Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something that has not been said before. He hopes the public will listen and understand what he wants to teach them, and what he wants them to learn from him.

    What visual(视觉的)artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain,because painters translate their experience into shapes and colours, not words. They seem to feel that a certain selection of shapes and colours, out of countless billions of, is exceptionally interesting for them and worth showing to us. Without their work we should never have noticed these particular Shapes and colours. or have felt the delight which they brought to the artist.

      Most artists take their shapes and colours from the world of nature and from human bodies in motion and at rest; their choices indicate(指示)that these aspects of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful sights. Contemporary(当代的)artists might say that they merely choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose entirely without reference to the character of their subjects.

    If one painter chooses to paint a decaying(腐烂)leg and another a lake in moonlight, each of them is directing our attention to a certain aspect of the world. Each painter is telling us something, showing us something, emphasizing something-all of which means that, consciously(有意识地)or unconsciously, he is trying to teach us.

    There are many different kinds of music in the world . Let's read some kinds of them .

Classical Music

    Classical music is a form（形式）of music needing high musical skills . If you wish to learn this kind of music , you have to go through proper training .

Metal Music

    Metal music came out after the Second World War . The melody（旋律）of the song is heavily influenced（影响）by the structure（结构）for it . It is also known as “ information music ”. While in metal music , songwriting is based on（以……为基础）a form .

Hip-hop Music

    This music always includes the use of instruments such as the guitar , violin , piano , bass , drums and so on . In this type of music , the bass is the main instrument . It was first played by a group of travelling singers and poets（诗人）of West Africa .

Opera Music

    It first appeared in Italy in the 1600s . It has a great mixture（混合物）of theatrical art and musical invention and is used to playing in the theaters .

Jazz Music

    This type of music has strong and complex（复杂的）melodies . The main musical instruments are comet , trumpet or violin , that help carry the melody .

    Besides these , there are many others such as the blues , new age music , Celtic music , religious music and chamber music .

    Music and Art will enter the Entrance Exam for the high school in Jiangsu. Without music, life would be a mistake. Music is a big part of our lives. But in recent years, some US schools have cut music classes to control budgets (预算).

    For example, Chicago public schools hurt arts education when it fired (解雇) over 1,000 teachers. Among them, 10 percent of the teachers taught art or music, according to The Washington Times. In fact, this is not just a problem in the US. In other countries, such as China and the UK, music classes are not thought to be as important as ones like science, math and history. That's partly because music is not seen as a very important life skill, and it isn't tested. Many students are busy with schoolwork, so parents and students choose to focus on subjects that are tested more often.

    However, learning music is beneficial (有益的) in many ways.

    When playing music, you need different abilities to work together. It is not as simple as it looks, according to Kenneth Guilmartin of Music Together, an early childhood music development program. For example, when playing the piano, people see music notes and decode (解码) them in their brains. They also use their fingers to make sounds. You need to deal with all these things at the same time.

    Music has a special connection with science as well. You can see that many scientists are good at playing music: Einstein played the violin, and German physicist Max Planck was talented in playing the piano.

    Zheng He was an amazing man. He was born in 1371. Ten years later, he was caught by the army of a rich young man called Zhu Di and made to work for him. Over time the rich man saw that Zheng He was very clever and strong and they became close friends. In 1403 Zhu Di became the king of China and he asked Zheng He to join his government.

    The king wanted to learn more about the world and show other countries his power. He ordered many new ships to be built and made Zheng He their leader. Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He led some sea trips to different parts of the world. He certainly travelled to India, Africa and the Middle East. A few people think his ships have even reached South America and Australia.

    Each trip lasted more than one year and it is believed he sailed more than 50,000 kilometres during the years of his travels. Zheng He led a fleet with about 28, 000 men and over 250 ships, such as boats for food, water and even soldiers horses.

    On these trips he took many Chinese goods like silk and medicine with him to give to foreign kings or to sell for local goods. He returned from each trip with boats which were filled with expensive things such as gold and treasures, foreign guests and strange animals like a giraffe.

    It is a pity that we may never learn everything about Zheng He's travels. The Columbus of the East, Zheng He, died in 1433. After that. The new king had these trips stopped and he burned almost all the books about Zheng He's travels, because he believed the trips were unlucky and too expensive. It is only in the last 50 years that historians have begun to carefully study the adventures of great Zheng He.

    Green is an important color in nature. It is also the color of most growing plants. Sometimes the word green means young, fresh and growing. Sometimes it describes something that is not yet ripe(成熟的) or finished. For example, a greenhorn is someone who has no experience, who is new to a situation. In the fifteenth century, a greenhorn was a young cow or ox whose horns had not yet developed. A century or so later, a greenhorn was a soldier who had not yet had any experience in battle. By the eighteenth century, a greenhorn had the meaning it has today—a person who is new in a job.

    Someone who has the ability to grow plants well is said to have a green thumb. The expression comes from the early 1900s. A person with a green thumb seems to have a magic touch that makes plants grow quickly and well. You might say that the woman next door has a green thumb if her garden continues to grow long after your plants have died.

    The Green Revolution is the name given some years ago to the development of new kinds of rice and other grains. The new plants produced much larger crops. The Green Revolution was the result of hard work by agricultural scientists who had green thumbs.

    Green is also the color used to describe the powerful emotion, jealousy(嫉妒). The green-eyed monster is not a frightening creature from outer space. It describes the unpleasant feeling a person has when someone has something he wants. A young man may suffer from the green-eyed monster if his girlfriend begins going out with someone else. Or, that green-eyed monster may affect your friend if you get a pay raise and she does not.

    Do you know Roma people? They were called Gypsies(吉普赛人) by Europeans because they thought they came from Egypt(a country in Africa). About a thousand years ago, the Roma people left their homeland. They are known as nomads because for hundreds of years many of them have lived in large groups that travel from place to place. They have no real homeland.

    Today, the Roma are now living all over the world. They have kept their language and many customs. For example, it's important for Roma to marry other Roma. It's also a custom for parents to choose the person their children will marry. Roma people get married when they are young, sometimes even as young as 14.

    Romany is the language of the Roma people, which was written down only recently. Because the Roma are nomadic and have moved all over the world, their language has developed in many different ways. It is sometimes hard for Roma in one part of the world to understand Roma from another part.

    Roma music is famous all over the world, because many Roma throughout history have been musicians. Their music has influenced many other kinds of music, like classical and jazz.

    Roma don't usually assimilate(同化) into host countries. Over many centuries, governments have forbidden them to marry each other, travel or wear their traditional bright clothes. They have their gold taken away from them—treasures (财富) from their parents and grandparents. They have been taken as slaves(奴隶), and have been forced to change their names.

    But today, the Roma are finding ways to live in peace with others while keeping the treasures of their culture. "There's a will within us to continue to live as a people," says George Kaslov, whose family arrived in New York from Russia a hundred years ago. "All the other ethnic(种族) groups who came to America assimilate gradually with time going; they lose their customs and language. But not the Roma. We hold out."