unified. The composer Gustav Mahler once said, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” In Present Music, we carry the fire forward. We use the torch our ancestors lit, not to gaze backward at a shrine, but to light the way ahead and ignite new fires. We treat the entire history of music as a living toolbox for creation and understanding.

Let us imagine a future where music education is taught this way: where a student might in the same breath study a Bach fugue, a Navajo chant, and a Stevie Wonder song – and understand why each moves us, identifying the five elements at play. That student will not only be extremely well-equipped to create original music; they will also be a more empathetic listener, able to find beauty in unfamiliar sounds. In a world that often fractures people by background or belief, music can be a profound unifier. A cosmic melody is playing – an unbroken song of humanity – and each of us is a note in it. Present Music asks us to listen for that melody, add our voice to it, and pass it on.

In the end, being present in music is akin to being present in life: it requires openness, curiosity, and courage. We must be as curious as ethnomusicologists, as technically grounded as scientists, and as fearless as pioneers. When we are, music becomes more than entertainment; it becomes a force of understanding. It becomes a present (gift) to the artist, to the listener, and to the very source of inspiration.

We stand here, at this moment in 2025, with centuries of music behind us and centuries to come, holding hands with our musical ancestors and descendants in one great agora of sound.

This is the Present Music Manifesto: a call to embrace music in its totality – past, present, and future – as a living, connected, essential art. Let’s remember that every beat, every note, every timbre is part of a larger heartbeat, a grand narrative, a shining universal pulse that grooves through all of time.

Sound is time travel – when you press play, the past becomes present. Sound is vibration – when you sing or play, you move the air that touches someone else’s soul. Sound is communion – when we truly listen, we realize we are all part of one chorus.

So let’s make Present Music.
Let’s be Present Musicians.
By doing so, we don’t just create new songs;
we participate in the eternal song –
the one that started long before us and will continue long after.
In that sense, music is always now – always a present.
And what a miraculous present it is.

音乐把我们带入当下，同时连接古今；让我们聆听彼此，也聆听我们共同的心声。
(Music brings us into the present, connecting past and future; it lets us hear each other, and the voice we share in our hearts.)