The very first thing you hear in your life is a heart beat. When you’re laying there in your mothers womb, you can hear her heart beat. Some soon to be parents will put head phones to the mothers stomach and play classics in hopes that it helps their child’s brain development. From such an early age (in some cultures before you’re even born) you’re hearing and feeling a beat. Music isn’t just something we enjoy and listen to it is something that we can’t live without. Even in the most simple sense of the word, it surrounds us and it fills our lives. Disagree with me all you’d like, but I just want to ask a few questions…
First, describe music… Webster’s dictionary says, “The science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity.” I’d like to challenge this thought though. In life, think of where you hear a recurring beat, or series of different notes that sounds beautiful. More than likely, you woke up to this sound this morning. Birds chirping is such a common occurrence, and that sound can be recalled across the world over more than likely. Birds singing a song just outside your window is one of the sweetest sounding things to wake up to. Their music is sweet and lovely and falls softly on awakening ears. On the other end of that spectrum, your alarm clock makes music, now, I know everyone might agree it’s horrible sounding music, but it is still music. As simple as it may be, one repetitive note hammered continuously until your still asleep body slaps the clock until it falls back to sleep as well.
So there you have it, almost immediately in your day you’re introduced to song/music/rhythm or whatever you wish to call it. It surrounds you and you can’t escape music.
Why did I bring this up? It’s fairly simple really, and I’d love to explain it here in the following paragraphs. Many people hate or are disgusted with life. They fail to find beauty in the simplest places and they struggle to enjoy what happy moments they have. Now, everyone should have their favorite genre of music. And speaking from a psychological stand point, that genre of music more than likely have a direct correlation to how you live. Take myself for example, I listen to basically all indie/acoustic music. Many people say I’m a down to earth rooted kind of guy. Through the issues I’ve had I find the lyrical content and the emotion expressed through it soothing. I get lost in thought with some songs as they really express the feelings that I had failed to describe earlier in life. My favorite music really influences me in life as I’m “chill” and I just go with what happens generally. (I’m anything but hipster, I’m just going to put that out there. I’m not cool enough to be a hipster.) Now let me tell you about an old high school “friend” all he did with his life was drink monster, and would listen to heavy metal and basically scream-o music. Now, don’t get me wrong, I see absolutely no issues with liking that music and chugging monster (I drink Red Bull a lot), but I’m using them as an example to display how music influences your life. Now when I say they listen to that kind of music, I mean that’s all they listened to, and it showed. They were a fairly aggressive and violent person. Their persona, being a big tough person, came from the music they listened to, they couldn’t let basic things roll off them, they’d just get pissed and want to fight you.
Some time ago, I was in the car with my parents listening to my phone as a normal teen would do, and my dad made the comment of “You should listen to this, it’ll cure what ails ya” talking about the radio station he was turning up (Smile Fm, a Christian radio station). Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Christian music, but it doesn’t do much for me, just reminds me not of how holy but it reminds me of how hole-y I am. I’m a sinner, I’m a broken person and that music doesn’t help me with my emotions, where as Indie does, it helps me but what I feel into words because I fail with words. What I’m getting at is this though, music will cure what ails you. Whether you listen to emo-punk, goth, indie, rap, country, christian, R&B, or classical, or anything else for the matter, it will help you. You were born to the sound of a beat, a rhythm. You wake up to one as well, and you’re surrounded daily by music. So take some time, listen to music that really touches you. Lay in a field with some headphones in and just get lost in the sound, or get lost in the music nature has supplied. No matter what, music is around you and it is a necessity in life. In history you see music was used as a way to preserve stories for later generations. Now, with so many different instruments, and genres, and musicians, and ways to listen, you should have no problem finding some music that you like. I also think it’s interesting, and would like to see you pay attention to it, how does the music you listen to influence our life? How you act and respond to people. I’d love to know if the music you listen to actually effects you. So try a new genre, you listen to rap all the time? Listen to some classical and see how you feel, see how you begin to think.
That’s it, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy some music today, whether it is the birds singing, the rhythm your car makes as you go down the free way, or from the radio in your car. Enjoy life “little” things, like music.
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