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Kevin Pena

Mr. Schreiber

Senior Seminar

01 March 2018

The Effect of Music

Picture a world without music. To some, this might be a deal breaker. So much of

your life revolves around it, that twang of a guitar or current favorite rap lyric to play is needed

to make the day a bit more bearable. Taking it a step further, picture a world without music. It’s

almost impossible to picture. In our era, there is no doubt that we are greatly affected by music,

even if we aren’t passionate about it or don’t listen to it a lot.

To understand music, it’s best to understand to where it started. Music is as simple as a

beat you make with your mouth or a hum from your vocal chords. Naturally, we can take music

back to prehistoric times. According to The Method Behind the Music, music goes back to the

prehistoric times. “The earliest forms of music were probably drum-based, percussion

instruments being the most readily available at the time (i.e. rocks, sticks.)”. As though there is

no evidence to support it, it is believed that the simple instruments they had were used for

religious ceremonies.

By 4000 BCE, the Egyptians had made harps and flutes, and 500 years after,

double-reeded clarinets were created. The earliest form of the trumpet came from Denmark

around 2500 BCE. It is known as the “natural trumpet” since you use your lips to change the
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pitch the trumpet makes. The guitar was made in 1500 BCE by the Hittites, which would mark

the stepping to stone to the creation of the violin and harpsichord.

By 700 BE there was collections of songs to be found. This brings us to music during

Ancient Rome and Greece. Since they had a lot of free time due to slave labor, the Greeks had a

lot of time to expand on the artistic side of humanity. A mathematician named Pythagoras made

music into a science and created the octave scale.

Around 350 BC Aristotle put work into music theory, which according to ​dummies​, the

main to take away is that “it is simply a way to explain the music we hear.” After the next

significant contribution to music came in 521 CE. A man named Boethius brought the Greek

system of notation into Western Europe. This gave the people who lived there the ability to

accurately write down the folk songs so that they wouldn’t be lost. After Rome fell, the Catholic

church commissioned most of the music created. In 600 CE, the Pope ordered the Schola

Cantorum to be built. This is the first music school that was created in Europe. From this music

exploded, yet until 1110 CE music was controlled by the church. Splitting music and church

created ”folk music” which was looked at with disgust. We then come to The

Renaissance(ca.1600 to 1750), which according to ​ipl2​, was “a time of great cultural awakening

and a flowering of the arts, letters, and sciences throughout Europe. With the rise of humanism,

sacred music began to break free from the confines of the Church, and a school of composers

trained in the Netherlands mastered the art of polyphony in their settings of sacred music.” Then

came The Baroque Age, which saw “composers beginning to rebel against the styles that were

prevalent during the High Renaissance”(ipl2). Many monarchs had composers, which were

employed to simply make music whenever the occasion sprang. They were near servants. The
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greatest composer of that time, Johann Bach was a servant himself. During this age Opera was

created. During the Classical Period between 1750 to 1820, people looked back at Classical

Greece for inspiration. Vienna became the capitol for music during this time, and people would

come here to become great composers. This era gave birth to symphonies, sonatas, and string

quartets by the likes of Franz Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

After this, the Romantic Era(1820 to 1900) came about. This was all about romanticism, which

was all about adding more emotion into the music. Due to new instruments and a continued

modification, the symphony orchestra became even more popular.

The first shift into music being associated with the intertwined culture is the Roaring

Twenties. The genre that became popular was Jazz. Greats of the era were Duke Ellington and

Louis Armstrong. Jazz had great effects into the culture of the Roaring Twenties. It affected

fashion, things that changed were that “hemlines rose and bodices dropped. Men’s pants bagged

and women’s hair was cut short. Jazz influenced these fashion trends, along with many

more…”(UMN). It also affected the liberation of women. Jazz provided the opportunity for

women to go farther than the sex role that had been known up until that time. It also made

history. For the first time in culture, Jazz was part of a minority that became part of the majority.

This art form gave African Americans respect, since jazz is an African American art form. Jazz

carried through the 1930’s and the Great Depression Era.

The next era that changed American culture was the 1950’s and the introduction of Rock

n’ Roll. Greats of the era were Frank Sinatra and Patti Page. These gave way to greats like Little
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Richard an Jerry Lee Lewis. The fast pace and feel good feeling of fifties music comes from post

WW2 optimism.

During the 1960’s, the British Invasion of the 1960’s with The Beatles, which is perhaps

the most influential band of all time. There was a television show named “American Bandstand”

that helped promote the trending dance moves. The television show greatly influenced the

American pop culture, being the way to check what the current hit dance move was. When the

Vietnam War(1961 to 1973) came, music was made that defined the conflict and the American

stance on the Vietnam War. During this time, many genres popped up. Disco and punk propped

around the 1960’s and 1970’s, and heavy metal beginning to come into popularity.

