Does Music Have Meaning?

Music is a tool of entertaining that combines sounds together in a manner that people enjoy, find it motivating as well as dance the rhythm. The music always involves the combination of various elements such as pitch, rhythm, timbre tempo melody, and harmony which creates the entire musical structure. (Cooke, 2011).In most cases, music includes people singing with their voices and at some times, they may play musical instruments such as guitar, drums, and piano. People listen to music to bring joy and at the same time as a motivating factor to alleviate individual worries during difficult times. Each human being has emotions or feelings which are developed after listening to a specific music and can either be constructive or destructive. The fact that music is meaningful to people is justified by the fact that music is found in all cultures in the world. Therefore, the paper will identify and justify the meaning of music to all people globally

The Meaning of Music

The meaning of music is clear since it found in all cultures in the world. The rate at which people listen to music has increased and this is a clear indication that music is part of human life (Cooke, 2011).In most cases, young adults have developed the habit of spending from two to four hours daily listening to music. People listen to visual or audio music while carrying out other duties. The music meanings can be classified as either outer-musical meaning and inner –musical meaning. The outer-musical associates certain aspect with certain objects, event, feeling, and ideas. The meaning can be classified in various categories which include music and imitation of the real-life situation, music and motion, music and emotions, music and philosophy as well music and individual attributes. On the other side, the inner musical meaning does not refer to something outside the music. Specifically, the meaning is inherent to the musical sound and other elements that are combined in the music structure

In some cases, the music can refer to other aspects of real life situation which can be more or less instant. Individuals need to have the advance knowledge to perceive the reference in the music, and this enables them to understand the intended message of the music. Firstly, the aspect of music imitation to real life situation plays a role in educating people as well as increasing the understanding of specific cultural beliefs. A music composer utilizes the aspect of imitations to communicate their message to the people in the society. People understand clearly the message from the song and implement the ideas impacted on them to improve their living standard. Music imitation is achieved by the repletion of melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in different voice. However, people find the music imitation of certain aspects of reality to be of limited relevance in their daily life.

Similarly, music listeners experience a fictional motion in the system of tones in music. The movement gives the audience a tempo experience and at the same time makes the music enjoyable. Additionally, the experience of tempo in music creates a significant influence on the people’s mood. The powerful connection that emerges between the music tempo and people’s mood is attributed to the influence of music on various body functions (Cooke, 2011). For example, respiration, heartbeats, and actions in various parts of the mind tend to connect in a definite manner with the registered pulse in music. Music pulse increase and decrease are felt by listeners which tend to be accepted when the temporal curve is followed by a physical object that moves in the same direction. Moreover, the listeners may experience music movement in the increase and decrease in volume and they tend to adjust their mind to adapt to the new environment created.

Correspondingly, music is often connected with the experience and perception of feelings. The music is used to strengthen and change the emotions of the listeners. Specifically, mode and tempo are the major factors for the acknowledgment of the mindset in music. Various emotions are attributed to the music tempo and mode. For example, the sentiment of joy is acknowledged in the music with a quick tempo as the main factor for motivating the listeners.

The emotive patterns are linked with musical formulas where some gestures are used by the music performers. The music calls up certain emotions to different people depending on the type of music element applied by the music performers. Mostly, the feeling of joy with bouncy is associated with quick music movement. The emotions that are experienced in music make the same brain circuits to be active when they are activated by non-musical stimuli

In most cases, music is perceived differently by different listeners depending on the individual mood, exposure, and personal background. The positive influence of music can be mediating for people in a difficult circumstance and play a significant role in dealing with the emotions. By listening to the favorite music people’s emotions are strengthened and this helps them to perceive life positively. (Cooke,2011).A specific emotion is often emphasized at various levels in a music piece and each human being has emotions or feelings which develop after listening to a piece of music and can either be positive or negative. Individuals need to develop a positive response from the music emotion which can be achieved through the selective listening of music. Therefore, music is often associated with the experience and perception of emotions.

