Finding someone who doesn’t listen to music is about as hard as finding someone who doesn’t breathe. Music is everywhere. Practically everyone enjoys it. Music is popular because it’s powerful. It can cheer up the soul, it can make the heart sad. It can be beautiful, but sometimes it’s not.
Now I’m not here to argue for a certain genre of music. Of course, I have my own preferences, but that’s not the point. I want you to be aware. I want you to make conscious decisions about what music you choose to enjoy.
Music has the power to shape the soul. Song lyrics don’t just go through one ear and out the other. Unless one thinks them through and either accepts or rejects their message, they will sit in the mind and can even alter the way one views reality.
In the eighth book of “Politics,” Aristotle writes, “As music is one of those things which are pleasant, and as virtue itself consists in rightly enjoying, loving, and hating, it is evident that we ought not to learn or accustom ourselves to anything so much as to judge right and rejoice in honourable manners and noble actions. But anger and mildness, courage and modesty, and their contraries, as well as all other dispositions of the mind, are most naturally imitated by music and poetry; which is plain by experience, for when we hear these our very soul is altered.”
Even millennia before the technology we have today that allows for mass-production of music and new genres of music, Aristotle recognized that music packs potential dangers. Because of this, one ought to be instructed in music and informed what it means for music to be good.
It is important to note that Aristotle isn’t just talking about songs here. In fact he’s mainly referring to instrumental music, and the effect that a harmony can have on a person.
“The same holds true with respect to rhythm: some fix the disposition, others occasion a change in it: some act more violently, others more liberally,” Aristotle writes later. “From what has been said it is evident what an influence music has over the disposition of the mind, and how variously it can fascinate it: and if it can do this, most certainly it is what youth ought to be instructed in.”
The American Journal of Occupational Therapy released a study in May of last year in which they examined the effects that classical music had on stroke patients.
They ran attention tests with the participants with either silence, noise, or classical music in the background. They found that the participants who listened to classical music had a more improved visual attention than those who took the test in silence or with generic noise in the background.
I am not using this test to endorse classical music, rather, it is a good example of the positive effects music in general can have on a person.
While such a study demonstrates the power that musical harmonies have, the lyrics themselves can be even more influential on the human mind.
Just think of how easy it is to get a song stuck in your head. Especially if you listen to music all the time, it probably happens on a daily basis. So if the songs you listen to regularly do not promote good things, then your mind will be filled with things that do not help sharpen your mind or motivate you to better yourself as a person.
Two obvious questions follow these arguments. What is good music? What makes song lyrics good or bad? While a column in a college newspaper is not nearly enough space to address these topics, it is important to know that one’s answers to these questions do have an influence on their own mind.
Ultimately, a person is fully responsible for his own actions. But music can have a surprising influence on one’s choices. So be careful what you feed your ears. Music can do wondrous things for the soul. But it can also do terrible things. So choose wisely.
Nathanael Meadowcroft is a sophomore studying mathematics and minoring in journalism. He is the assistant editor of the Collegian’s Sports page.
