Music on Life How Music Has Influenced

¶ … Music on Life

How Music Has Influenced My Life

Music has always played a major role in my life. For as long as I can remember, I have always looked to music as a way to define my life. I even found it amusing when my high school began to play music over the PA during our lunch hour, making me feel as though my life was, for a brief moment, a silly teenage movie. I am very grateful for my family's introducing me to music as I have found that it has helped me to define various, important milestones in my life.

As long as I can remember, my parents have listened to the Beatles. They had all their songs on records and cassette tapes. This was the first band to which I felt loyalty towards and pretty soon, I knew all the lyrics to all the songs on all their albums. Some of the most memorable times that I had with my parents and Beatles music were on the road trips that we used to take as a family. Back when I was younger, we did not have CD players or MP3 players, but we were lucky enough to have a radio and cassette player in the car. Listening to and singing along to the Beatles on long road trips made me feel a connection to my family because not only did we bond through the adventures and new experiences that we had on our trips, but also through the music. One of my favorite songs to sing on these road trips was "Yellow Submarine" (1966). Not only did the song remind me of the adventures that we were going on in our substitute submarine, but it was also a very playful song that was happy and free.

As I began to grow up, I began to be more and more influenced by the people I hung out with at school, from my personal beliefs and attitudes to the music I listened to. It was during this time that I began to listen to music that was popular with my friends. One of the first albums that I bought during this time, and also on cassette, was a Green Day album (before they were as famous as they are now). Green Day catapulted my listening of other rebellious music, specifically the music of 70s punk legends the Ramones and The Sex Pistols. The message of rebellion that these bands promoted made me feel like I, too, should rebel and that I should not do things simply because everyone else is doing them. While many of these songs are about asserting one's individuality and resisting authority, they also helped me to understand that rebellion is not simply about resisting what my parents told me to do, but also for standing up for what I believed in, even if it contradicted what my friends wanted or thought.

The more I listened to music, the more and more I began to see how different types of music affected the way I felt. Just like punk music made me feel rebellious, I found that listening to jazz music would help me calm down after a stressful day. One of musicians that I absolutely fell in love with was Billie Holiday. One of my all time favorite albums by Billie Holiday is Lady Sings the Blues (1956). One of my favorite songs on the album is "God Bless the Child." Even though this song is associated with the holidays and Christmas, the way that Holiday sings the song makes me feel calm and at peace regardless of the time of year that I hear it. Her style of singing is wrought with her painful life experiences and helps to invoke the same feelings in the listener. Even though much of the album may seem depressing to many people, I found comfort in it because it made me feel as though my life was better than some peoples' and that there were many other things that could impact my life negatively. Additionally, Billie Holiday's voice had a soothing affect on me, apart from the lyrics that she was singing. I also think that the tempo of the songs helped to stabilize my mood. When I was feeling frantic and out of control, I found that Billie's singing and the slow, relaxing tempo of the music would help me to center myself and gain control of my feelings and thoughts.