In a bustling mall or an uncomfortably crowded concert arena, music has an uncanny ability to dissolve barriers and unite souls, creating connections that words often fail to express.
Whether someone is singing during the seventh-inning stretch at a baseball game or spontaneously dancing in their living room, a single song can ignite emotion and spark connections between people from all walks of life, reminding people that they are all walking the same rhythm.
“The best part about music, and one of my favorite parts, is that not everyone has the same reaction,” sophomore Communication major Claire Taylor said. “People have completely different reactions to music. A song that’s supposed to be sad or touch you, it doesn’t touch people because we all have our own experiences, and that is why it’s so important because everyone can connect to it even in a different emotion.”
Forging Bonds Through Beats
Music is beautiful. This combination of melodies, rhythms, harmonies, instruments and singing is so simple yet vital for society — even as far back as 50,000 years ago, according to Classic FM.
“The oldest instrument we can find is a bone flute that is a pentatonic scale, and that’s really cool because pentatonic scale is also used in a lot of Eastern music, like Chinese, Japanese music, that’s kind of the basis of their system,” said Nico Heard, a junior Theatre and Music Composition double major. “Pentatonic is super popular in Western Classical. It’s also very popular in Gospel [music] so that one scale pops up all over the place, which is bizarre because [it’s] in places that don’t necessarily have a whole lot to do with each other.”
What makes music so impactful to society is its power to spark unity and connections among people despite race, ethnicity, culture or overall identity.
In a 2013 publication, Stefan Koelsch, a music psychologist at the University of Bergen, listed many different ways music impacts people’s ability to connect with each other. Koelsch found that music affects brain circuits responsible for empathy, trust and cooperation, just to name a few. Music affects these circuits effortlessly and simultaneously, leading to stronger and more impactful connections.
“The ability of music to increase social cohesion and strengthen interindividual attachments was probably an important function of music in human evolution,” Koelsch wrote in his publication.
For Taylor, music has been the most important factor in her life for as long as she can remember. She said she struggled socially communicating with others but has always been the biggest music lover, and credits music as the spark that truly connects her to everyone she meets.
“When I got to college, I realized that if I couldn’t make friends socially, I could play really good music, and people would automatically connect with me if we have similar music tastes,” Taylor said. “The music does the talking in a sense.”
Taylor also stressed the importance of the silence between songs and said there is a sense of power in between the notes.
“It’s super unspoken,” Taylor said. “But it’s something that I don’t think a lot of people realize brings us together, sitting in that silence. You’re sharing an experience that I think you can’t get from watching a movie or looking at an art piece.”
N. Lincoln Hanks, professor of Music, coordinator of the Music department and director of the Pickford Ensemble at Pepperdine, said he has seen students come through the Music program from all different backgrounds, whether they be socioeconomic, race or culture. Regardless of what issues they may face, music allows these students to look past these walls.
“Once you put a piece of music in front of them with somebody else, and they have already in their life a language of music that they’ve learned, it’s completely irrelevant to those other issues that come between them,” Hanks said. “You can make amazing things happen artistically that have nothing to do with all those other cultural barriers.”
In his own experience, Hanks said he has been able to sit down with composers from Estonia or Cuba and learn, communicate with and interact with each of them through music.
Heard said music helped create most of his closest relationships, which would have typically never happened otherwise. It could be bonding over a favorite artist or a favorite song, but that’s all it took to build a bond through beats.
“In high school, some of my good friends [and I] formed a band, we just loved this sort of music, and otherwise, I probably would not have met them or gotten to know and love these people,” Heard said. “It just came down to, ‘Oh, you like this artist?’ There’s something super connecting that can be found through that.”
Transcending Barriers
Words are just too simple. Often, human language fails to express the emotions and messages meant to be felt and heard, but music has the ability to break down that barrier.
“Language is just so limited,” Alima Ovali, junior Applied Music major, said. “There are so many times when words cannot express what you’re feeling. When you love someone so much, you just cannot say it, but for some reason, music absolutely can.”
