Change Process and Music

Music and the Universe

Music is one characteristic everything in existence possesses. For anything to be existing, it has to possess an amount of energy and these always undergo vibration. From these vibrations, sound waves are generated and these combine to form what we call music. Nothing better defines the phrase "Universal Language" than music. Every human being relates to it. Sound waves move and come in contact with just about anything existing including water, soil, animals, vegetation, other worlds and galaxies etc. Music could also determine a person's mood. This power of music on human moods and emotions can actually be explained easily. The sound waves on reaching a person encounter his/her unique energy signature which causes a unique response to each sound.

This study aims to illustrate just how music and language are related and to also conclusively show that these two have a deep mental and scientific link. Furthermore, the study aims to prove that music is a true Universal Language. Everyone across the world understands what music means and just how much creative power is needed for it. Every tribe, culture and country has its own traditional music as well as language. So, it won't be far from the truth if we say music is a global and daily companion of humans. As earlier stated, music and language differs by region and this is so pronounced that music from other areas could sound like noise. This shouldn't be a surprise as music is based on melodies built around cultural language intonations. Thus, we can boldly say that music is a global means of letting our feelings known and that music relates with humans in a distinct way.

Literature Review

i. Music and culture

Considering the popular ancient associations and traditions as much as we possibly can, it is very clear that these societies placed high importance on music. Coming back to the present-day and focusing on pop music, the degree of global acceptance even among citizens of different languages and cultures, the sheer digits of its audience as well as the enormous number of units sold and consumed is astounding. When we remind ourselves that this acceptance and actions of the consumers are totally intentional, then we have to ask this question; how exactly does music make people act the way they do?[footnoteRef:1] Knowing that music is universal and widespread and considering this has been the case for centuries further backs our argument that music is a force for good. If we critically examine the reason, we can rightly say there is there is something that music does best to our human system and this act keeps us healthy and exuberant. [1: Janet Wolff. "Aesthetic Autonomy and Cultural Politics." In the Social Production of Art, pp. 71-94. Macmillan Education UK, 1981. 72-3]

Our aim of determining the precise way music affects humans will cause us to examine other cultures and traditions. Apart from the fact that there are several things to learn from these other ways of life, our attentions could also be drawn to certain aspects of our personal traditions which we didn't appreciate earlier. There is a connection between tradition and culture. People carry out tasks in a certain manner; other people buy into this process and adopt it while the new-born generation improves the process. There is an efficient transfer of useful information with friends and offspring among humans. Through this, the important lessons of old which have been mastered will be passed on to the next generation. Some of these lessons get lost along the way while new ones emerge. The two common types of modifications experienced are gentle/continuous change and sharp adoption of new methods.

What came before this generation cannot be totally wiped out and a critical assessment of the novel ways of life introduced today will show borrowed ideas from the past. Completely eradicating an ingrained culture could lead to a number of negative effects. Most humans do not appreciate the link between culture, tradition and self-indulgence. There have been massive moves made towards bringing the musical preferences of people across the world together. Notwithstanding, a close study of individual cultures will reveal that music still exists in its various forms and manners within them.

Cultures from the days of old have always experienced change. These days, this change process is more pronounced due to the advent of mass media which has helped in passing across ways of life of different people so efficiently that most societies have implemented certain changes in their own traditions. The interaction within societies is a crucial cog in the wheel of culture modification and tolerance. This process has had an effect on music right from the ancient times even till now[footnoteRef:2]. The only difference is simply the speed and success of the present-day influences. A number of societies who are fighting this change process still admit their existence and their proximity. These societies, despite their seemingly immovable stance on tradition change, still get influenced one way or the other. Though the process of change via interaction with other societies and traditions is and has been the basic modifier of cultures, these days, this process has expanded from influence from friends and close dwellers to influence from cultures situated at long distances and whom there has been no physical interaction with over 2 decades[footnoteRef:3]. This study of the world's music-themed actions is greatly dependent on several information sources. The present-day cultures serve as a huge source. [2: Ibid.] [3: Janet Wolff. Aesthetic Autonomy...]

