I believe that music can influence moods and change lives and can be a powerful tool. Throughout the ages music has been used by people to celebrate all types of venues whether it be reiligious, concert, a family get together. The venues may be religious in nature, entertainment, dancing. No matter what type of occascion or venue what song is played will evoke different emotions depending on our own personal experiences. I beleive that a paticular song can bring back old memories good and bad, create new memories all evoking some type of emotional response. You may hate the song, you may love the song, it may calm you or excite you. .
There are different examples I can think of in my life in which I found myself doing things I never thought I would do. I remember being at this dance club, of course I was much younger and I was so into the music I got on stage and danced, no stripping involved. I used to attend Punk concerts (or what we thought as punk in the 80's) such as Oingo Bongo rock concerts AC/DC, go to day on the green in SF. and would be slamming my head and body shots at people in some type of horrific memory on this occasion I lost my shoes, bruised my legs and arms, but I thought back then "This was the greatest night alive at the time. .
Some advantages of using music as a way of introducing other cultures are that music is very immediate and appealing, it gets us away from the tendency to rely too much on words (and translation), and it brings us in contact with the emotional life of the people. If we use music videos, we are also able to show the appearance of people from another culture, including the way they dress and carry themselves, the interaction of musicians, singers, and dancers with each other and with the audience, and the personal style of the performers. I believe that music is one of the most powerful tools we have to change things. Almost anything written can be set to music.
