Needs a Better Title than “Music”

Sounds… No. Music… Yes! Music is a language that can connect people from all over. Even if we can’t quite understand the words of a foreigner, we can still hear them. Better yet, we can still feel their music. Music has this weird magical ability to send a message to our brain and  make us react, whether we know the words or not. Is music some type of witchcraft? Should we be worried about the control music has over the human body?

If we ask different people their opinion on music, they may all most likely say that they like listening to music. If we ask them if they think listening to music all day could help them in regular tasks, some may agree and some may say it’s a distraction. Music does help please our senses. It creates a feeling. The sound waves enter the ears, which sends signals to our brain, which then tells us how to react. Different music affects us differently. Uptempo music  can motivate us, while slow music can help us relax. Rap music can bring confidence, while R&B could make us feel in love. Music brings us many different emotions and moods, but can there be too much music? Is there a time when we should take about from the soft drug?

While listening to music does have its benefits, are the benefits able to be stretched out throughout the whole day or even weeks. Or do the benefits max out after a period of time. Music can help while doing fast tasks like cleaning the house, driving to work, writing a quick paper, or even constructing other arts like painting. Sure, as creatures with ears we can hear music, but at what point do we drown it out and it just becomes noise? Do the benefits still apply when we reach this point? 

“Other important benefits include: Learning creative thinking, Learning to express feelings and emotions, Improving language and reasoning skills. Some studies show music programs can raise intelligence. Music can also improve something called spatial intelligence. This important ability helps with seeing the world and making sense out of what is seen. children who took music increased their IQ it may be because of the focused attention, memorization, and concentration skills needed to study music (Shim, 2017).”

Sure, for kids exposure to music has a wide spectrum of long term benefits. But, as for a whole day, when does creativity stop?  When the wide arrangement of moods and emotions create fatigue and sleepiness? The constant release of hormones in the brain and body has to get tired at some point. We can’t always be in overdrive mode, that is how our bodies start to break down and need the reset button to be exercised faster.

For some people, always listening to music could be exhausting. These people could potentially start to lose their minds, as they may need peace and quiet. There’s even evidence that listening to music for a long period of time causes ear fatigue. This explains why audio engineers and recording artists take a lot of breaks while recording music. Think of the ear as a regular muscle. Just like lifting weights, the constant use of the ear can weaken it temporarily until it gets rest. And just like a regular muscle, the heavier the load, the quicker the muscle burns out. The louder the music, the quicker ear fatigue kicks in. Failure to realize this can lead to ear damage. A lot of things in life are good when it’s in moderation, and music is one of these things.

Others could argue that the content of certain music can have a negative impact on the youth. Older, experienced, humans may say that pop music is glorifying sex. Rap is glorifying drugs and violence. And others may argue that everything mainstream is pushing these images because it sells. Others may even say that some of the same ideas were in past music, but people now just can’t seem to accept something new. And others may argue that if you dive deeper into the music, you can actually find good substance.

Music is all subjective, just taste. I can understand parents wanting to protect their children from the explicit content. Six year olds should not be singing along with song WAP, which is an adult song made by Cardi B and Meg The Stallion. But, that same parent should not shame someone else from listening to this song, that isn’t her responsibility. This song may not be good to one mom, but it may make another mom feel a special feeling.

But, as a society, it is kind of weird that, for the most part, we can agree on what is a bad or good song. It’s like we evolved to have a standard. Special elements can help us agree, in general. The elements are instrumentation, voice of the singer, lyrics, rhythm, flow, and how the words flow over the instrumentation. All of these elements have evolved as we evolved as humans. 

While some may say listening to music all the time is not always a good thing, everyone can agree that everyone enjoys listening to music at some point.

References

Shim, Dogra. MUSIC AND SPORTS – A PSYCHOPHYSICAL EFFECT. Mar. 2017. 

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