Essay-_Music

Music Assignment: Essay- Listening Habits Survey Music has been described as the true universal language of humanity, through which we describe our hopes, dreams, and heartaches across cultures. Objectively it is the combination of audible wavelengths of sound into pleasing patterns and rhythms. Subjectively it is the most common and easily accessible form of creative self-expression in our daily lives. It pervades almost every moment of our public existence, coming from background music in restaurants, to concerts in bars and venues, to blaring car stereos, and everywhere in between. However, it’s pervasiveness pales in comparison to its variety. The songs that have been written throughout time number in the untold millions, and the various forms and genres they are written in are nearly as numerous. Just in the time I was actively listening to the music around me I heard more genres than I can count, but one in particular dominated. The first song I recorded hearing was Coldplay’s “Clocks” in a local coffee shop. Although in their current form they are probably not classified as “indie”, Coldplay was once an example of that now popular genre of music, and “Clocks” is a fine example of classic indie rock. There were many other indie rock songs in this coffee shop’s playlist and, if I think back, in many other coffee shops as well. And since coffee shops in the northwest seem to represent an accurate cross-section of society here as a whole, I can infer that indie music is a very popular music choice among many people. So what does that say about Northwest American culture' What is it in the indie genre that so well represents the tastes of people here' Perhaps it resonates with the individualistic spirit of Americans everywhere, or maybe people are subconsciously drawn to what indie music truly represents; a taking back of popular music by everyday people without access to million dollar studios and who are more willing to take creative risks. That second reason possibly has some evidence in the movement towards organic produce and localized products of all kinds. The values that drives the kind of grassroots movement towards local organics seem predisposed towards music that represents independence from outside influence and a “profits first” mentality. Of the other songs I heard, most were in ads and YouTube videos, and seemed to be aiming at the lowest common denominator, musically speaking. There was a song by the artist Timbaland that featured in a dance video from the movie “Step Up: Revolution” and some stock music in a YouTube ad for a European bus line. The Timbaland song was a driving dance beat that certainly lent itself to the purpose of backing up the dancing on screen but offered little in the way of intellectual stimulation. The ad music was generic in the extreme and is more an indication of YouTube’s sometimes faulty ad personalization than any interest of mine. However this points to an emerging trend in music and the way it is dispersed in the days of viral videos and pirate downloads. The music business as it was before the Internet exists now only in the minds of deeply depressed pop-stars. As an industry is attempting to relocate it’s profitability, the two styles of business have become extremely polarized. On the one side is mainstream pop which, with the advent of music pirating on the internet, has had to broaden and standardize it’s fare in order to appeal to the largest base of consumers, most of whom are no longer buying their music in brick and mortar retailers, and, in most cases, are no longer paying for their music at all. On the other is independent music. Although it suffers from music piracy to a certain degree, its fans are often loyal enough to purchase music where they would otherwise pirate. This fan loyalty often results from the greater kinship listeners feel with music that fits their taste, often a direct result of the creative risk taken by the artist. This is obviously an oversimplification of an extremely complex topic with a limitless amount of data and opinion. Although no hard conclusions can really be drawn from 48 hours of observation, It’s seems that music in American life is as diverse as American life itself. And although every culture on earth can be understood through its music, in the bohemian and educated environment of Bellingham, Washington, music defines the culture. And culture is king.