Meaning of Music
What is music?
“Music is the expression of emotion and feeling. It is a form of art and is analogically related to architecture; its construction, paintings: imagery represented, and literature: language used to express emotion,” (Cooke, 1959)
The word music comes from the Greek mousikê (tekhnê) which is derived from the Latin word musica. It is ultimately derived from mousa, the Greek word for muse. The Greek meaning of Muse: a woman, or a force personified as a woman, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. The dictionary meaning of Muse means to be absorbed in deep and reflective thought; to meditate.
Music is considered to be an art form in which time organizes sound; sound is the medium. Creation, performance, significance and definition all depend on social context and the culture from which they come. Philosophers of ancient Greece and ancient India both believe music can be defined the following way: melodies are horizontally ordered tones and harmonies are vertically ordered.
Twentieth Century philosopher John Cage stated that music comes from any sound; any sound can be music. "There is no noise, only sound," according to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez, "the border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus… By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be, except that it is 'sound through time."
The languages of many cultures such as the Inuit, and the general North American Indian do not have any general terms for music. Many African cultures do not have a term for music either.
In the Indian tradition there are three arts that, when combined, make music: singing, playing (instruments), and dancing. These arts are performed as well as learned in two forms: Raag (melody) and Taal (rhythm). To break this down into a deeper sense, Raag, as melody, is the product of sound and Taal, as rhythm, is a product of time. Having said that, we can say that music is caused manipulating sound through time.
From here we must define sound. Each sound has two parts: the strike and the resonance. In hindi, strike is known as ‘Aghaat’ and resonance is ‘Kampan'. When something is hit, an object in this case, the first movement the object creates is not musical. However, the object will either resonate at a fixed frequency after the hit, or it will stand still. If it resonates, it will create a tone, and this tone can be useful in music. If it does not resonate, you will hear nothing more than a ‘tick'. The strike is not a musical sound, but its resonance is.
Now, with that in mind, the resonance has to be long enough for the brain to register it usually in milliseconds, usually. The sages of music knew all these things thousands of years ago, and today with the use of technology we can physically see this notion on a computer screen through the use of audio editors. The higher the frequency of a note, the faster the brain will register it, the lower, the later.
When more than one frequency is present, they will interact with one another. These vibrations will overlap and the sounds will change: this causes music. Some frequencies compliment each other so we wont notice them alone, but as a whole. But some frequencies will not compliment others and these will stick out like a sore thumb. These non-complimenting frequencies, when other complimenting ones are present, can be interpreted as noise.
How does music speak to us?
Music is constructed by the sender, and the message typically reflects the senders emotional or experienced self in some way. Once the message has been organized, the sender makes use of external musical devices, also known as instruments. The combination of the message and external musical devices produce “rather immediate effects on attention, arousal, emotion, and mood in the receiver.”
In order for the product to be clear and have the ability to communicate well, it needs to be stimulated by two related elements: formulaic devices (musical lexicon/instruments) and content matching (pragmatic rules for creating meaningful messages). These formulaic devices refer to musical scale, rhythm, melody, tone, volume, tempo, etc. “The existence of formulas implies that there is a musical lexicon that is shared between the senders and receivers of musical communication within a culture and that defines the borders of that communication,” (anonymous). Content matching is therefore the “pragmatic process by which musical senders fashion their sounds so as if to fit particular intended meanings.” The pragmatic concern of the sender is to select devices that are appropriate to the message they want o communicate- therefore, the sender structures the message and sounds to match, or at the least, to make a suitable fit.
Music is often referred to as the language of emotion. There are a number of musical features that have been reported to suggest distinct emotions; these features include: tempo, mode, harmony, pitch, rhythm, tonality, timing, and the like. There are also five main emotions that a musical piece can induce into listeners:
Happiness
Fast tempo, single harmony, high and wide pitch
Sadness
Slow tempo, dissonance, low sound level, low pitch
Anger
Fast tempo, atonality, dissonance, high sound, small loudness, sudden rhythm changes
Fear
Fast tempo, dissonance, rapid changes in sound, wide pitch range, jerky rhythms, irregularity
Tenderness
Slow tempo, consonance, medium-low sound level, low pitch, soft contrast, regularity
When it comes to music, the meanings people give to it are most strongly related to the emotional responses they produce. According to the book Musical Communication by Dorothy Miell, Raymond MacDonald, and David J. Hargreaves, “emotions to music often reflect personal and idiosyncratic associations based on arbitrary and contingent relationships between music experienced and various non-musical factors related to emotion…research indicates that listeners often use music as a ‘reminder of valued past events’ and that specific pieces of music may be strongly associated with particular time periods of an individual’s life. Hence, nostalgia may be one of the more commonly felt emotions in regard to music.”
Music speaks to people by its effectiveness in stimulating mental imagery. These images are not necessarily about the song, but about what the song represents to a particular person. “Observation of the referent (within a specific frame of reference) independently of the words and their senses, influenced the decision on the meaning to be assigned to this sign. The meaning of a word, or connection between sentences, can change entirely based on what we know about their implicit frame of reference” (Hammel, 1997).
That said, music can include many messages from political, social conventions and ceremonies, nationalistic pride, altered states of consciousness, or more personal messages of emotional states and complex ideas. “People in contemporary society use music as a resource such as imagining a situation-specific emotional state or mood: we use music to achieve certain psychological states in different everyday situations. (People) consciously use music to achieve these goals,” (Miell et al, 2005).
Music in the media
Music has a powerful influence over human behaviour. It has the ability to make people react with emotion, motivation, or to be aroused. But music in today’s society is inundated by a multitude of moral problems from censorship, quotas, propaganda, and commercialization to name a few. “Music is a major tool for propagating group ideologies and identities, and as such serves as an important device for reinforcing collective actions and for delineating the lines of inclusion for social groups,” (McMullen & Saffran, 2004).
Music has become one of the most important marketing tools in the modern society as it has the ability create behavioural conformity and stimulate social compliance. Take the most recent Telus advertising campaign as an example. The television commercials are widely accepted and while they contain very few words they contain very attractive music that has the ability to capture the attention of any audience.
Telus consumers can partly direct their spending habits on Telus products, on the music that is presented in their advertising campaign. They contain elements of popular culture which directly attract and influence the behaviours of many markets. Likr Telus, many companies and organizations have benefited from using music to attract consumers.