Music plays a crucial role in our understanding of life. It expresses life itself. Pain, joy, anger and happiness, are what constitute existence – a constant cycle of emotions -none of which can be contained, except in memory. Just as these emotions cannot truly be enclosed, neither can the music that is its release.
People have played instruments to tell stories and have expressed themselves for centuries. As long as there has been something to be experienced and shared, music has been the most efficient mode of relaying these occurrences while broadening the minds of listeners. It communicates not only the human struggle and triumph, but is equipped with the ability to fill an audience with the emotions.
Music is an experience, not just in hearing it, but in the ability of the subconscious to instantly understand and feel the message. The listener becomes part of the story, participating in the pain and redemption embodied in the melodic highs and lows. We have the ability to feel the emotion of the artist. After the experience of music has ended, it is stored somewhere in our memory to be revisited at will. When looking back, by comparison, the memory is significantly dimmer than the moment of experience, resulting in the lust and necessity to feel it once more.
The music we listen to dictates, in many respects, how we feel. It speaks to us not through words, but through emotion, thereby putting the message in the deepest areas of our minds. Experiencing feelings leads us to understand the nature of that which is around us, and eventually receiving crucial insight to the very nature of ourselves.
A good analogy to demonstrate this idea is if one thinks about life as though it were a long film. There are characters, numerous conflicts constantly arising and eventually resolved at the end of the movie. As captivating as a storyline, dialogue and imagery are, the film would lose attention very quickly if it did not allow the audience member to experience the life of the characters. Viewers would witness what is happening without the understanding of its prominence or reality.
Music sets the tone for scenes, as it gracefully moves along with the storyline and is a powerful tool that taps into our memories that are similar to those of the characters in the movie. Forced to feel what they see on screen, the viewers are no longer in the third person, they are the main character. They feel the anguish and elation and form their own values and conclusions to what they have experienced, and not simply based on what they see, but on what they hear. The music adds the emotional connection between the story in a film and the spectator.
In a perfect world, everybody would seek to experience and understand all that they could in its fullness. Through music, we may begin our quest, for it is where we may find a haven to safely embrace our emotions.
Sarah Al-Mullah is a junior journalism major and a weekly columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.
