Definition Essay on Music

Music expresses our emotions. It is an important part of our life as it is a way of expressing our feelings as well as emotions. Most music includes singing or playing musical instruments, such as the guitar, piano, drums, or violin. Music plays a huge role in every society. Throughout most of the world and for most of human history, music-making was a natural activity and everyone participated in it. Music is an art form that unites pitch, rhythm, and dynamics in order to create sound. It can be performed by using different kinds of instruments and styles and is divided into different categories such as jazz, folk, hip-hop, pop, rock, etc. Music has a very important role in most of the ceremonies. People convey their feelings by using music played in the ceremonies.

Music is the most powerful medium and in some societies, there have been attempts to control its use. It is powerful at the level of the social group where it helps to communicate which goes beyond words, enables meanings to be shared, and promotes the development and maintenance of individual, group, cultural, and national identities. It is powerful at the individual level because it can induce multiple responses such as physiological, movement, mood, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. Music in itself can be used as a communication tool.

The music consists of different elements such as Duration, Pitch, Dynamics, expressive techniques, Tone Colour, Performing Media, Texture, Character, and Structure. Children are inherently musical. They learn through music and respond. Music provokes intense emotions. Music evokes the full range of human emotions from sad, nostalgic, and tense, to happy, relaxed, calm, and joyous. The value of music from an academic point of view is really amazing. It is the best way of communication. Children improve their social skills and learning through music. They bring up their self-esteem to a higher level. It makes a child more creative and imaginative. If we look at the physical, mental, and social aspects of human beings throughout history, we find that the effect of music is very far-reaching and vast.

Music lowers blood pressure and improves heart rate variability to reduce stress, depression, anxiety, muscle tension, pain, and sudden infant death. Music has a therapeutic power to heal many chronic patients, including those suffering from mental illness. After World War II, musicians went to the military hospitals to apply music as a therapy and this led to the foundation of music as a profession. There is a need to introduce music in nursing education, to enhance understanding of these professional caretakers to help patients improve positive behavior. Both children and adults could consistently identify the emotions that music is trying to express. Infants only showed matching of music and emotions for the happy condition age or gender differences were found. The majority of the children were consistent in their interpretations. Most children found the distinction between happiness and sadness easier to determine than excitement and calm. Children based their emotional responses on various musical elements like tempo and tonality. Experiments show that infants would smile when the singing was played and would cease crying. Mothers’s singing was beneficial for calming their infants and promoting mother-infant bonding. Sad story instructions had more effect on mood than music. Little mood change in the happy story.

The emotions of the participants were affected more by the cognitive instructions than by the music playing in the background. It has been observed that Dissonance activates brain regions associated with processing negative stimuli. While on the other hand heart rate decreases by unpleasant music. Infants as young as 2 months old prefer consonant over dissonant sounds.

Initial exposure to music typically increases liking, but over-familiarity often leads to disliking . Although sad-sounding music elicits sad emotions, sad music is liked as much as happy music in some cases.

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Music-making promotes brain plasticity. The corpus callosum is larger for Children who have musical experiences before the age of 7, this means there is greater communication between the right and left efficient transfer of information. The corpus callosum is larger in an individual with musical experiences than in an individual without musical experiences. Children with at least 3 years of musical training performed better than those with no musical training.

Music has always served a social function; music provides identity and the opportunity to tell others who you are. Music often provides a ritual function, either in the context of religion or in secular rituals like dance parties. We can find music in every culture.

African music was based on drums made from hollow tree trunk which was used to communicate over long distance. Chinese music is based on the pentatonic scale. Chinese music often creates dynamic contrast by varying the instrumentation. In its voice, bamboo flute, and bowed strings are used. Irish music is based on a strong pulse and repetitive dance rhythms. Violins and voices are used. In Brazilian music, the Samba is the most popular music and dance in Brazil. The samba is traditionally played on guitars and Cavaquinho.

Music affects our emotions. When we listen to sad songs, we feel a decline in mood and when we listen to happy songs, we feel happier.

Music greatly enhanced the recovery process. Music was used in military hospitals as an intervention to assist the sick and injured during recovery. Music Therapy is used for many different issues, from stress relief to mental, emotional, and behavioral problems. It has been shown to help treat depression and anxiety and is often used to help elderly clients deal with memory loss and other diseases. Music therapy techniques have been used to maintain and develop joint and muscle function. It increases fine and gross motor coordination and control, increases muscle strength, increases range of motion, improves cardiopulmonary and respiratory functioning, and improves oral-motor skills.

Music and Music Therapy are used to counteract two major barriers, emotional turmoil and the associated inappropriate behaviour. Music is the source through which the children are engaged. It is used to structure their social and emotional development and in turn, their progression. It improves attention, memory, physical coordination, and mental development. The classical music stimulates the regeneration of brain cells. Certain kind of music improves mood, intelligence, motivation, and concentration. It also improves the quality of life and aids in physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs. Music has and always will affect the culture of the whole world. Music is often considered the expression of opinion, idea, or emotion. Therefore the culture's ideas or views are almost always represented in the lyrics or style of their music. Music is very malleable and is affected by a countless number of factors. It has been generally accepted that both listening to and creating music can have various positive effects on mood and mental health. Music can help to elevate your mood and motivate you.

In conclusion, music is not only able to affect our mood but listening to a particular kind of happy or sad music can even change the way we perceive the world.

References

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2. Blood, A.J., Zatorre, R.J., Bermudez, P., & Evans, A.C. (1999) Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain regions. Nature Neuroscience, 2, 382– 387.
3. Hunter, P.G., Schellenberg, E.G., & Griffith, A.T. (2011) Misery loves company: Mood-congruent emotional responding to music. Emotion, 11, 1068-1072.
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5. Bengtsson, S.L., Csíkszentmihályi, M., & Ullén, F. (2007). Cortical regions are involved in the generation of musical structures during improvisation by pianists. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 830-842.
6. Flohr, J.W. (2010). Best practices for young children’s music education: Guidance from brain research. General Music Today, 23, 13-19.
7. Campbell, D. (1997). The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit. (1 ed.). New York: Avon Books, Inc.
8. Davis, W.B., Gfeller, K.E., & Thaut, M.H. (2008). An Introduction to Music Therapy – Theory and Practice. 3rd edition. Boston: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
9. Bennett, R. (1999). General Musicianship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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