Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Way I May Listen to Music

Today I was thinking about tones

Tones are a powerful tools for communication.

Have you ever noticed that you can communicate on an emotional level just fine with anyone? Okay so maybe you may feel a bit uncomfortable getting deep with anyone on the street, but the truth is you do whether you realize it or not through tones. Even with people who don't speak your language. The way people use tones is universal understanding.

Consider the tones you relate to when thinking of emotions such as apathy, anger, joy, when you are embarassed. There are a collection of universal tones you utter whether in your mind if you are more introverted, or our of your voice if you are more extroverted like myself.

It's impressive how it seems that humans and animals alike have come into the world with a pre-programed understanding of what tones are connected to what emotions. Make sense? For instance, when I call my puppy Eddie's name with a low to high and lifting tone, cheerful, he comes trotting up to me with tale wagging. He knows naturally and understands that a lighter perky tone means that I am happy with him. Eddie is a natural people pleaser so he is happy when I'm happy with him. However, when I call Eddie with a heavier, firm tone, lets even reverse the accent of my tone from high pitch to low pitch, Eddie comes walking more slowly but submissively, with his tale between his legs, and head lowered, even in shame. Whether he understands why I am calling him or not, he thinks that I am disappointed. Eddie's desire to please me has apparently been communicated as a fail, now he is ashamed and sad. People are the same way-all you need for understanding is to have a pair of ears and a working heart.

My point is this, tones, whether put together through our voices or composed through a clarinet, audible tones carry a pre-package emotion or feelings associated. Who wrote this law, God. Some might call it a phenomenon, I call it a thumbprint of divine design.

...going on a bit of a directed path I take you to MUSIC.

Therefore, composed music is especially powerful. We can bring joy by the way we accent tones and associate them together.

People use music to try to make sense of their emotions and feelings. We identify with given tones, intervals, and chords,

It is interesting how people can resolve feelings with the tones in music. We use music to make sense of the way we feel. If there was an emotion we were feeling and couldn't make sense of this feeling beforehand, we will search for the musical that will make sense and define how we feel.

When I was in Jr. High, I began to fill a need to make myself feel "macho" or to show aggressive pride in my masculinity, so I found a fulfillment of my need to express myself through the preachy lyrics of rap music mixed with pounding rock chords behind. I even found a reconciliation with my insecurities in these areas by subconsciously playing such music that used "emotional" more dissonant chords within the soundtrack. After expressing my insecurity through the song, I would feel resolution, and could move on and start building confidence. I always wanted to be confident in myself. So I would seek out music where the tones of the voices rapping or singing sounded confident.

After a period of time, it was interesting to see how this, what I simply called enjoyment, was actually shaping me to believe I was actually mocho, masculine, and confident.

All because of tones, the ones that we have been pre-programed with.

There is so much more to be typed about this, however, for the moment this should feed our thinking machines. Ya!