Music has had an interesting role in my life. When I reflect on my musical experiences the first things that come to mind are the piano as well as the bagpipes. The piano less so than the latter as I learned how to play when I was very young and stopped around twelve years old. However, those memories are still quite impactful as they formed the foundation for my musical career. The second of the two has a much stronger sentiment likely because of its uniqueness, and due to the fact that I played it through high school. I learned how to play the bagpipes while at military boarding school and had an exceptional mentor Pipe Major Brian Donaldson. Pipe Major Donaldson was an extremely refined individual who had come to my school the same year I entered the program. This single individual is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met and every day he would explain how things that you wouldn’t think about are related to music. On top of winning all major piping championships with a world-famous pipe band in grade 1, he had served as the Pipe Major for the Army School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming. While my musical experiences may differ slightly than from what one would expect, I still have a great appreciation for what music has to offer. One of the most interesting qualities of music that I believe to be universal is the escape from reality it provides. Whether it be a college student listening to a new rap song while he rests after a long day or a yogi drum circle, they all have the ability to provide an escape or boost focus. Finally, one of the most impressive qualities of music is that when one begins to listen to something that they enjoy they will be tuning into emotions, sentiments, and inspiration in their purest forms. Music has become so engrained in our daily lives that it is often not paid attention to but in its absence, one will recognize how central to their life it has become.
I consider myself a bit atypical when it comes to music listening habits. I don’t have any music on my phone or a car to listen to it in, and just in case it may be beginning to sound like I listening to cassette tapes, I, unfortunately, don’t have any of those either. What I do have is my computer on which I go through genre specific binge listening episodes; and my bagpipe chanter for a quick tune here and there. Although I am not as frequent of the listener by my own doing as some of my peers, I still have songs that run through my head like mantras to keep my mind focused. Additionally, I often find myself listening to listen to other people’s music such as that of a friend or the songs you hear at the mall. Being I had gone to military school for five years where we were only allowed to listen to music quietly during free time with headphones, one can imagine what my first year of college was like. People would play mainly rap music as loud as their speakers would let them in places like the bathroom or hallway and I quickly became familiar with many new genres. I have a suspicion that other genres such a classical music are not typically played at such a high volume and that the music I would hear echoing down the hallway was a genre that was historically rebellious. Further, there would be the occasional guitarist practicing in the hallway, in addition to a bit of piano in the lobby every now and then. Based on this, one can safely assume that while the genre may be unique, the role of music in everybody’s life is quite similar. People enjoy the ability it has to influence their being, find entertainment in it, enjoy the distraction it provides, or what it expresses. I believe that music has this ability due to the way it acts as a “humanistic” platform allowing individuals to think in a way that they were they can be influenced but not judged for their thoughts.
I dedicated this past Sunday as the day of no music and as one would expect was not even able to cut out the music that I had control of out of my day. In an attempt to gain some solitude, I decided to live off campus this year. I’m not exactly sure why but I realized that the entire morning I had been singing Blue Skies by Ella FitzGerald in my head. The part I fail to understand is whether I was chanting the lyrics in my head to keep me happy, or if I was having a productive morning and they were a result of that. After giving it some thought, the best theory I can come up with is that I use music to influence my mood which is something that I am in control of so I had already failed at the assigned task. I proceeded on in an attempt to avoid music and decided to play it safe by turning on the weather channel to watch Hurricane Irma. Being that I was streaming it off of my computer the screen read “We will be right back after a quick commercial break,” which was accompanied by some god-awful tune that I believe is their theme song. Personally, I would not have preferred a different tune because I know I would have begun to associate it with being bored as I repletely listened during the commercial breaks. Later that afternoon my phone rang and I noticed that it gave me some anxiety as it is the same tune I have my alarm clock set to. In most of the instances when I was really paying attention to what I was hearing I realized that these would normally be times that I would be passively listening and may not even notice what I had begun to hear. While I had successfully increased my level of attention I was still not able to escape from its intended effects. Another interesting thing occurred to me which is that a quiet day without music is rather eerie. That evening I finally buckled when my neighbor's toddlers got home from school and their shouting was distracting me from my work, I put my headphones on and played the soundtrack for A Beautiful Mind, I felt rather brilliant. One thing I really took away from this day was that something felt off, the sounds I normally dislike that are used during commercials and the like which I have become accustomed to the hearing were no longer there to distract me or enhance what I was focusing on.
Music that one does not have control over is equally impactful as the music one chooses to listen to. In many situations where one could benefit from a specific mood or thought it is often used in an attempt to manipulate its audience to that desired outcome, emotion, or level of focus. Examples I encountered of music that I was subject to were found in places such as restaurants, stores, businesses, and common areas like the elevator along with many other situations. Each Instance has a specific emotion and sentiment that the listener might not even be aware of. There are other factors that are just as important to the actual type of music being played such as the time, location, situation, and the way the music is actually being covered. By this I mean to say that a classical song covered by a rock band which is something one might hear playing in an elevator to distract the listener is vastly different than the same song being played traditionally at a nice restaurant where it actually enhances the dining experience. Music played by the same instrument in different styles is just as fluid in its commutative ability. For example, when one thinks of a military bugle call they may jump to the conclusion that it is only played in a commanding or motivational way, but this is not the case as TAPS which almost always brings goose bumps or tears to whoever may be listening to it. While I didn’t gain a new-found appreciation for that music that I had been attempting to cut out of my day, I did realize how foundational it is to my life.
