How Does Music Influence Our Lives?
Music influences our lives considerably because there is no man who can admit he doesn’t like music and he doesn’t have a favorite song or artist. Many people live or breathe through music; others earn money from it, but most of them relax while listening to music. It is said that music therapy is so powerful that it can cure diseases or disorders of the brain. Our musical preferences reflect our image in society, influences our mood, makes us more courageous, more cheerful, or, on the contrary, more sad and depressed. It all depends on the way we understand or feel it.
Many research shows that not only our personality is influenced by music, but also our sexual activity that improves or gets worse depending on the music we listen. It seems that those who listen to jazz have better sexual performance than those who listen to pop: it seems that the saxophone has this significant effect on people. Those who have the lowest sexual activity are those who listen to classical music. Heavy metal music, however, makes you be temperamental and stubborn.
Music develops certain parts of the brain that can not be stimulated otherwise. It seems that when small children learn to play piano, they are willing to acquire much more information than those who do not play to any instrument. Thus, children who learn to play the piano have a greater intelligence than those who learn to use a computer.
Music influences our health and has a great contribution to the adjustment of neurological and moving deficiency. In some cases, patients suffering from Parkinson’s were able to move only when they remembered certain songs from their youth. It also seems that we choose the rhythm depending on our heart or breathing rate. The combination of musical rhythms seems to induce our fluctuations of blood pressure, sometimes being imperceptible, but usually influencing our feelings. Therefore slow music calms us, while having a fast rhythm makes us tense, but when music is based too much on harmony, then it may tire our brain. What influences our state of mind is the length and location of breaks in a song.
The way we react to a song depends much and our state of mind or previous experiences. If we associate a song with a sad event in our life, we will grieve when we hear it, while others, with no memories connected to that song, will consider it happy. Also, we often associate an ad or a movie to the music we hear. That’s why music is used in commercials and films, because, if the message did not reach us, music will do for sure.
Music has also its own message. Rock and rap songs with videos that incite violence and sexual messages addressed directly send the same message to its listeners. Young people who listen to this genre of music have more hectic lives and a more aggressive behavior. Rap has a more powerful effect because its lyrics are more explicit and even if the lyrics can not be understood, usually because the volume is too loud; its melodic line that repeats succeeds, eventually, to transmit the same message.
But music doesn’t influence only people, it was noted that plants grow faster and produce more flowers, fruits and seeds when in the room is instrumental music, especially violin, flute and harmonium.
