PJ Ramirez PJ Ramirez Songs of Protest March 6, 2012 Using Music to Convey a Message of Protest Music is the best way

to convey a message of protest to an audience that is willing or even unwilling to listen. Victor Wooten once said "Emotion, properly directed, can cause anything to happen. A mediocre musician can win over an audience by sheer emotion alone. This is a very important quality that allows music to be as powerful as it can be. Music is a vessel that has the ability to transcend all generations. It is an entity can unite all those willing to listen, as well as prevent things from happening. It is a place for the individual, as well as the collective. It is a relationship in which allows you to express yourself wholly. The reason for using a song, music, to get a message of protest across, is because music has all of these qualities that cater to the masses. Emotion is something that is not only internal or self-expressed. When people think about emotion, it usually only involves themselves or at most one other person. The truth is emotion can be looked at in two different ways, individual and collective. As where most of people commonly associate emotion with the individual experience, collective emotion is a mixing of all the projective emotions in a single location. It is a moving and powerful force. Collective emotion is changed by every persons past experience, relationships with other people in the area, current mood, ongoing events in ones life, and attitude. It can also constantly fluctuate depending on the most projective emotional outputs. This is often referred to as the mood of a room. Applying this emotional awareness to music with a message, a performer can use collective emotion as a powerful tool. This is possible because the performer, at the time, is the most projective

PJ Ramirez output of emotion. He has the ability to greatly influence the collective emotion of everyone listening. The emotion that one conveys during a song is directly conveyed to the audience. (If the musician is great at portraying emotion through music) The audience may associate the musicians projected emotion with anything going on in their lives from to a past memory, or a current relationship. This audience emotion is then projected collectively two every other listener, including the musician, in the room. Its important to know that not every person will react in their own way to the emotion the musician conveys. So, as a performer one must listen to what the collective emotion of the room is in order to know which direction you are taking the audience. Having this type of awareness, in which performer genuinely conveys emotion but at the same time is aware of the collective emotion of the room, is key to being an affective protest writers. Once you can understand the flow of emotion efficiently, the words and message in coordination with each other just ride along the penetrating force of emotion. Music is something that allows those to listen, who were unwilling before. Music is a force that unites all those who are willing to listen. Uniting a group of with different ideas is much harder to do without music. Most people are often unwilling to listen to each other because they have a set way of thinking. When put in a scenario as to where both sides are able to speak freely, the probability of either side listening goes way down. One of the great things about music is that at everyone is musical. At some level, in some way there is a degree in which everyone is involved in music. People will naturally listen to music. In other words, when music starts playing people listen. It is that natural reaction that sets up a place where two or more opposing ways of thinking can naturally listen. It is at that opportunity that the performer is able to convey his message through music. This is one of the only times that a person, who is usually closed minded, will actually listen to someones message. If a performer has a good message to convey it can much easily be received by the people whose minds the performer is trying to change.

PJ Ramirez Music has the ability to unite a people across generations. Songs like The National Anthem, Amazing Grace, and We shall Over Come is known by people throughout multiple eras of history. When songs such as these were sang it brought a lot of people together. These songs were sung as a collective people uniting under one cause or idea. People naturally want to be with other people. Even though music is often looked at as a private experience, music is also a collective experience. Music can be used to escape from the world as well as unite it. Music naturally brings people together having an understanding of this concept allows a performer to use this natural phenomenon and add a common idea or way of thinking. It is through all these aspects of music that I chose to convey messages through music. It is just much easier for a person to understand, retain and apply the ideas and concepts conveyed through music. Music allows the performer to connect with the audience emotionally. This kind of connection is more meaningful and stays within the persons memories. The performer can change the way an entire group collectively thinks about a certain topic or idea. The musician has the ability to cause entire groups to act on an idea or action that is taking place. The performer has a very powerful weapon that cannot be ignored. Using music to convey a message of protest is one of the smartest ways of getting that point across.