How Music Affect Our Life? Essay Example

Introduction

It is easy to only accept that music is important to most people and not explore it beyond this.  After all, it is generally agreed that listening to it is pleasurable.  It tends to create feelings of happiness, relaxation, exhilaration, and even sadness which is desirable.  This is so universally felt, then, that most people are content to enjoy the effects.  At the same time, however, this same quality of pleasure must have direct effects on people, their behaviors, and their lives themselves, simply because music is so popular.  This in turn leads to much to explore.  There are aspects to the question that are many and important; however, several of these are discussed in the following, and they help in understanding at least in part how music very definitely affects our lives, and in ways removed from simple enjoyment.

Discussion

One source that adds great meaning to the issue goes to the actual mental processes identified with music’s effects.  Norman Weinberger’s article of 1998, “Brain, behavior, biology, and music: Some research findings and their implications for educational policy,” published in the Arts Education Policy Review, presents the science, or as much of it was then known, behind the power of music on the emotions.  More exactly, modern study of the brain reveals that there are pathways not before identified, and which exist to actually anticipate and process music: “An increasing amount of research supports the theory that the brain has specialized building blocks used in music” (Weinberger 31).  Essentially, modern thinking holds that music is by no means merely culturally important; it has deep biological roots as well.  The auditory cortex, for example, does not only process raw sound, but it also channels the sounds into psychological abstractions.  This science is remarkable because it indicates how music may well be a vital party of the human experience in terms of physical and mental functioning.  Put another way, people like music because, in a sense, they are built to appreciate and use it.

This then connects to Thaut’s and Davis’s 1993 article, “The influence of subject-selected versus experimenter-chosen music on affect, anxiety, and relaxation,” in the Journal of Music Therapy.  The authors conduct a study involving 54 university students assessed in terms of how music chosen for them affects them in contrast to how their own choices have impact.  Not unexpectedly, all of the participants experienced positive effects from all the music.  What is revealed, however, is that the type of music is less important, in terms of creating relaxation and a sense of well-being, than the fact of the listener actually choosing the music (Thaut, Davis pp.219-220).  This was found to be true no matter the kind of music either chosen by the subjects or by the assessors, and this then goes to a powerful psychological factor.  It indicates that people are so intimately connected to music, its effects are strongly related to individual ideas of what exactly it should be.  In a sense, the study argues that even anticipation of music has an effect because it is “a part” of the person’s psychological being.

Then, Consuming Music Together: Social and Collaborative Aspects of Music Consumption Technologies by O’Hara and Brown, published in 2006 by Springer, adds another dimension to the effects of music, and one seemingly removed from musical appreciation itself.  That is, we often use our choices in music to express who we are as individuals to others: “Musical preferences and tastes play a significant role in how people can project aspects of their personal identity” (O’Hara, Brown  104).  This is in itself a complex way in which music affects lives because it goes to wider social and cultural concerns.  Music is so ingrained within the culture, it allows for individual markers or identification agents.  The effect here is strong, clearly, because the aesthetic nature of music then allows the individual to present their inner being to the world at large.  Music, in a word, helps us to construct our personas.

This exact process, or the factor of music as shaping an individual’s sense of identity, is reinforced by a website dealing in child and adolescent psychiatry.  If adults allow their choices in music to “make a statement” about who they are, this is all the more a powerful impulse in young people.  The site notes, for example, that teens very often use music to shut out adults and their parents (AACAP).  To that end, the adolescents will typically choose music their parents dislike, as occurred with the rock and roll revolution of the 1960s. This is then an early – and critical – stage of the evolution of the self.  It seems likely, in fact, that the adolescent will be discovering the self even as they present it to the world.  Tastes are changing as the teen grows, so what will define them must change as well.  Nonetheless, and importantly here, identity is protected and established by using the music to “screen out” threats to that evolving identity: the parents.  Here again, then, is an effect of music not commonly considered, but of vital meaning in terms of human living itself.

Conclusion

In plain terms, the question of music’s effects on people is as vast as any that may be conceived.  Music is everywhere, and music is everywhere because people of all cultures insist upon it.  This then presents almost limitless directions for inquiry but, as discussed above, there is helpful evidence going to certain effects of important kinds.  To begin with, there is a biological basis to music intake that goes beyond :”liking” or cultural influences; human beings are literally “wired” to process music, and in ways directly linking to their psychologies.  This then goes to what may be called ownership, and the evidence of the study affirming that personal choice is a critical factor in how music affects listeners.  That music is so psychologically ingrained is further emphasized by the work on how people use their preferences to create identities, as the AACAP page underscores the precise way adolescents do this, in restricting adults from listening to their own choices.  This trajectory of research combines to reinforce that music’s effects go far beyond simple pleasure.  No matter other explorations of the basic question, it is irrefutable that music most definitely affects our lives, and in ways removed from simple enjoyment.

Works Cited

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). The Influence Of Music And Music Videos.  2008. Web. <http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/>

O’Hara, K., & Brown, B.  Consuming Music Together: Social and Collaborative Aspects of Music Consumption Technologies.  New York: Springer, 2006.  Print.

Thaut, Michael H., and William B. Davis. “The influence of subject-selected versus experimenter-chosen music on affect, anxiety, and relaxation.” Journal of Music Therapy 30.4 (1993): 210-223 <http://jmt.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/4/210.short>

Weinberger, Norman M. “Brain, behavior, biology, and music: Some research findings and their implications for educational policy.” Arts Education Policy Review 99.3 (1998): 28-36 <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10632919809600775?journalCode=vaep20#.UymsmPldUuE>