Essay About Role of Music In Life Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

Mus 250 sound cultures in the world world music write an autobiographical essay about the role of music in your life. Format:   3 4 pages, double spaced, typed and proof read, + cover page, no binders. Given the wide range of life experiences and depth of musical involvement of people in this class, no one formula will work for everyone, but here are some suggestions on how to approach the subject. Before you write your autobiography, consider how much you agree with or disagree with these statements. Imagine that that you are an anthropologist and a musicologist investigating the role of music in a particular culture.   it just so happens that your primary contact, the person whom you are interviewing, is yourself! examine what uses and functions music has served in your life.   one possibility is to look to ritual moments in your family life such as a bar mitzvah, a wedding and reception , the blessing of a new house or business, or high school graduation.

  many immigrant groups keep up the performance practice and social use of music from the old country.   on the other hand, as a teacher, i have often encountered asian american students whose parents insisted that they learn primarily european classical music.   in fact, in some university classes i have taught, the only students that were thoroughly acquainted with european classical music were second generation asian americans.

  some people, having lost all direct connection to their ethnic heritage, have begun to reconstruct their ethnic identity, as when an nth generation japanese american takes up the shakuhachi, or a scottish american takes up the bagpipes and the wearing of tartan.   just as often it seems that a person may find or recognize himself or herself in a different culture.   i knew a student from japan who, upon encountering cuban music in a world music class, dropped her science major and began studying percussion.   i also knew a brazilian student who, while very much in love with brazilian popular music, found that the music of native north americans touched her heart like no other music.   how to account for these cross cultural connections? for some students with a deep involvement with music or with a rich family musical heritage, the problem of this assignment will be to condense it all to a mere three pages.   for others who have had less of involvement with music, three pages might seem like a challenge.

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  to which do you relate the most?   are there moments in your life when a certain kind of music or even a particular piece seems exactly appropriate or inappropriate?   why?   what belief systems underlie that judgment?   these moments could include religious services, a romantic evening, or even something like a movie.   such strange behavior!   i encourage speculation and generalization about music and culture, but always relate your thoughts to specific experiences that have affected you in your life.   you might list several uses and functions that have meaning to you, and then give specific examples, describing the concrete details as well as discussing the larger social meaning of it.   you may pick one specific event or use or function of music and devote the entire three pages to it.   if you are using several examples, you should probably organize your report chronologically.   all uses i might make of it will be with proper citations or anonymity, which ever you prefer.

After returning them for your optional correction, i will gladly put them on the class website, if you so choose. 40% interpretation/contextualization what big picture do you fit into? objective amp purpose of this assignment:   as we examine the role of music in various cultures, i believe our perceptions are sharpened by turning the anthropological eye on ourselves.   an ultimate goal is that moment of anthropological insight into the contingent nature of our personal view of the world. Music was in my life long before i learned to distinguish different styles and genres, knew about work of great composers and musicians. The first melody that i still remember was the lullaby my mother sang to me when i was a kid.

When the lullaby lyrics ended, my mother continued to vocalize quietly, and her melodious tunes calmed me down and, certainly, put the beginning to my love for music. Then, there were musical theatricals and plays, favorite childs songs and first idols. One day i liked rock, the next it was pop music, in another week i was ready to give the last money for the records of well known rep performers, sometimes under a mood listened to reggae, and did my homework listening to the popular songs played on various radios.

And all the time it seemed to me that without music my world would be imperfect, as cold beauty is repellent without a warm smile, or a sea becomes boring without a gale and white horses on waves. When i am feeling sad, then i am trying to fix my mood by listening to some merry and popular ditty, often i begin to sing along, and my spirit rises literally in a few minutes. What is interesting, along with some popular tracks, which my coevals are listening to at the moment and give their preference to, i love to listen to the works of well known classic composers. From one side, it seems to me that i glide beyond the clouds and give a way to the dreams, listening attentively in the easy flowing, ringing of bells and strong chords, and from the other, an anxious or touching melody affects all strings of my soul and draws me to tears.

But such mood passes quickly because i understand that a musician reflected a part of his world and experience and passed to the listeners his ideas and emotion through the notes. Classical music, to my belief, is an art, opening the entire world of passions and emotions, high feelings and noble gusts. Talented musicians, as nobody other, are able to express in their music their feelings of sorrow and gladness, lightness and disappointment, whims of nature or an emotions peculiar to the people falling in love. If a good melody is complemented with good lyrics, then such a work is remembered in the hearts of enormous amount of people for centuries and is listened to over and over, until every word and every sound it would have find a new sense. Music is a way to escape life, which gives us relief in pain and helps us to reduce the stress of the daily routine. Music surrounds our lives at different moments of lives, whether we hear it on the radio, on television, from our car and home stereos. We come across it in the mellifluous tunes of a classical concert or in the devotional strains of a bhajan, the wedding band, or the reaper in the fields breaking into song to express the joys of life.

It has always been part of our association with specific emotions, and those emotions themselves have given rise to great music. The origins of indian music can be traced back to the chanting of the sama veda nearly 4,0 years ago. The primacy of the voice, and the association of musical sound with prayer, were thus established early in the history of indian music.

Today, music is available for us in different forms and the choice for music varies from person to person just as the reading choices vary from one another. There is folk music, classical music, devotional music, instrumental, jazz, rock music, pop music, hindi movie songs and many more. In the modern world, music has gained an honourable designation of 'healing without medicine'. Doctors feel that music therapy has been helping them in treating many people with problems like dementia, dyslexia depression and trauma. Many children with learning disability and poor co ordination have been able to learn, and respond to set pieces of music. Dance critic ashish khokar cites an experiment as proof: music is produced from sound, and sound affects our sense perception in many ways.

Even fish in an aquarium were once made to listen to different kinds of music and it was found that their movements corresponded with the beat of the music. Mind you, fish do not hear, they only felt the vibrations of the sound through water. So you can imagine what a profound effect sound and music might have on the human mind. Anand avinash, founder of the neuro linguistic consciousness workshop who has researched music therapy says, the mystics and saints from ancient to modern times have shown how music can kindle the higher centers of the mind and enhance quality of life. Mantras, or chants used in the west, repeated monotonously, help the mind to achieve a sense of balance. A combination of the sounds in sanskrit mantras produce certain positive vibrations and elevate the mind to a higher lever of consciousness. We all know that meditation cleanses the system of its negative energies and vibrations.

In many meditation workshops, music is used to make people more aware of their moods and feelings. People are made to lie down and empty their minds and then listen to the music which is systematically changed so that they can fit through different emotions and state of consciousness. Many people also believe that any music you respond to positively will work for you, regardless of its content. People play different music by the different stituation, different spirit and different culture. For instance, music can provide us with relaxation just like our friends, it can teach us knowledge who resemble our teachers,it also acts as our parents to give us encouragement. The beauiful rhythm of the sofy music not only can relese our pressureh, but also can bring us pleasure.

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After a day long study,i like to take a break to listen to some pop melody by myself. Although some of those popular music are rock and roll, but they still can make me feel calm and comfortable. Except for chatting with my friends, going karaoke with them, going shopping with them, i can find another way o relax myself, that is music. We can read something in the same time because different music has its different background, different culure and different stories. The encouraging words of a song just like our parents, it always tells us to be strong and not to give up.i believe anyone could be full of energy when they hear you are not alone, born to try, reach and so on. Although manyof the recent music pieces are not so good as the old ones, but we cannot deny the influence that the music brings to us.