Music and its omnipresence in human life
Music is present at all human levels. We find it in the lullaby a mother sings to her newborn baby. We find it in the passion of a lover releasing his inner tension through an act of musical creation, dedicated to the love of his life. We find it in the songs a school’s graduates sing. We find it in nightclubs, where young people dance with energy and exuberance. We find it in the liturgy of St John Chrysostom, which has been regularly recited for so many hundreds of years. It appears just as vividly in the enthusiastic hymns of Protestant churches, where emotional excitement is intertwined with religious truth. We also find it in the sound of the national anthem, sung in stadiums or in moments of patriotism. Nor is it absent from children’s songs and counting, that is, where the only thing that matters is the game. Through music we celebrate what is alive, but also what is no longer, so we find it in a requiem or in a last march played by a military band.
We can now clearly see that music permeates and enriches all spheres of human experience. Through music humanity manages to present the truth of words, through an irresistible emotional truth that appeals to movement and to our lazy bodies. Our inner life finds correspondence in the beauty of sound vibrations and in the truth of the lyrics. So joy comes over us when we are able to actualize our subjective self through an external reality and be validated by the fact that our intimate living is representable.
Music can also be found in the animal kingdom, where it makes biological cycles possible, and in this way they receive a special beauty. But when we speak of its presence in human life, beyond the common ground we share with animals, music also has spiritual meanings. This is because music is primarily about how life manifests itself in us at the subjective level, at the level of the language of inner life. Musical rhythms and tones are the rhythms and tones of life. Music uses tension, crescendo and diminuendo, major and minor scales, interludes and tempo, not to communicate its truth in a logical and formally descriptive manner, but, on the contrary, we can say with Langer that music: reveals the nature of feelings with a degree of detail and truth that language cannot address12,13. Music is the purest form of communication that we as humans use to express how life feels within us.
Music and our emotions
Music, being primarily an art form, expresses at the level of sound the content of our emotions, which accompany the many activities that we, as humans, perform. Although many of us also like lyrics and take them into account, music is usually listened to for the emotional mood it produces. Sometimes through the music we listen to, we seek references to what we already feel, and sometimes we seek to awaken certain feelings in ourselves. Both of these situations speak to the immense power of music to arouse in us such varied emotions1. Emotions are awakened by music and become much more intense as rhythm and melody surround us with its harmony. We can access emotions such as joy, sadness, anger, etc. through music, but the emotional variety it generates is far more complex than strict words can fit into their definitions. So music, by what it invokes, celebrates our inner selves, our authentic selves which for most of us is only the memory of lost childhood. So, through this gift it gives us, we can also speak of its healing power. It can be used as a means of expressing our own individuality lost among the multiple roles that society has assigned to us2. Then music will bring before us, through its beauty, deep emotional experiences, and for this reason it becomes indispensable to a good life lived to the full.
Music and cognitive development
Music and cognitive development are also interlinked. I can say this because of what science is telling us today. Individually taught piano lessons have the greatest effect on increasing spatial-temporal skills. And this effect is empirically measurable. Spatial-temporal skills are useful in areas such as mathematics, science, engineering and chess10. In the fixed sciences, we might say.
Music and its healing effects
But beyond our ability to impose our will on our environment through our high cognitive intelligence, beyond measuring and representing reality in a form of scientific truth, we humans are also fragile beings. This is because we live very much under the rule of our individual subjectivity, as already discussed above, but also because of the limitations of our bodies. Subjectivity makes us vulnerable to a continuous play of emotions, which produces in us the pleasure of feeling alive, a pleasure that is valid at the level of each type of emotion, but which can also become a huge burden. This happens when emotions are not processed at the right time and they end up being re-experienced in a very intense way, but not as a gift of being alive, but as a burden necessary for survival. So one of the great benefits of music, besides developing our cognitive abilities and artistically manifesting our feelings, is emotional regulation and inducing a state of well-being. Its healing capacity targets affective states such as stress, anxiety, depression14,15. But neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s can also be addressed therapeutically through music, as studies show12.
Music and society
Last but not least, I would like to mention the importance of the social role that music plays in our development as humans. Even if it is hard for us to accept it, in a culture like today’s, we are part of a larger community than the small space limited by our individuality. When it comes to rituals of a ritualistic or ethno-national nature, music plays a central role. The repetition of specific behaviors accompanied by music is what creates the ritual itself. This is how our cultural identity is implemented and strengthened, and how the heritage received from our ancestors, which we so badly need to develop secure roots, is given continuity. In the same way, music, through the emotions shared at community level in celebrations, liturgy or concerts, makes it possible to achieve social and religious unity. This happens because music goes beyond language, and in this way unites several individuals in a collectively assumed affectivity.16 Music, as a form of artistic expression present in all human cultures, also makes possible, through tone and rhythm, the development of a space of shared emotions, where transcultural openness and overcoming ethnic differences becomes a possibility. With music, using its deeply emotional language, we can experience a sense of shared human identity with Native American tribes, with African pygmies, but also with the composers of classical music who formed the Western canon.
Conclusion
I think the best conclusion to this article about music would be the meditation of theologian George MacDonald:
“Heaven… a place where all that is not music is silence.”17
I think we all long for heaven… Some of us hope to attain it here, so we make the effort necessary to acquire it. Others of us become aware that we already have it, so we learn to enjoy its music while we are still here on this land of the mortals. We become able to do this, only if we learn to love silence, only if we learn to rest.
Bibliography:
1.Emotional responses to music | Hauke Egermann | TEDxGhent
2.Music and the inner self | James Rhodes | TEDxMadrid
3.What gives music its identity? | Anuja Kamat | TEDxPanaji
4.How Music Can Heal Our Brain and Heart | Kathleen M. Howland | TEDxBerkleeValencia
5.Syncopation: expect the unexpected
6.Music and madness: neuropsychiatric aspects of music
7.Music and the brain: disorders of musical listening
8.The science of music: Why your brain gets hooked on hit songs | Derek Thompson | Big Think
9. Why Does Music Move Us?
10.https://www.desprecopii.com/info-id-14547-nm-Investeste-in-inteligenta-copilului-cu-lectii-de-pian.htm
11.https://www.brainhq.com/blog/top-12-brain-based-reasons-why-music-as-therapy-works
12.Music and the brain: the neuroscience of music and musical appreciation
13.Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art … By Susanne K. Langer 1951, p. 199
14.Music therapy for depression
15. Analysis of the Effect of Music Therapy Interventions on College Students with Excessive Anxiety
16. Implementation and Strategies of Community Music Activities for Well-Being: A Scoping Review of the Literature
17. Unspoken Sermons Series – George MacDonald
