What is the role, function, purpose of music?? To inspire or console?

[bobbieinok]

Thinking about this since I recently discovered the music of Les Miserables on youtube. Esp Do You Hear the People singing and Bring Him Home.

Then thinking about my long-time favorites Memory, Try to Remember, and The Sound of Silence. (I still remember the first time I heard that song, in a FL drugstore in 65. And then I remember the 1st time I heard 16 Tons in the 50s in hs.)

I have a problem with listening to music or reading poetry - if it's good, it hits the heart and makes one think and feel deeply about life and the pain so many suffer.

I discovered Do You Hear the People Singing when reading Eric Flint's alternative history novella Devil's Opera, part of his 1632 series. Do read at least the 1st book in the series '1632'. Free online

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. It's not a binary choice.

And music can fulfill many, many more functions than the two you named.

[bobbieinok]

3. Agree. That's just what I thought of when listening to the Les M music

[BigmanPigman]

2. Music has many as do all of the arts...

literature, fine art, dance, theater, etc. That is the point of expressing feelings and thoughts to certain audiences through any medium. It is an individual interpretation by the artist to the audience/viewer. It is free expression.

[Ilsa]

4. Inspire, console, invigorate, help sleep, entertain?

I would say all of that and more.

[fierywoman]

5. Music is a language. It talks to you or it doesn't.

[Wounded Bear]

6. To communicate at a deeper, feeling level than words...nt

[Ferrets are Cool]

7. To entertain was my first thought. nm

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. Music is universal.

Only Homo sapiens has music. No other species seems to appreciate it.

Music is part of most cultures, perhaps every culture. It doesn't confer fitness in any obvious way. It's unclear from an evolutionary perspective why we make music or listen to it.

Instrumental music can be deeply moving, but why? It doesn't stand for anything but itself.

Songs are poetry set to music. When you are moved by a song, which is it, the words or the music, that you're responding to? Sometimes, perhaps, it's both.

[Codeine]

9. There are as many reasons for music

as there are people listening to or creating music. We each experience it uniquely and individually, and in a different way each time we listen. Coltrane’s “Naima” makes me feel one way, while “Countdown” (from the same album) has an entirely different impact. And I’ve a wholly separate reaction when listening to Cannibal Corpse.

[Nevernose]

10. Music is really just a primitive pattern recognition

On a very deep level, music is actually incredibly shallow.

The first part of the song establishes an expected pattern, the rest of the song/symphony/drum circle/whatever then surprises the listener with variations on that initial pattern.

Something in the brain likes the sensation of finding the pattern and then finding the difference.

[Victor_c3]

11. I think all of the above

I believe that music hits a fundamental spot in our brains. When your children (18 months and younger) hear music, many of them automatically start dancing and reacting to it.

When my daughter was growing in my wife's belly, I'd play the piano and could always get a reaction out of her. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (the first movement) always got her to kick. When she was first born, it would always make her cry.

As a guy with a lot of psych issues, I find music is a great outlet for me to express my feelings that I can't otherwise put to words. I'm a kind of disturbed combat veteran and feelings like anger and sadness are hard for me to express and connect with. I also find that it can either lift my mood or totally sink me depending on the piece.

I find that I can keep playing the same song over and over again and never stop being amazed of the genius behind it - Bach especially strikes me that way. Playing music in particular beings me a great feeling of contentedness and completeness that I can't even begin to describe with words - Its almost better than sex in that sense. In a world that I often feel disconnected and alien from (classic PTSD symptoms) I feel alive and connected to when I play the piano.

Below is a piece that I've been working on for the last two or so months. I've become totally obsessed with it and practice it for 1-2 hours a day. I've nearly got it, but the kid playing it in the video is quite a bit better than I am. I love the basic theme and how it is tossed around between the left hand, the right hand, and then broken up between the two hands (almost like a third hand playing). This piece was originally written by Bach for the Organ and then transcribed a bit later by Franz Liszt to the Piano. The organ has all of those crazy foot pedals that play those deep low notes that you hear. Transcribing the piece to piano while maintaining both its full character and playability was a quite a feet.