Music has been known to affect people in many ways. It can have an impact on how we treat people. Music can even affect the type of people that we socialize with. Knowing these ideas will help guide us as we explore this topic of how music can both unite and divide people. As we all know, music is most commonly used for entertainment purposes. But it can also affect how we interact with other people.
What is music and how does it affect us? Music is the art of producing pleasing or expressive combinations of tones with rhythm, melody, and harmony. According to David Byrne, music can inspire love, religious ecstasy, cathartic release, social bonding, and a glimpse of another dimension. It can heal a broken heart; offer a shoulder to cry on and a friend when no one else understands. Music can make a person feel happy, sad, calm, enraged, energized, tired and even awake. According to Dave Barry music is personal. When we hear certain songs, we experience sudden and uncontrollable memory spasms taking us back to some good and some bad times in our lives. Music can change the way that a person feels inside their heart as well as change the way that we think and feel.
Now that we have determined what music is and how it affects us, let's look at how music unites people. There are a number of ways that music can unite us, some of these ways are as a country, as a couple, or as a group. For example, when I think of how music can unite people as a country, I think of the song, "The Star-Spangled Banner." No matter who sings this song, whether it's sung by a country artist or a pop artist, it unites us together as a country because it's our national anthem. Couples have particular songs that bring them closer together, an example of this might be the song, "I Do" by 98 Degrees. When this song was released it was the most popular song that was played at weddings. I think that this song along with many other love songs brings couples closer together in marriage and in love.
