Music is a form of art expressing emotions and ideas in sound forms by using elements such as rhythm, melody, and harmony through voices, or/and instruments. Music plays big roles in most people’s lives, including mine. Music is one of the most important and powerful things in my life as much others. Music can be methods of therapy, relaxation, and creativity to any man or woman in daily active life. Music has become a fundamental part of the world and daily lives everywhere. Lots of people depend on music during certain hard or easy places in their lives. Therefore, music supports/provides people to be more successful throughout their lives for a various of important reasons. I believe that Mo Tzu is incorrect for arguing that music is not an acceptable pursuit for rulers and their subject alike.
Music is sorta like yoga, or meditation, or any sort of relaxation exercise, it makes us feel emotionally happy and helps in keeping hormonal balance in the body, emotional state, relief our body and mind, and therefore keeps us physically and mentally/emotionally healthy. Therapy is the treatment intended to heal and tend to a disorder or illness. “A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that children admitted to the emergency department who listened to music during routine procedures showed less distress and reported lower pain scores than those who didn’t listen to music.” (“The Evidence on Music Therapy”, Evidence Based Living.)
Music therapy helps with pain by acting as a distraction and tolerance. Whether it’s emotional or physical pain, music can ease pain. In this study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, proves that music can help someone feel less pain, even if physical. In this study, I read, that there were a total of forty-two children at the age of anywhere from three years old to eleven years old. They all were placed an IV inserted into their arms. Some were selected to listen to music, and some weren’t. The health care providers reported in this study that it was easier to not only insert the IV into the patients that were listening to music, but also they felt less pain than those not listening to music. (“The Evidence on Music Therapy”, Evidence Based Living.)
Music therapy is beneficial in making people calmer, relaxed, and maybe even distract them from physical or mental/emotional pain. We have all been through heartbreak or heartache from maybe losing someone we love or from awful breakups. “When working with mental health issues such as substance abuse, self-harm, anxiety, depression and impulsiveness, music can be a way to help build self-esteem, self-confidence, self-image and improve coping skills.” (Their Voice: Music helps people express themselves: The Therapeutic Sound of Music).
I along with many other people have always listened to music during hard times to make me relaxed, happy, or even cry to just let it all out. Music acts and speaks to our emotions. Music can briefly help you try to forget about all the pain you’re might be going through in your life. People who create music purposefully create lyrics or just simply instrumental music to appeal to your feelings and tell a story to keep you interested.
In another aspect, music can act as a form of education. Let’s just consider the ABC song or the conjunction junction song. They both are forms of teaching children simple life/school skills. Children, specifically, learn rhythm which is important in skills like counting and patterning. Children learn best by identifying rhythms in songs and lyrics. Catchy songs get stuck in your head, so naturally educators use this in teaching students common skills needed. “In a study, published by Martin Gardiner (currently at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Human Development) in the May 1996 issue of the journal Nature, first graders were given music instruction that emphasized sequential skill development and musical games involving rhythm and pitch.
After six months, the students scored significantly better in math than students in groups that received traditional music instruction. (Reading scores for the two groups didn’t show marked differences.) Follow-up studies with different groups of students showed similar results.” (Gary Hopkins, “Making the Case for Music Education”). Music can help students perform better in multiple subjects by just a simple song. Music training helps the human brain to remember simple and necessary life tasks such as counting, the ABC’s, and even mathematical problems. Teaching with music benefits children and even adults to better remember and understand school concepts that they will never forget forwarding them to success.
Although music benefits and improves people’s brains today, Mo Tzu in 425 BCE in China basically said that music should be abolished and forgotten. “Music is not beneficial; therefore, benevolent men should not promote music.” (Mo Tzu 236). Back then the average man was a farmer of crops. They worked hard all day, everyday to grow and harvest crops. These crops went on to get eaten, or used to make things like instruments. These men would never hear the music that came from their own crops and therefore their extremely hard work.
Mo Tzu brings up the fact that living and surviving are two different things. It is true that in order to survive, a human being needs the three things that he mentioned (food, clothing, and wealth), however, humans have existed for centuries at this time. Before Mo Tzu’s time, humans were still surviving and migrating. This is a fact that humans were performing a great job of “surviving”, but also that they were in fact enjoying life and living. But in order enjoy living, you must do more than simply just survive in this big world.
This is where I think Mo Tzu’s ideas flawed and wrong. His idea that all music in the form of art was bad and not in the interest of his society. He lacks the idea of human interest and having fun. This is why Mo Tzu is incorrect on his theory. Human being can be productive and do their job, but also spend time listening to a bit of musci to relax and ease their minds from a long day. Music is benificial in daily life.
Music can be a beautiful and creative way of expressing yourself or your feelings. Any artist or music producer can say the way they write lyrics or instrumental music, is reflected on their own life experiences that may be tramatic or awesome. People write and play music to express themselves in a way other people will sympathize and understand better than just outright saying it. Music is the most powerful tool to use to express youself. It isn’t judgemental, or dicriminate you, and their always is a piece and genre for you indivisually. Each genre and feel is associated with a different feeling for your appeal.
“Emotions are one of the most fascinating features of the human mind. Music is an equally extraordinary characteristic. Understanding the special interaction between the two may take us closer to understanding the fundamental nature of both.” (Marko Ahtissari and Ketki Karanam, Music and Emotion – SYNC Project). Appealing to emotion through song has a powerful impact in the listeners. Music makes every situation and feeling more dramatic and sympathetic.
Music can benifit anyone in many different aspects of life. It can be in any form anywhere from education, therapy, relaxation, creativity, or simply just to listen and admire. Music is art. It makes people happy, it’s unique, and it’s a way of expessing yourself to others. Again: Music is one of the most important and powerful things in people’s lives. Music has become a fundamental part of the world and daily lives everywhere.. If one person is living without music in their life, they are missing out on the beautiful spectrum of creativity, love, and beauty that comes along with it.