Can you imagine a day spent without music? For the majority of people, that’s an impossible situation. Even if you’ve found yourself completely alone and there’s no radio or Bluetooth speaker to play music, there’s still music in your head. And you’re probably not even aware of it most of the time.
Music is always present in human life, and it reflects people’s moods and emotions. When a musician has something to say, he or she expresses it through music. Most of the time, another individual can tell what feelings lurk beneath the music by listening to it. If the emotion is shared by many people, the music or song becomes popular and can spread over the entire population of the Earth. That is, music not only reflects society and its tendencies, but it also influences them, causing people to think and feel in certain ways.
Reflecting the Culture
There are not so many people who like studying history and culture. However, if you sing an Indian or a Chinese song, it will most likely be recognized in any part of the Earth. Play some boogie-woogie passages, and you’ll most likely evoke nostalgia for the American past even in people who never witnessed it. Music leaves a cultural imprint, an anchor that immediately reminds us of a culture or an event from the past.
Music is sensitive to cultural changes and thus, can be used as a research instrument. For example, the strict canonical tendency of the music of the Middle Ages persisted until the Renaissance, when frivolous fugues and minuets reflected people’s physical and moral relaxation. The modern eclectic music styles depict the diversity of cultural patterns and trends, their mixing and contradiction. Such music styles as glam rock, ethno-pop, and other music styles demonstrate the intertwining of beliefs and philosophy.
Becoming Universal Language
Music is a universal language that reflects the slightest change in culture. It always conveys emotions, and emotions are understood by all people. That’s why a child can cry listening to Mozart’s Requiem or begin to dance if a jolly folk song is played. Music has no linguistic barrier, allowing for soul-to-soul communication. This works for different styles and genres of music as well. Even if you’ve never heard a military march, you won’t confuse it with a church song.
Revealing Psychological Markers
When listening to music, a person can not just experience certain emotions but also guess the emotions of the author of the music. Music pieces and even entire styles can be characterized by psychological markers. For example, rock music is usually described as ″heavy, depressive, dynamic″. Pop and folk music are ″light, calm, positive″.
Music therapy is used in many psychological practices. Music helps a person release his or her emotions and recognize them. Listening to music and dancing have been shown to improve mental health and reduce stress.
Music preferences also depend on the psychological type of a person. Extroverts usually like light music like disco, dance, pop, reggae, jazz, blues, and country. Introverts tend to prefer classical music, although they also enjoy rock and heavy metal.
Serving as a Social Marker
According to the research by Daniel Weinstein et al. about singing and social bonding, people from various social groups might be unified in their love of a certain music style or singer. Such affection can create its own social group. That’s especially noticeable with young people who often listen to music together and join fan clubs of popular musicians. Music tastes might also indicate whether you are a ′′insider′′ or an ′′outsider′′.
Music can separate some social circles or make them all blend together. Music concerts and contests are usually highly popular. The major music fests gather thousands of people regardless of social status and other attributes.
This approach also works another way. People who belong to the same social circle or a profession tend to prefer similar music styles and compositions. For example, statistics published by Forbes about music preferences of different generations reveal that millennials make the majority of fans of country music. Truck drivers tend to listen to rock. Housewives generally like pop music, and so on.
Making a Formal Attribute
Music also serves as an attribute of some organization or even a whole nation. Liturgical music is unmistakably attributed to the church; national anthems are also generally recognized as such. Christmas songs make a formal attribute of a holiday. Every important event, like a summit of state governors or Olympic games, is accompanied by music, music, demonstrating the importance of music in society.