Music is also linked to the cultural conventions and ideological implications. Some music is made up of tonal patterns that are linked to a certain meaning for contemporary listeners. For example, in some cultures, listeners learn to connect certain music styles to moods and other occurrences in their daily life situations.. Similarly, the national anthems of some countries find their origins in the struggle for freedom and hence the content of the national anthem represents the value for which the freedom was acquired. Additionally, the history of a country is traced through the type of music that dominates such as traditional folk tunes as well as modern music. Therefore, the music serves as a forum for public debate about the manners, morals spirits and social change (Trainor, 2013). Music communicate cultural message from one generation to another specifically on what concerns people in the society, how they perceive issues and the best way of dealing with anger, frustration and other challenges in life. Alongside the social and philosophical context, music also plays a significant role in the economic growth. People have earned their daily bread through the music and it is a source of income to the family.

Similarly, the aesthetic experience of music appears to strengthen the positive influence of music on the lives of people. Listening to music help people who are facing life challenges to detach themselves from the problems and experience a sense of release .Mostly, The experience can be felt from all kind of music and differentiate itself by various principles which include, a strong focus on sensorial and structural distinctiveness of the perceived object, intense feeling, and all cerebral aspects are involved. There is a significant difference in the emotional experience of music where recognition and experiencing emotions have no connection with the musical level of knowledge of the listeners. Therefore, the beauty experienced in music appears to be strongly connected to the music element applied in the music.

In most cases, the personal associations with music have a positive value for elderly people who spend time dealing with the deterioration of body and mind. Importantly, the music itself does not solve the individual challenges but help people in dealing with their problems. Additionally, listening to music helps people to find the strength to face the life again by offering comfort and give hope to the individuals in difficult circumstances. The music performers help people to generate a self-image and provide models on how the society expects people to behave.

Consistently, the music has been used in hospitals, nursing homes and other places where stress levels of individual rises. Patients who listened to music while waiting for their body operation lower their anxiety as well as lower their blood pressure and pulse rates (Juslin, 2010). The music would help them to concentrate on the music tones and rhythm and forget about the challenges they are facing. This would significantly reduce the level of stress and the patients are able to go through the difficult moment. Therefore, the music serves as a forum for releasing stress and enables people to develop a positive attitude towards their lives.

Challenges and Solutions

Nevertheless, there are various problems associated with music. Physiologically, music has a distinctly negative effect on various biological processes. It inhibits the occurrence of fatigue as well as changing the pulse and respiration rates, external blood pressure levels. The biological effects of music are associated with high pitch, unnecessary acceleration of rhythm as well as the ascending melodic passages (Trainor, 2013). The physiological effect of music may result to increase in anxiety and tension and this may lead to loss of control and panic. Additionally, the slow tempos and descending melodies frequently cause the feeling of sadness and depression. However, the perception of music depend with the individual cultural background as well as individual personality

The kind of music to which human beings are exposed to during their early age determines the balance of their behaviors and attitude. In cases where young people listen to the wrong music, they end up developing a negative attitude which affects their normal living style. The young people have been shown to exhibit behavior that is immoral and detrimental to society, for example, violence, premarital sex as well as drug abuse. The increase in immoral behavior is associated with listening to music with destructive themes. The young adults tend to imitate the destructive theme and they put the immoral behavior in practice which ends up affecting their lives negatively. For example, violent music is associated with violent actions and incidents that occur in the society. Additionally, the young adults spend most of their times listening to music

Similarly, sound vibration acting upon and through the nervous system gives shocks in rhythmical sequence to the muscles, which cause them to contract and sets the body parts to be in motion. For the music listeners to remain motionless, it would require conscious muscular restraint which would interfere with the individual level of concentration (Trainor, 2013). The personality disorder is also a behavioral dimension which is reflected in some music which has portrayed a negative theme in the society. In this case, female youths are seen to be more likely than male youths to use music to reflect emotional feelings. Male youths are believed to turn emotions into a physical and personal display and hence a negative theme in music would have an effect on the living style of the youth.

While young adults have always preferred their music loud, it appears that the recent advent of ubiquitous portable music devices is making it easier to cause permanent damage to their ears. The permanent hearing loss may occur when individuals are exposed to loud noise over a long period of time (Meyer, 2013). A good number of young adults have suffered hearing loss and developed real problems in their ears due to the use of music devices that expose them to loud music in their ears for example, people use headphone and earphones to listen to music as they perform other duties and this has significantly contributed to the increase of cases of hearing loss.

