Music is Part of our life

Music is part of our lives whether we realize it or not, whether we actively participate in it or not, whether we appreciate its power or not. This is, in fact, the real power of music ? that it can affect us whether we are aware of it or not. We need only think of the music heard on the soundtrack of most movies. We may be aware of the action and the dialogue, the scenery, costumes and special effects, yet music is supporting it all and guiding the emotional context. In the best films, music is an active team player, but in the worst of films, sometimes the music is the only thing holding the story together. So important is music to film that studio executives sometimes watch “rough cuts” with a temporary music track, even before the actual score is written, to get a feel for how a particular scene will play over it.

Film is just one example. Television programs also have musical underscores. Many commercials use “jingles” to help sell their products ? these are tunes we “just can’t get out of our heads.” Result: we remember the product! Radio provides music 24 hours a day, seven days week, in every style imaginable. We buy our favorite music in record stores. Finally, there is live music, be it school friends with a guitar during the lunch break, a nightclub with just a few tables, a religious service with a choir and instruments, or a large concert or giant arena where thousands are gathered to share in the experience of music making.

In prehistoric times, before our ancestors became masters of our world, life was mostly random and patternless, except for the seasons. Even they couldn’t be counted on to produce rain, snow or sun at regular intervals. As fire was harnessed, as social order and language developed, as tools improved, the rhythms of life assumed a greater organization. Emotions developed as well ? from basic animal traits of pleasure and fear, contentment and anger ? into a much more complex system. Once the basic need to survive had been