Music and Emotion: Final Part (Music and You)

Music is intertwined with the human experience. It’s a way that we express ourselves, an extension of our emotions. It’s how we connect, a way to bond over shared tastes and artists.

It’s indulgent, from raves to New York City late night jazz clubs. It’s creative, from the inventions of new tonal development for the piano (Root-Bernstein, 2001) to a wide spectrum of created and recreated music in the West (Campbell, 1990).

It’s about the playlists you have of your favorite songs, vinyls and records on the walls from your favorite artists, music you have come across that has made it into your top 10, songs that you can feel in your soul on another level. Songs that inspire you and push you forward through your roughest moments or that one concert that blew your mind away.

It’s about the small hums or hidden lyrics in a book that aren’t done yet. It’s all these themes of being the composer, being the audience, being you and experiencing what music can offer.

If music and our emotions play such a role together, wouldn’t it be fair to apply that to who we are as well? Are our emotions not also who we are? With music being an expression of oneself, it’s fair to say that music gives us a sense of who we are through an emotional outlet.

It’s at these moments where it’s just you, the music, and the rawness of what you feel, that give you a sense that this is who you are, or at bare minimum a part of you.

It’s what you feel through your experiences and thoughts, it’s lived through as you. To listen to music is to listen to your emotions, and to listen to your emotions is to listen to yourself.

No matter what type of person you are, either the composer or listener, the orchestra or audience, the DJ or crowd, the inspirer or the inspired, music touches us beyond anything physical.

It plays a role in our lives every day, whether we notice it or not.

That one elevator song stuck in your head, your favorite gym playlist, something to put on while you head out for a walk, festivals and celebrations, movies and storytelling, concerts, the background music in any game, orchestras, that one song on repeat that you just really like; it all shapes us and how we feel through our experiences with music.

And through these experiences of laughter or heartbreak, our emotions are then expressed through the harmonic and lyrics spaces of music, making us who we are.

Music and emotion share a connection, expressing the emotions we contain and who we are and helping us to discover our sense of self.

References

Campbell, P. S. (1990). Crosscultural Perspectives of Musical Creativity. Music Educators Journal, 76(9), 43–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/3401077

Root-Bernstein, R. S. (2001). Music, Creativity and Scientific Thinking. Leonardo, 34(1), 63–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576986

Hello, I’m Elias Lopez. I’m from Stratford, Connecticut, and I’m currently majoring in English at the University of Bridgeport. I plan to graduate in 2028 to go on to earn a degree in Civil Engineering. I’m a big fan of writing, especially fantasy and poetic pieces, as well having other hobbies such as roller skating, crocheting, drawing. Though I’m still beginning, I hope the work I do can eventually inspire others and show the joys that come with writing.