HUMA111

MUSIC AND LIFE

      Most of the entities existing in our life do have more than one functional use. Water is one of the examples, we drink water because we are thirsty and we drink it for health. We also use water for cleansing purposes. Money is another example. We use money as a medium for transaction, unit of account, store of value, standard for deferred payment. Music is not an exception. Through music, audiences normally can gain leisure and pleasure, composers and music players can gain self-satisfaction from self-achievement and public recognitions, while businessmen may make money from that. Most importantly, I believe music can catch the soul of mind. It explicitly externalizes our intangible inner desires into tangible melodies in a way that it can be heard. In this paper, we are going to explore music this specific feature to see how it interacts with our life overall.

      Whenever you ask a teenager for telling you his or her hobbies, the majority would mention listening to music. Obviously, music becomes an important part of our life. We can hear music everywhere, like when we are traveling on the bus, when we are shopping in the shopping malls, and even while we are still waiting for the public listening exams to start! We, human beings need food, water, and air to satisfy our physical needs. On the other hand, we do also need music to fulfill our inner desires deep in our soul. Through music, regardless you are the audiences or performers, your emotions and feelings, either you can’t find any suitable words to express or you don’t want to express, can be released with the melodies, while you are playing or listening to the music. Music provides a channel for us to release emotions, feelings and desires.

      Like the Gregorian Chant in the Middle age, the otherworldly feature of music they created was to fulfill their desires for the exact image and value they placed on God. And like music from the Classical Period fulfilled people desire to pursue reason, order and rule while music in the Romantic period can fulfill people greater values placed on emotions, adventure and imagination. In the twentieth–century, people start to create weird music. When people listen to Mozart’s a joyful piece, their happiness can be released with the music. When people listen to Chopin’s a slow and beautiful piece, their desires for peace and romance can be fulfilled. People do need such ways to release their “burdens” i.e. those inexpressible emotion, feelings emotion, desire, etc, in their soul. And that’s why we may be addicted to a musical piece. It may be far beyond purely hearing enjoyment but also psychological and spiritual fulfillment. There were once sayings about music:

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

--Victor Hugo

"Music is the vernacular of the human soul."

--Geoffrey Latham.

“For heights and depths no words can reach, music is the soul's own speech."
--Unknown

In conclusion, one important function that music has performed is explicitly externalizing our intangible inner desires into “hearable” melodies which in return, can satisfy such needs. It does reflect different things that people are psychologically looking for. That’s why, music is for our soul and is an indispensable element in our live. Simply, we would just never have a movie made without background music because it would be simply just too hard to touch the audiences.