Popular Music, Youth and Education - Essay Example

ES3002N POPULAR MUSIC, YOUTH AND EDUCATION A DIARY. Monday I was driving back alone, after just having dropped my daughter to her nursery. I hadswitched on my cd player and it played Akon ft Shaggy- wots love gotta do with it. The song suddenly took me back to the times when Tina Turner was also famous for a song with a similar title. It brought back happy memories of my childhood. I, for some reason, suddenly felt like dancing to the upbeat rhythm and melody. Tuesday I was at home with my daughter in the early hours of the afternoon. I was making lunch. I switched on the music channel (vH1 on television) to soothe my ears and generate an air of calm. Then came along a rock song: Puddle of Mudd- Living on borrowed time. I rushed forward to switch channels as it came across as very noisy and aggressive. My daughter and I looked at each other and laughed. Just as it had happened to me, it would probably happen to her: that genre of music just did not and could not appeal to my better taste. Wednesday I was driving to the shopping centre with my cousin and we put on her new cd. Whenever we meet, we always exchange new cds to enjoy our time in the car together. One cd played 9th Ward- Supermodel. I felt really good about myself. We were both dressed up and the music boomed through the windows of the car. The catchy beat got me dancing in my seat and in my head for a few moments. It drove me back to the time when my husband and I first met. Even though we met in different circumstances, it made me reminisce about the times when he would woo me and convince me of his great love for me. Friday I was at home in the evening, getting started on coursework. My daughter was asleep and my husband was with me in the sitting room. The music played in the background and eased my thoughts. Ne.Yo- Miss Independent came on. My husband and I smiled at each other and it instantly became a special moment for us. The song meant a lot to us. Ever since I was very young and life was very hard, I was always determined to be independent and achieve my goals: university, jobs or whatever they may be. Since then, we had supported each other through the toughest moments. He knew that I would fight for what I wanted. Saturday I had had an extremely long day with family. I was driving with my daughter in the back seat. Just as always, I turned on the radio station (Magic) at night time as it soothed my daughter and let her fall asleep. It was then amongst a lot of old, sad, love songs, that Bonnie Taylor- Turn around played. I felt sad and emotional. It brought back memories from people in my family that had passed away. I was very close to them. I missed them and wished they had been around to share the special moments in my life. The thought of my parents also came to mind as they were so far away from me. As the song played softly in the background, I missed them terribly. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL RECOLLECTION (2) Ever since I can remember, I was constantly surrounded by music no matter what the genre was. My family had always been open minded and listened to a variety of music genres. Not every genre was their favourite but they would simply switch on the radio and listen to any song that was playing. From an early age I had been introduced to romantic and nostalgic love songs. My parents loved them. No matter what we were doing in the house, music would always play in the distance and till today I have recollections of events that occurred when I was just a little girl, listening to a particular song, with my family around me. When I started secondary school, my taste in music changed. I never stopped loving the music my parents shared with me, but I grew into my own person and for that I had to choose what “felt like home” with me. I became aware of hip-hop and rnb, which at the time were the “in things” to listen to in order to fit into certain groups. There were others that listened to all types: varying from rock, dance or trance but I never really fit into that category. That sort of music never interested me and I just did not understand it. I identified with hip-hop and rnb. I liked the beat and at times the videos that went with the tune and therefore it led me to listen to the lyrics carefully. From that point on, that genre was for me. I could relate to the songs and most of the times I was experiencing things that the music was talking about. I would have time to reflect and I could definitely relate to the emotions in the song. REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS. (number 3) Music is becoming increasingly important in our society nowadays and there are many different reasons why people from all age groups choose and listen to various types of music. In my opinion, all music lovers, and even those who are passive music listeners, try to identify themselves through music, based on their distinct experiences in life. Personally I think there are two main factors why people listen to what they listen to and that is to 1) explore their imagination to some extent and 2) to be able to express their emotions. Obviously, there are other reasons to why they might listen to music but these motives are intertwined and form a link with the two key factors which will be elaborated on further in the essay. One can explore their imagination through music. For example, in my past experiences I would be listening to rnb or hip hop. At times it was easy to let go and just follow the rhythm and the lyrics, immediately making me feel like part of that particular song. It was easy to imagine that the song was about me. Since imagination is a powerful sector of the brain, music allowed my brain to visualize these things. In Tia De Nora’s book Music in Everyday Life (2000), the opening statement reads “I think everybody should listen to music. It helps you to be calm, relaxed, to see your life differently”. Expressing your opinions through music is what I personally find most fascinating and occasionally simple to do. The song already has said all it had to say. All the listener needs to do is to listen and see if the song speaks out to him/her. I have always found music to be my best method of communicating and venting my feelings. For example, throughout my youth, when I was depressed, I would listen to slow rnb beats, but when I would remember those that I loved and who had passed away, I would be more inclined towards heartbreaking ballads to identify with my sorrow. Music gave me many choices of