The Vietnam Era of music was defined by political messages in music. This was a start

in protest music, music made to give an anti-war message. This was expressed in popular songs

like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”. Songs like “Revolution” by The Beatles to the song

most can identify with Vietnam, “Fortunate Son”. Music proved to have power, soldiers and

non-soldiers unifying through the anti-war songs. The 1990’s came, and music was heavy on

rock. It was a mix of punk and hard rock, which was then named Grunge. The heavy music that

started out in the 1970’s was made popular by bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The people

who listened to grunge rebelled against the idea of rock artists looking glamorous. They would

wear flannel and ripped up jeans and have long hair. The 90’s also gave the rise to rap. Greats of

the genre were Dr. Dre, Tupac and Snoop Dogg. They would have mellow RnB beats and rap

about the hardships of living in the streets. The 1990s also gave birth to Eminem, who’s lyrical

genius and often disturbing or violent depictions through his music rose him to fame.
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Music today is different and more diverse and ever. Pop culture today was swept up with

mumble rap, a new form of rap with more focus on the beat and the hype than actual meaning

into the lyrics. This type of music is for people to get hyped up, and it actually has its own way

to dance to it. Greats of the genre include Lil Yachty, 21 Savage, Lil Uzi Vert, Migos and Future.

There is the current fame of more old-fashioned rappers like Drake, a rapper who talks about his

struggles and emotions through his songs. Another rapper of his kind is Kendrick Lamar, who

uses his lyrics to convey deeper messages.

This current top dog popularity cements rap into the mainstream, becoming more popular than

any other genre now. The uprising of DJ remixes and music has also created a new way to

experience music. While not the most popular, it’s still something pop culture will listen to and

some people in the dubstep scene do get on the charts. Greats from this type of music are people

like Alan Walker, Avicii and Calvin Harris. Rock and heavy metal music has fallen onto the

decline in popularity since its great uproar in the 1990’s. There is no new rock or metal artists

that top charts anymore. The concerts nowadays from established groups that have existed since

the decade started. The most prominent band in Punk Rock is Blink-182 having released an

album last year. The most important metal performers are Avenged Sevenfold, having notorious

popularity within the heavy metal scene. Most of the rock that is listened to nowadays is rock

from the past and usually by the older generations.

It’s also important to ask why music is listened to and there are many reasons as to why

that is the case. My mentor, Karla Tate has experience with the piano with over 55 years, and has
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taught it for about 18 years. When asked why music is so important she says, “Music an art, it

touches something out of life, colors bring vibrancy to life . Music is that color “

“Music is that color “ This I can relate with the 1950’s, where society would make uplifting

songs after the tragedies of WW2. I can also relate it to myself, when I sing in the car at the top

of my lungs. She also stresses that there is many positives to learning instruments. “It’s all about

the sense that you’re making music, you’re in a different place”. I helped a kid with a brain

tumor, taught him piano. His left and right brain had trouble connecting with each other. He

could play with his left hand, but he couldn’t even push the keys down on his right. To mediate

this, he would use his right hand and push his left fingers down. After two years of lessons, he

could use his right to play notes. I would argue that music is not only an entertainment, but

therapy too”. She also warns that music is powerful, since she says” Any place of expression you

have to use discernment. If you always listen to mellow songs, you get depressed. You can listen

to songs that have bad influences and it will eventually influence you too. There is no doubt that

music influences the way you think.”

There is no doubt music has had an influence in our lives. Since the Greeks, music has

been broken down to a science and used to express the artistic side of humanity. Up until the

1900’s revolutions and the sophistication of music made it possible to record music and make

music unlike ever before. In the 1920’s it has influenced the way we dressed, and helped the

progression of certain groups of people. It is used to uplift moods, make political statements, and

a way to rebel and express yourself. We listen to music to escape our problems for a second. We

listen to it to amplify that new love for your partner, or to hit the feels when you are going

through a break up. We use it to boost morale, or we use it when we are down in the dumps.
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Music is not just a way to entertain, it can be used for therapy. Music is powerful, and will

continue to be embedded within American society as long as we have talented composers, artists

and musicians that make music that connects to us.

Works Cited

Jolls, Benjamin. “Styles of Music.” ​The Method Behind the Music​,

method-behind-the-music.com/history/styles/.
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bout the USA > Arts > Music​, usa.usembassy.de/arts-music.htm.

Musicians​, UMD,
www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/musicians.html

Rich, Michael. “1950s And 1960s Music| FiftiesWeb.” ​Fifities Web​,

fiftiesweb.com/1950s-and-1960s-music/.

Spector, Ronald H. “Vietnam War.” ​Encyclopædia Britannica​, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.,

11 Jan. 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War.

“The '90s: Music.” ​National Geographic Channel​, 8 June 2014,

channel.nationalgeographic.com/the-90s-the-last-great-decade/articles/the-90s-music/.
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http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/

https://usa.usembassy.de/arts-music.htm

http://www.dummies.com/art-center/music/guitar/what-is-music-theory/
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https://method-behind-the-music.com/history/styles/

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/3-ways-music-impacts-life