Days of Our Lives... and MUSIC!

I think everybody should listen to music. It helps you to be calm, relaxed, to see your life differently – Mireille, contract cleaner, London

Music is like the constant never ending entity. It is omnipresent. I don’t think I’ve ever gone a day with out hearing/listening to music (intentional or unintentional). And please note and understand there is great difference in hearing something and actually listening to it.

What would happen if music just ceased to exist? How would we be affected? What will change? What will remain the same? That is to ask; what role does music play in our daily lives?

A study by Tia DeNora (<-- click to read article) researched just that. 52 in-depth interviews were conducted with women of all ages. The questions were not “yes or no” questions, but open-ended questions, which allowed the participants to explore and express their own personal opinion as elaborately as they so pleased. Each woman can from different areas and had different backgrounds, especially with music, but the underlining similarities in the responses were overwhelming.

Almost every woman described music “as a means for creating, enhancing, sustaining and changing subjective, cognitive, bodily and self-conceptual states.” Music was a way to keep you happy when you’re happy, make you happy when your sad, make you relaxed, help you sleep, and get you excited. They described music as having the ability to do this and so much more. Most of these woman spoke of music as a “need.” A fundamental “need” to sustain the self, and everyday living.

Music was also referred to as an “aesthetic agent” in which it is able to conform, control, and create different mental and physical states. The article talks about how actors sometimes listen to different types of music in order to achieve a desired mood before shooting a scene for a movie. I wonder if this is the same reason why athletes listening to music before big games? When I used to play basketball in high school I would listen to the most energetic music I could find before a game. And even now before taking a test, I like to listen to slow relaxing music. When I was in high school my track coach would not let us listen to music as we did our daily 3mile runs for practice. She said it was because we would loose our body’s natural rhythm. I never understood then, but I understand why now. We conform to our music. Our body changes, our mental states change all in the presence of Miley Cyrus’ “Party In the USA”. Okay fine... It’s not only that song, but it’s all songs that do this to us. And it’s individualistic. My happy song may be you sad song, and vice versa.

This is not a new discovery. Nope! Not at all. People have known about this for… ever! That is why there is music in stores, music in fast food restaurants, music in elegant restaurant, music at social gatherings, and music in elevators. There is music almost everywhere, and in each venue the music serves a particular purpose.

So there you have it. Music plays a BIG role in EVERYONE’S daily lives.

I wonder what a day without music would feel like?...

Do you think you can survive one?

I don’t.

Or, maybe I can. I would just be a very. extra. long. SILENT. day…