expressing myself throughout my life, whether they were times of joy, sadness, laughter, pain or grief. In Tia De Nora’s Music in Everyday Life (2000), Lucy describes her experience: I was coming home from choir practice one evening, and I had the car radio on, switched it on as soon as I got going, and it was playing the (Brahms) Double Concerto and I just had to stop, and some friends were coming behind, you know, and I was just in floods of tears and they said, “Why don’t you turn it off” and I said, “I can’t and that it was ages before I could listen to that or anything like it without thinking of him, its only in the last year or so, because I know now that it meant so much to him and it means so much to me and I realise now how much like him I am. That’s not to say my mother didn’t have an important role in music as well… she reminisces of the time she spent with her grandfather. Tia De Nora is trying to show how music can have an impact on our lives. It lets us be aware of family values, lets us bring back memories, and, most importantly, lets us be conscious of where we come from. In this section of her book, she gives us examples of her respondents, who listen to music to identify themselves with music, very much like how I described it earlier. Furthermore, there is also a section in her book called “Finding the ‘me’ in the music”, which elaborates on the respondents’ points of view on what particular music suits them. I too have discussed that as being able to express yourself through your own past experiences. Music was very important to me during my childhood, as it lay down ground morals and values towards my family members. Music always played a huge part in our lives and this is now remembered as a time of joy, even when there were times of unhappiness and distress, which have now been preserved and perceived in my mind as quality time spent together and will always be remembered through music. All the way into my youth, I established different choices in music due to different experiences in life; coming in contact with other people of my age group, socialising, and discovering at what stage I was in at that time in my life. In other words, I was trying to find the “me” in music, pretty much resembling the chapter “Finding the me in music” in Tia De Nora’s book. Music played a significant role in my life, seeing that I learnt how to express myself through music and turned out to be who I am today because of such an influence. My personality and the way I behave to a degree has been motivated by the impact of music throughout my childhood and my youth. I refer to Professor Andy Bennett’s book on Hip Hop Culture as a Local Construct in two European Cities. In this book I learnt that Hip Hop originated from an African background. They talk about their experiences through slavery and poverty. They describe their type of music to be their cultural music back home and once there was freedom, black people were able to spread worldwide and through Hip Hop they were able to communicate their feelings to the world and, thus, share their stories, sufferings and sorrows. Like this they allowed the younger generation to become aware of their origins and expanded the word for many generations to come. Andy Bennett refers to the word “glocal” to indicate the coming together of the global and local cultures. In other words, it means that people from different parts of the world and from different backgrounds are all congregating to share their interest in music even though they may speak in different languages. He also talks about how different people both black and white gathered together in non-stereotypical groups and talked about the merits of Hip Hop as it has been described as “nigger music” in Professor Andy Bennett’s book. However, in these groups they were all like-minded and it did not matter what colour one was, but simply one’s interest in this type of music. Hip Hop inspired many to be confident and have self worth. In my experience, I must say that there were times when I found it hard and was frowned upon for listening to Hip Hop or R&B. In an article written by Simon Frith, he writes: “It’s clear, to begin with, that the music itself is not the issue, just that it is not, at that moment, our music. And certainly in domestic life some records come to carry traces of battles past, to symbolise particularly charged arguments about listening rights. To put such records on for everyone to hear can be in itself an aggressive gesture.” Perhaps because it was perceived as black peoples’ music and I being white, would not know or understand why, what and where they were coming from with such lyrics or could not have shared the same interests. In Professor Andy Bennett’s book, the section on “you into that “nigger music” then?” his respondents talk about how there is no such thing as white Hip Hop. “Hip Hop is black music. As white people we should still respect it as black music.” Hip Hop can also be mirrored to the white working-class people who struggle in everyday life and this type of music offers strength and intelligence which I agree is exactly why many are inspired by these artistes and can identify with their songs. In conclusion, besides these values, musicians of all kinds and musical works extend the range of our expressive and impressive powers by providing opportunities for us to create musical expressions of emotions, musical representations of people, places and things and musical expressions of cultural-ideological meanings. This range of opportunities for musical expression and creativity offers people numerous ways of giving artistic-cultural form to their ability to feel, think, know, value, evaluate and believe, which, in turn, challenge other listeners conscious powers and musical understanding. Lastly, in my experience, listening to music has proven to be beneficial for the development of students linguistic, mathematical, scientific, or other cognitive abilities. There are various ways for one to learn and sometimes music facilitates the process. Music should be used constructively and not be exploited or applied for destruction. Bibliography DeNora, T. (2000) Music in Everyday Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Professor Andy Bennett, Hip Hop Culture as a Local Construct in two European Cities. Frith, S. (2003) ‘Music and Everyday Life’, in Clayton, M., Herbert, T., Middleton, R. (2003) The Cultural Study of Music, London: Taylor and Francis. “WHY DOES MUSIC MAKE PEOPLE SO CROSS?” Parte superior do formulário Read More