Music and Space
Relationship between Music and Place
The basic relationship between music and place has been overly unexplored. Music has a significant role to play in our lives. According to Sheila (2005), the type of music one listens to varies depending on various factors, such as culture, sex, race, age, and social economic factors. All these factors determine the impacts of music on a particular place. She asserts that music does not just connect people but also gives meaning in defining ones immediate environment (Sheila, 2005). Additionally, it also gives meaning to ideas, beliefs, and value to people who share dissimilar traits, such as countries and political ideologies. This is well articulated when it comes to the national anthem in various countries. This essay tries to link the various factors of music and their effects on various aspects such as place as well as giving value and meaning to varied backgrounds.
Sheila (2005) observes that hypothetically, music is used as a background environment to define our immediate environment as well as people and activities carried out in such places. For instance, it is argued that rock music was associated with low social-economic groups and other minority groups in the history of America. It emergencies believed to have been associated with certain places and races. Parents from affluent areas tried to control their children from listening to such music, which they considered rebellious and barbaric. This shows that music not only associates with place but culture as well. Cohen (1995) claims that, music plays a vital role in different places. Cohen (1995) further states that, music played at work places, gymnasium, and salons varies from music played at social scenes and public gatherings. One genre is played to sooth the mind, as the other is used to entertain the masses irrespective of their social, religious, cultural, or economic background. This musical aspect again, brings out the fact that, music, acts as a socializing agent thus contradicting the social-cultural affiliation of music.
Cohen (1995) agrees that economically, music is greatly influenced by the place of production and market. For instance, the Billy Harley rock band in the 1950s would target areas where his rock music reached out to a wider and varied market. This most targeted the young multi racial generation. This was because they embraced the music as a way of indentifying with the rebellious nature of the music. Sheila (2005) observes that again, the factor of place is of pivotal impact, since these regions were to be specific.
She further argues that, music is a unifying factor in various places. In the 1950s, rock music acted as a unifying factor in places that priory, were conflicting (Sheila, 2005). This was argued to be so when the youths in America started breaking their social and cultural barriers and being united for their passion for rock music regardless of their races, a very prevalent factor back then. This portrays music as a unifying factor between people from different places and backgrounds.
In conclusion, music is a background environment defining our immediate surrounding as well as people and activities taking place. Today music and place can be said are concurrently intertwined. This is because each complements the other in a major way. The fact that one helps to define the other, such that, music defines people, races, age, gender, social-economic, political and religious aspects in people’s lives, shows to a greater extent, the dependency upon each other. On the other hand, music is greatly influenced by places, ranging from place of production, marketing, and origin, having greater impact in terms of popularity, sales, and significance of that particular music genre.
|Music/Word||American Rock Music|