The Importance of Music

The importance of music – Felix Jansson SA2 + Alicia’s comments

Music has infiltrated every aspect of our society and culture during the course of thousands of years. In ancient Greece, music where everywhere from the slums to the palaces, today is no different.

Music exists everywhere in our society and culture today and does an excellent job of reflecting it. Looking through the history of music, one can learn a lot since it reflects the time in which it was produced; the hardships of the slaves in early America, the economic success of the 20’s, the worldwide conflicts and peacekeeping movements of the cold war and the difficulties and acceptance of homosexuals in the 80’s. My question is; how does music influence us on a personal and global level?

Music is an excellent medium to express oneself due to the wide variety of relevant subject matters available, every person in the world will relate to at least one song one way or the other. Music can help us express how we feel when words are not enough or just won’t come to us, this can be seen in the novel ‘Perks of being a wallflower’ where the protagonist Charlie has a hard time explaining himself to the people around him. He uses music to reflect his feelings, an example of this can be the making of mix tapes that he makes to his friends to convoy a message to them or simply to give them a brief view into his mind.

Music means a lot to me and I have developed a very broad musical taste over the years. I listen to music every day and use it to calm down, get hyped, and blow off steam or to simply pass time. In today’s society, music is used to regulate moods, market products and spread messages. Most people come in contact with music every day and each one of us have a unique musical taste; this makes music a billion dollar industry and a huge part of society.

Throughout history, music has spread entire cultures around the globe such as punk, hippie and rap. This makes music enormously relevant in the context of globally spread subcultures. Music also reflects nationality and heritage; it can help us understand more about ourselves, our heritage as well as how others live, in different cultures even. Music is an effective and widespread medium to spread ideals and ideas, about the past, present and the future.

Music is in the end something that binds us all together as a culture, ever since pre-historic tribes developed proto-instruments and chanting around the campfire, this has been the case. People can come together and share music with each other, completely different individuals can still socialize and interact due to a common musical interest, this is the case in the novel per example.

Music enables us to share and interact on a different level, music has always existed in some form, and I believe it always will.

Alicia’s comments:

I think Felix did a very well written essay about the importance of music. He shows that he has thought about how the music has evolved through the years and how it affects us. He explains what music means to him and what kind of symbolic importance music have to many people. He also does a comparison to the novel "The perks of being a wallflower" and explains what kind of importance music have in the novel and for the main character Charlie.

To support his thoughts of the importance of music in “The perks of being a wallflower” even more, he could have given examples from certain situations in the novel. He could have referenced from the novel or written quotes to support his thoughts. To make a comparison I think he should have mentioned another novel or film where music is a central theme.