Human beings are hardwired to have emotional responses to sound. A sobbing child gasping for breath, the sound the wind makes when it tries to sing, creaky doors amidst silence and a human heartbeat all have the authority to elicit a powerful emotional reaction. Like a true capitalist, Humanity has pounced on the opportunity to mass-produce this biological process by creating the art form of music.
It is not particularly radical to define the primary purpose of art to be “self expression in order to create human connection” (that is to say that by expressing your intangible self through something tangible, like a painting or a song, you are allowing yourself to connect with others and consequentially creating a way for your audience to connect with each other). With this in mind, individuals have studied and continue to study the combinations of sounds are most effective for expression of specific emotions.
We have learned that minor keys are most frequently associated with darkness such as sadness or fear, while major keys primarily denote brightness such as joy or love. We have acquired a desire for structure within music (a theme, motif or chorus) to guide us through the message of the artist. We have personalized our tactics, by adding poetry, videos and electronically produced sounds into music in order to more accurately convey our message.
It seems like we may have perfected the art of constructing expressive music. Seventy percent of popular songs use the same four-chord progression or a slight variation of it (for anyone that cares, that is a “vi, IV, I, V” progression). The variation in today’s musical culture now lies in the message of the artist, his/her ability to express it and ultimately society’s appreciation of the message.
The mass media in the last decade should be applauded. Pop music is still recovering from an addiction to songs that only propagate the theory that talent is beauty, power is money, love is lust and happiness is selfishness, but the genre has recently become open to more expressive artists that have their own stories to tell. It would be prudish to desire the removal of these human characteristics from all media, but if these aspects of humanity are not grounded by personal expression of the joy and heartbreak that they are so directly related to, music simply becomes porn for the heart and ears.
Evidence of society’s recent acquisition of a “story over sex” mindset can be seen in the success of several extremely talented female artists. Ingrid Michaelson, Adele, Sara Bareilles and Regina Spektor, are all extremely beautiful and could model in any repectable magazine, but these women never relied on the power of beauty or imagery to advance their now mainstream careers. Society recognized them as talented, creative, expressive humans and connected to their message.
Forgive me if this sounds like a rant against American culture. I will, without fail, be the first to order a Big Mac, the first to hack a friend’s new iPhone, the first to love “Transformers” and the first to secretly enjoy the Bachelor. There are aspects of mass media and culture that are “mass” for a reason — because they are massively awesome and appeal to our humanity. However, at the same time, individuals need to be aware of what they consume, whether it is a $200 sweater or a nearly pornographic R&B song. If that is the message that you connect to — the one you want to tell and the one you want to use to connect with others — then by all means, eat your heart out. But you better bring some tacos over when you need to cry on my shoulder about the sanitary ramifications of brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack.
Nearly every melody, every chord progression, every message has already been written. Music can now either evolve by boiling down the fat of individualism and focusing on self, anger, lust and money or it can focus on the infusion of the artist into every note, word and breath. For more information, please listen to my upcoming single, “Squeezing my Bear.”
