Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Role of music in culture
The Many Sides of Music
Music is the most diverse form of art in existence. In modern days, some may view music as merely a bass heavy atmospheric tool for a night of clubbing and mischief, but despite this minority perspective, music is by no means purely background noise. Music is not only a beat, a rhythm, melody, lyrics, and a voice; it can change lives.
Since what I would say was the early 1990's, music has taken a turn into seemingly meaningless club anthems and repetitive hooks with heavy bass and shallow lyrics. While I can enjoy an upbeat poppy tune, there is no depth present, there is no thought put behind such creations. I have found that culturally underground music is much more poignant, as well as more emotionally relevant and revelatory than your standard Billboard top 100 single, as such is usually produced for financial gain rather than cathartic expression.
Emotional relevance can form in any number of ways, both on a personal level, and on a societal scale. There is something to be said for music that is created as a product of emotion, as it more often than not captures the audiences sympathy. Music that an audience can relate to, and can identify with is more likely to stick with the audience in question. Personal connections transform the way we view music and specific songs, but with the massive exposure to music lacking depth and meaning, we are taking larger and larger cultural steps backwards. Not only in our ability to express personal values, morals, and individualist qualities, but in the way that we interact with each other and construct emotional ties.
Music education has always been an underappreciated concept, but as a future teacher it terrifies me to know that there are children that be...
... middle of paper ...
...gether, my points on the many dimensions of music stand. Not only does music harbor emotional capacity, potential for empowerment, and uniquely represent self, it does in fact change lives.
Works Cited
"Music Therapy and Social Justice: A Personal Journey" by Sandra Lynn Curtis, from the journal
The Arts in Psychotherapy. Volume 39. 2012. 209–213
This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin, Chapter 8
“My Favorite Things”. Plume (Publishing company), 2006, New York
Kiana Lafleche. Songs That Transcend Boundaries. 2013. Playlist.
"Outline of a Proposed Model of Sources of Variation in Musical Taste." by Albert LeBlanc, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. No.61. (Winter, 1980): 29-34. Web. 11
Dec. 2013. .
Music is something that I believe we could not live without. There is a quote by a philosopher named Friedrich Nietzschethat says “without music, life would be a mistake”. I interpret this to mean that humans would not be creative if it were not for music. There is a reason that music can take us where word cannot. When you hear so many different sounds coming together to make a perfect harmony it is obvious that no words can make you feel the same way as the music. The best thing about music is that there are literally too many genres to choose from. There are different genres of music for any mood you are in. The origins behind these different genres is an interesting and rich history that is begging to be studied and written about. Let me explain....
I have always believed that a musician writes music to express his/her emotions, thoughts, and beliefs in a way that can be both hidden and quite apparent to their listeners at the same time. It can be viewed as a release or a medium through which to share an experience. These artists attempt to relate to their listeners and even hope to provide the listener with the words to express their own feelings. Music has proven to be a very important part of society, both past and present, for just this reason: expression. This medium of expression becomes even more important when the feelings being expressed are those which are not easily accepted by society.
Knox, Richard A. "Sweet Taste in Music May Be Human Trait, Harvard Study Finds." Boston Globe, 5 September 1996, pp.A6.
Music is something that everybody has a connection to. Sometimes it evokes memories of a childhood long ago or someone in your life that connected with you in your most vulnerable moment. However, music has an origin. It has been around since the time man began to express himself. It is the most organic of all art forms, and it continues to manifest itself in many different forms that seem to fit in all aspects of our lives, no matter how complicated or how trivial it may seem. At the core, music represents all that is good or bad in the world. It’s a way people from all over this globe can relate to one another without ever speaking a chosen language.
Peter J. Rentfrow, Lewis R. Goldberg, and Daniel J. Levitin reveal in their article, The Structure of Musical Preferences: A Five-Factor Model that, "It (music) is composed of specific auditory properties, communicates emotions, and has strong social connotations. There is eviden...
For this paper, I listened the RadioLab episode on musical language. I chose this one because, being a musician myself, I’ve always been interested in the psychology behind music, specifically why certain sounds can so drastically alter our emotion. After all, they’re all just vibrations. So what is it about some vibrations that make them so much more significant to us than others? This is one of the primary questions addressed in this podcast.
Many take music for granted and just perceive it as a form of entertainment for centuries, but it is utilized for much more than just entertainment. From therapy to politics, it has been deemed useful for various reasons.
By assimilating multiple studies and experiments, Krumhansl gives multiple angles on the psychological aspects of music, which allows the reader to have a well-rounded understanding on how music affects human emotions. With an organized paper, all subjects discussed are condensed into dense paragraphs, so as to not add any irrelevancies. They only attribute that could be improved on is in the section testing the universality of emotion through different genres of music and cultural groups. Collectively, it states that all music provokes expectation and tension, but in different ways. An interesting addition to the section would be to test modern music and its effects on emotion. Classical music and traditional European and Asian music are cornerstones in music history, but with modern music, the experiments would have more modern relevancy. Perhaps a comparison between classical and modern music might have insightful information within it. In conclusion, Krumhansl concentrated useful information to produce a versatile paper with little need for
Music means many things to many people. Music has the power to transcend boundaries, motivate, inspire and influence our emotions among other things. Throughout my life music played an important role, especially during my more troubling moments. Many of my dearest and fondest memories are easily relived by merely listening to music. My musical tastes have changed as I have grown. During different time periods in my life my musical sensibilities provided the soundtrack that I lived by.
The world of music is full of songs from variety of genres that include pop, rock and roll, country, and has a way of effecting us. It’s found in almost every part of the earth, as a way of making the world more derive, and helps a way to relieve stress from our daily lives in this world. But, no matter what genre someone listens to, everyone has the favorite songs they like to play in the car or on their phones. As Billy Joel once said ‘’I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by, no matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music’’. I consider many songs from different artists related to Gun N’ Roses, Bon Jovi, Green Day, and Daniel
According to dictionary.com, music is “an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, and color.” Music is the product of sound waves coming from anything making a melodic tone. There are different genera’s of music, ranging from rock to pop to classical. Each person likes different genera’s of music.
Music is one of the most influential notions available to human beings. It has influenced my existence in ways I never would have presumed it would. The earliest form of music was first prominent around 4000 BCE by the Egyptians in the form of a percussion based instrument, similar to a drum. Ever since the dawn of time, people have been incorporating music in their essence. Whether it is the chirping of birds melodically, or the beat of a band on stage. Music has evolved in ways much more beyond theme and tune. It has emerged into a doctrine. It has become so much more than just a beat. Music is empowering, a mood-changer, strength in hard times, a memory creator, and so much more. The beauty of music is more importantly what it is to each
Music is an essential part of life because of the expression it allows people to have, its entertainment, and its therapeutic ways for the world.
Harvard Health Publishing. (2011, July). Music and health-Harvard Health. Retrieved December 13, 2017, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-health/music-and-health