What Makes Music?

The easy way out of replying to this topic is to simply say "If you need to ask, you'll never know". However, I imagine you're not spending your time reading this for flippant comments. I've been listening to music as early as I can remember, and I've been playing music (trumpet) for almost as long. This is one of those topics that a person can answer differently depending on the stage of life they are in at the time.

At the most basic of levels, music is a collection of tones and percussive sounds that may or may not follow a specific pattern known as a melody. These tones can be produced by instruments, conventional or otherwise, and possibly human voices. The percussive sounds can be produced also by either conventional or unconventional instruments. Of course, if that is all that makes music, many people would have probably become bored with it some time ago.

Music has an emotional component that is one of its greater parts, if not its most important part. This emotional component is not always easy to detect, and certain pieces of music may be more prone to showing emotion than others. Listen to Pachelbel's Canon in D for a song that has been used many times to evoke a feeling of sadness in films like "Ordinary People". Pieces of Music used in the film "Glory" tend to evoke feelings of pride, honor, and bravery about the subject of the film: the Civil War and the first use of African Americans, former slaves, as soldiers. Watch the film "Amadeus" for another great display of how music mirrors emotions, whether they are good or bad ones.

While music certainly is largely made up of an emotional component, this is not to say anything emotional is music. We also can't rule out that animals make their own form of music, which may very well be just a communication tool for them. The songs that birds chirp, the sounds of dolphins and whales, etc. But for the purposes of this discussion, Music....the music that you hear on the radio, on your MP3 player, in a concert....is a human element. Even the coldest hardcore industrial techno music stems from a human creation at some point in the process.

Music has portrayed in vivid color the emotional struggle and triumph of humans throughout the ages. This music is not made up simply of harmonies, notes and beats that are written out like a grocery list. Music comes from inspiration of a few and is delivered as inspiration to many. Like other art forms, Music gives the interested party something to think about and maybe something to feel about.

There you have it - Music is made of a great mixture of rudimentary elements of sound with the emotion of the human experience. Enjoy it while you're here.

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