FUNCTIONS AND USES OF MUSIC

Music has been an essential part of humans' lives. Since we are very little it is present in our
everyday life and in most special occasions: a mother singing a lullaby to her baby before he go to
sleep, small kids learning the alphabet in school, the background music in the supermarket or in our
favorite clothing store, the soundtrack of every modern film or TV series, in all kind of parties formal
and informal, religious and not religious, today and two centuries before!, in weddings, etc. Technology
allow us to listen to music "# hours a day and it doesn't matter if you are swimming, running or
studying. $part from that, scientists are discovering more and more unknown benefits of music.
%ereafter &'m going to e'plain different roles that music had played in history and some of its uses
nowadays.
To begin with, it would be convenient to give a definition of music. %owever it is not possible.
Musicologists all(around the world have discussed about a valid definition for such an ambiguous
concept for many years, but they have not reached an agreement yet. &t is not possible to difference
what is music from what is not : a priest singing in church is making music and an $frican tribe playing
the drums and dancing around the fire is making music too. $ famous and difficult to classify case is a
)ohn M. *age +composition, called 4'33''. This +piece, consist in the sounds of the environment heard
by the audience for the duration specified in the title. *raig -right, an $merican playwright and
.mmy(nominated television writer, wrote: +-hy music must have meaning/ -hy must it e'press
anything/ -hy must it be goal oriented, as is so much of human activity in the -est/, Listening to
music. 0age 123! The concept of music and its uses have changed over time, but it still being music.
The most important function of music is to establish relationships. $t the beginning of the -estern
culture, songs and melodies were used to connect two worlds: human world and the world of gods.
That kind of relations are called vertical relationships. &n the ancient .gypt, music was an important
part of the everyday living. &t was present in many conte't: temples, workshops, palaces, farms,
battlefields and the tomb. 4ut above all, music was an integral part of their religious lives. There were
even gods specifically associated with music, such as %athor and 4es both of them were also
associated with fertility, dance and childbirth!. These vertical relations appeared in the ancient 5eek
culture as well . Music was an important feature of religious festivals, marriage, funeral rites, and
ban6uet gatherings. $nother e'ample is the 5regorian chant of the western 7oman *atholic *hurch,
developed mainly during the 8th and 9:th centuries. There were no instrumental accompaniment and
voices of men and women could not be mi'ed. That was because at that time the *atholic *hurch
considered the voice of a man the purest sound in earth. They thought music was originated by 5od.
+*reative individuals did not step forward to take credit for their accomplishments( the honor belonged
to 5od, *raig -right, Listening to music. 0age ;8!
The other types of relations created by music are called horizontal relationships. &n the $ncient
history there were also that kind of relations. $t that time, all citi<ens participated actively in religious
ceremonies by singing prayers and dancing. Music was one of the main activities of the community.
$fter thousands of years and apart of religion, that link between Music and social life still e'ist. &t is
present in the identity of the social groups. =nconsciously, we associate certain musics with social
groups. 5oing fre6uently to the >pera means more than en?oying that music, it is associated with
belonging to the upper social classes. &n the same way, listening to rap music is associated with urban
minorities from lower social classes.
The biggest search for identity is done during puberty. Teenagers try to create their own personality
and define a role model to be integrated into a group. 4ack in 9888, the +7eport on *ognitive &nterview
7esults for the 9888 Survey of 0rogram @ynamics, done by the *enter for Survey Methods 7esearch
in -ashington, showed that the 2"A of the music bands and modern artists in =S$ at that time started
playing between 93 to ": years of age. $dolescents constitute groups based on a music style and
identify them with the music they like the most. -hen a teenager thinks no one understands him, he
finds a song he feels identified with. This makes them a vulnerably sector and recording companies
know how to take advantage of it.
$t this point, we find another use of music: as a mass consumer product. 7ecord companies know
how influential songs and letters are, specially in teenagers. These companies take particular advantage
of their vulnerability by creating music celebrities, teen(idols, lifestyles, ideals. That is the case of
many popular groups and singers, for e'ample: in the 988:'s Spice 5irls, and nowadays >ne @irection
or )ustin 4ieber. .ach one of that groups moves millions of fans in every concert and disk signing and
generates enormous amounts of money from their music and merchandising.
*urrently, music is very useful for marketing too. Music evoke emotions and can create an
environment to which clients feel psychologically and emotionally connected. *ommercials do not ?ust
sell a product they sell an image. $n image of acceptance, popularity, likabilityB all the things we have
been trained to desire. 4ut what is it about music that makes it so important in advertisements/ Cirst, it
is so much easier to remember a song or ?ingle than spoken words. Second, it is entertaining. -hether
the listener really cares about the product or not they may create a mental association with the song and
the product.
$part from the economic aspect, music has other beneficial 6ualities. Scientists investigate benefits
of music in human health and in mental development. &t has been proven that listening to music before
performing a task which re6uires intense concentration increases the attention and the short(term
memory. &n >ctober 9#th, 9881 researchers from the =niversity of *alifornia Crances 7auscher,
5ordon Shawn and Datherine Dy, published a short article entitled +Music and spatial task
performance, detailing their curious research. &t consisted of three sets of spatial reasoning tasks. .ach
task was preceded by 9: minutes of 9! Eistening to Mo<art's Sonata for two pianos in @ D##FB "!
Eistening to a rela'ation tapeB or 1! silence. Thirty(si' college students participated in the e'periment.
Collowing each listening condition, the student's spacial reasoning skills were tested using the
Stanford(4inet intelligence scale. Cindings showed that sub?ects performed better tests after listening to
Mo<art than after listening to the rela'ation tape of to nothing. %owever the effect of music condition
was temporal, it did not e'tend beyond the 9: to 93 minutes. Gewspapers around =S$ called it +the
Mo<art effect,.
&t is clear, therefore, that music has been a fundamental part of human history. -e can not imagine
what life would be like without music. &t is present in our everyday living, but it can be used with many
different purposes such as social integration, persuasion, entertainment or as a mass consumer product.
Music remains in our brain and influences us. >scar -ilde said: +Music is the art which is most nigh to
tears and memories. ,