ii. Modernity and science in music

A way of defining modernity is the huge development caused by advances in technology over many centuries that is seen in the industries and urban centres. These advancements then caused a need for organizations and establishments which would train, direct and raise the interest of the new crop of up-to-date workers. Another way is that modernity defines the life-changing science and philosophy discoveries which were changing the way we do things at the latter end of the century. Some of these changes in reaction to the discoveries are increase in anti-biblical agitations, demand for new political as well as economic directions and a higher level of belief concerning age-long disputed topics like the way humans think, where they are from and how the universe functions[footnoteRef:4]. [4: Joseph Auner. "Chapter two: Expanding musical worlds" in Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. WW Norton and Company. (2014): 19]

One of the technological discoveries that had massive and widespread impact was recording. 1888 was the year when phonographs were produced in bulk and when 1902 rolled in, over a million phonographs with the voice of opera legend Enrico Caruso on them were sold[footnoteRef:5]. A number of people were quite sceptical about how the player piano, which allowed playing novices to make great music, would affect the music world. Some even saw the ease of purchasing recorded music as a huge problem. Film, which is of French origin, was another ground-breaking discovery at the time. The characteristic of film called splicing, which involved shooting different views of a scene concurrently and putting them together thus giving different perspectives, was an awesome invention then. A clear example of how unsettling modernity could be can be seen in cinema audiences who have just only come to terms with the invention of film but then suddenly have to change their ways of thinking with the splicing discovery. [5: Ibid, 32]

iii. The psychology of music

One hot topic which linguists and anthropologists cannot stop deliberating on is Universals. Though Music is directly affected by innovations in other sectors, the area of Universals has served as an exception to this rule. Studies on music dating as far back as the '70s have not paid significant attention on universals and this can be interpreted as a sign of negligible effect and importance of universals in music. Most of the research carried out on the link between music and universals have been undertaken by people with no major affiliations to the music world. Our stance on this matter is that we need to compare, classify and accept the existence of universals. Also, there needs to be a comprehensive belief about music for the true understanding of its nature, its development over the years and its cognitive effect on man[footnoteRef:6]. [6: Steven Brown and Joseph Jordania. "Universals in the world's musics." Psychology of Music 41, no. 2 (2013):230]

This agitation for a musical universal initially seems to be at odds with two well-known characteristics of the global musical landscape, one of these characteristics is geographical while the other is based on history. For the geographical aspect, contemporary music has a humongous number of delivery methods and processes. For instance, compare the hunting tunes popular to the Central African Pygmies to the shamanistic music owned by the Kamchatka region in Siberia. For the historical reason, methods of delivering music has been proved to have a tendency of sudden cultural modification and the highest number of reports on this has been sourced from the Europeans. An example is the amazing developments that occurred in Josquin to Boulez which occurred over a meagre 450 years[footnoteRef:7]. Examining if the methodical disparities that exist between the Pygmy hunter and Kamchatkan shaman is more or less than that which existed between Josquin and Boulez is unnecessary. This is because it is evident that there is a huge difference between both and therefore, it would be very surprising if any form of unchanged characteristic still exist. Actually, the extent of variety in music across the world is arguably seen as the biggest reason why musical universals can't exist. [7: Ibid, 234]

We could classify universals with the gradience concept used as the basis. Universals that are found in all musical notes and are present all though the music are called Type 0 universals. These universals present music as a sensible or bodily experience with similarities to the noise made by running water. The next class, Type 1 universals, concern themselves with every musical speech and due to this; they have greater functions than the ordinary sound or senses. Type 1 universals are not really seen as sole characteristics of music as they have certain non-musical applications too, a characteristic they share with the type 0 universals. The major and most applied traditions in music are what the Type 2 universals explain. This class doesn't need to analyse every single musical sound rather it concerns itself with general musical performance styles and processes, though it is common for the individual musical sounds or complete work not to possess any of these musical features. Type 3 universals are the next class and they are also called common patterns. Quite a large number of musical traditions have their own common patterns, majorly due to historical backgrounds framed by religious customs or leadership. The patterns majorly identify influences which originated from migrants or interaction between societies. The final class of universals doesn't follow the normal trends of universals as it concerns itself with the differences existing between the various music categories. We refer to them as range universals or type 4 universals. These universals raise our understanding of the various possibilities each music category or system possesses.