Music that expresses negative behaviors such as weariness, grief, and distress, agony and despair result to a negative effect on the life of listeners. The listeners may be highly influenced by the negative themes in the song which highly affect the normal brain functioning. Moreover, some music is associated with immaturity which is evident in the songs which portray negative themes. In most cases, the secular musician has an intention of proving to his fans that his music is the best compared to others and hence the musician would destroy others to gain fame (Meyer, 2013). The immoral languages used by the musician affect the reasoning capacity of the listeners and hence create a negative mood in the society. Similarly, sometimes music may have injurious effects on music performers who are subjected to a combination of harmful elements. Performing music require more training on the best music element to use that would effectively deliver the message to the audience.

Music education is a fundamental to student development both socially and academically. To ensure that teachers are providing students with a quality music education, their confidence in their own abilities need to be increased. Teacher need to ensure that they provide a guideline on the type of music listened by young generation and this would play a significant role in modeling and in shaping the behaviors of the young generation. It is clear that music is used to cultivate human nature and bring up harmony in the society. Additionally, a well structured cultural music has the ability to function as a unifying factor among people in the society. Therefore, providing a quality music education improves the lives of students as well as other people in the society.

Similarly, people specifically young generation should reduce the amount of time they spend in listening to music. Young adults tend have developed a habit of using most of their time listening music which have significantly affected their lives. They concentrate on music and neglect other important duties in their lives. Parents and guardians should always ensure that they regulate the time spent by young adults listening to music. In the same way, music listeners should avoid music devices that expose them to loud music which contribute to temporally or permanent hearing loss. They should get their hearing tested to reduce any chances of hearing loss

Consequently, it is clear that the kind of music to which human beings are exposed to during their early age determines their moral development. The increase in immoral behavior is associated with listening to music with destructive themes. The young adults tend to imitate the destructive theme and they put the immoral behavior in practice which ends up affecting their lives negatively. Parents and guardians have a responsibility of ensuring that young adults are exposed to music which creates and develop moral values in their lives.

Conclusion

Listening to music creates a mood, emotions, establishes a mood and at the same time brings about a negative or positive response. The individual response creates a behavioral pattern which becomes part of the individual living style. As a matter of fact, each human being has emotions or feelings which develop after listening to a piece of music and can either be positive or negative (Juslin, 2010). Therefore, it is important to have a positive response which can be achieved through the selective listening of music.

Music is often associated with the experience and perception of emotions. The music is used to strengthen and change emotions of the listeners and alleviate worries during difficult moments. Specifically, mode and tempo are decisive for the recognition of the mindset in music. There are various feeling is attributed to the music tempo and mode. For example, the feeling of joy is recognized in pieces with a quick tempo in a major key. However, the music tempo may result in sadness to the listeners which are a rare experience. It is easier to recognize emotions that reflect a certain readiness for action in music than recognizing emotions such as envy, and shame where the tendency for actions is not instantly recognizable. The recognition of emotions in the music by the listeners does not automatically mean the experience of the emotions.

In the same way, the kind of music to which human beings are exposed to during their early age determines the balance of their behaviors and attitude. In cases where young people listen to the wrong music, they end up developing a negative attitude which affects their normal living style. The young people have been shown to exhibit behavior that is immoral and detrimental to society, for example, violence, premarital sex as well as drug abuse (Meyer, 2013). The increase in immoral behavior is associated with listening to music with destructive themes. The young adults tend to imitate the destructive theme and they put the immoral behavior in practice which ends up affecting their lives negatively. For example, violent music is associated with violent actions and incidents that occur in the human life

References

Cooke, D. (2011). The language of music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Juslin, P.N. (2010). Communicating emotion in musical performance: a review and empirical framework. In P.N. Juslin & J.A. Sloboda (Eds.), Music and emotion: theory and research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Meyer, L. B. (2013). Emotion and meaning in music. Chicago: University of Chigaco Press.

Sloboda, J.A. (2015). Exploring the musical mind: cognition, emotion, ability, function. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Todd, N.P. (2014). The dynamics of dynamics: a model of musical expression. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 91, 3540-3550.

Trainor, L.J. & Schmidt, L.A. (2013). Processing emotions induced by music. In I. Peretz & R. Zatorre, eds., The cognitive neuroscience of music. Oxford: University Press