Everyone has had their good and bad days throughout their life, and the music you put on for the day all depends on your mood. Whether it’s a sad song for the bad days or an upbeat song for the good ones, how you feel influences your song choice. But, music can change your mood nearly on the spot. It has such a power to be able to change and dictate how a person feels, maybe that is why everyone thoroughly enjoys listening to music.
It has been documented that the average person listens to an average of 32 hours of music a week. (Alban, 2018) It is something that is always around you whether you are in your car, at a party, or watching tv, music and music culture are constantly affecting the way you go about your day.
Music has been around forever starting 250,000 years ago when all people did was just hit things to make a beat. Obviously, at that point, there were no genres but it was just people making sounds that sounded pleasant to them, which changed their emotions.
While music has evolved so have the experiences and memories they can hold. One person’s happy song could be the song that was playing when someone got in a bad car crash. But generally, we tend to stick to the slow and easy listening songs as our sad songs and our upbeat and loud songs as happy ones. According to the American Music Therapy Association music can be used in a therapy setting as a form of treatment.
They have found that it helps with physical pain reduces stress and enhances memory. (Boothby, 2017) This shows that music is so powerful that it can even help with physical pain. To back this up further there was a study in 2015 that found patients who listened to music at some point during their day of surgery reported less pain and anxiety and used less pain medication. (Boothby, 2017) Music affects the everyday person, but the real musical effects happen to musicians. Brain scans of professional musicians found that they have much larger brains that are more sensitive and better connected than non-musicians. (Alban, 2018) Their motor control, spatial coordination, and auditory processing parts of their brain are seen to be more active and larger than ours. It is amazing what sounds put in the right order and rhythm can do to our brains. Music can enhance our ability to learn, feel, and cope almost instantly.
The effects of music run deeper than just listening to a song. The culture of music, especially concerts, has a profound effect on you physically and mentally. An Australian study found that their subjects who went to concerts and music festivals reported having better well-being. (Jones, 2017) When going to a concert, even to one that you may not enjoy the music itself, you are in an atmosphere that changes your thinking. In a concert, you don’t feel any anxiety or stress because for those few hours all that is important is what the performer on stage is doing and enjoying some time with friends or family. Almost everyone has experienced and felt a sense of joy going into a concert because of the way everyone around them is acting. Typically, the people there are having a better day because of the concert and therefore are in a good mood, so people tend to be more friendly and outgoing to one another which only boosts that feel-good feeling. The study proves this by stating that even though music is everywhere now because of our phones, going to a concert or festival has “more positive outcomes” for the subject because of the social aspect along with the dancing. (Jones, 2017) In a health article, they revealed that concert effects can benefit your physical health as well. They said that between walking, tailgating, dancing, and just moving around you burn as many calories as you would if you ran for 30 minutes straight on a treadmill. (Castaneda, 2016) Concerts are a bit different than just listening to music because you can get even better benefits, but that is only if you are participating. By participating the author is saying that the subjects who were constantly singing along and dancing to the music had a better time and better mental relief than those who just sat there and listened. (Jones, 2017) Concerts are also a lot of money typically so this is one of the drawbacks that people face who want to go to a high number of concerts in the year and experience the relief of being there, but not going to one every weekend could be what makes finally going just that much better.
We are personally psychologically and physically influenced by music every day but in today’s social media era society is influenced by the artists themselves. They generate hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers across their social media accounts. That means every time they make a tweet, take a picture, or just like a post millions of people are watching them. This is a great amount of influence that they can create with the push of a button.
Music Depends on Our Mood. (2022, May 14). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/music-depends-on-our-mood/