Ovali echoed Taylor’s sentiment about how music has the power to affect each person differently. She said it’s because music is a language — it has grammar, rhetoric and conviction.
Music has the power to push and pull someone into one direction or the other, and it does so with such extreme feelings within it. Sometimes, in different genres of music, like instrumental, no words are spoken — it is all just pure emotion, she said. Ovali believes a reason music has this power is because each and every person has their own unique tone.
“Every person who does music, or every person in general, has their own unique tone, and that cannot be replicated by anyone,” Ovali said. “It has a lot to do with what’s in your heart, who you are as a person. All of that comes out when you play.”
Taylor said this connects people no matter their identity, race or culture.
“There’s an empathy, a sense of connection that comes from music, and it transcends not only the spoken word but with the music notes behind it,” Taylor said. “It bridges gaps in our society that others are lacking in between us. I definitely say, at the end of the day, music is such a universal language that evokes all kinds of emotion. It definitely comes across cultural barriers and brings people together in a way I’ve never seen before.”
Music has even helped Taylor connect with her own culture and, more specifically, with her father, who happened to be from a different country. She said her dad grew up in London during the era of The Smiths, Dr. Martens and the Skinhead movement, and listening to music of this culture and time helped grow their relationship.
“Connecting with that British, Ska, Two-Tone music has been a way to connect with my heritage and what my dad experienced, which has been a game changer for our relationship,” Taylor said. “It’s something that got us together and a way to connect with my cultural heritage. Listening to the music that he listened to, seeing pictures of the concerts that he went to wearing his first pair of Doc Martens, that is definitely a connection that formed because of music.”
Hanks said he wants the campus and students to diversify with more cultural music ensembles, in hopes of bringing people together despite their backgrounds. He said one kind of cultural ensemble that could be impactful is an African drumming ensemble.
“We need to cultivate some different kinds of ensembles on campus, some of them being from different parts of the world,” Hanks said. “A lot of people, not saying everybody, but a lot of people can get something culturally from that experience.”
Tuning Into One’s Spirituality
Music is also biblical. In the book of Deuteronomy, the Scripture commands followers to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:5 NRSV).
Christian church leaders utilize music in worship, including hymns, psalms, choral and Gospel music.
“Music is a fundamental part of worship, it’s not the only way to worship, but I love the musical aspect of worship,” Heard said. “What I find compelling is when the music makes you think about what you’re saying or what you’re doing, and there’s something unifying about having a very simple melody that anyone can sing.”
This style of music is often created through forms of contemporary and instrumental music, some common styles students focus on in the music program, Hanks said. For Ovali, the main reason she plays music is for the Lord.
“I’ve gotten to the point when I play a piece, I cannot play it for my own self, my own validation, I can’t be like ‘Oh, I’m going to play this because I want it to be great,’ because I’m never happy with the outcome,” Ovali said. “When I think of the greater purpose like this is to benefit my peers, the people who listen and the Lord. I’m giving all of the glory to Him.”
Hanks said he was a lonely child and used music as a refuge, which even pulled him out of a spiritual crisis he was facing. He said he was deeply entwined with music that had strong faith traditions behind it, but he realized he was moved by it without really understanding the true intentions of the music.
“I grew up kind of a lonely, lonely kid, and I listened to a lot of music [which] is a place where I could just find myself,” Hanks said.
Now, Hanks said he has a deeper appreciation for that music while better understanding the true meaning behind it. His students regularly tie their faith to the music they are learning in the program.
“Many of [my students] that come through our program come from a classical background, and frankly, they don’t find a lot of outlets for themselves for worship music on campus,” Hanks said. “I have conversations with them about what they’re experiencing with their faith and how music ties into that, but sometimes it’s in a different context than I think other kinds of students around campus have. But, it’s powerful, and they certainly all tie it into their faith.”
For ages, music has been an integral part of the human experience. Whether through building community or transcending cultural barriers, music will continue to be a vital part of that experience for all people, despite what differences they may see on the outside.
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Email Justin Rodriguez: justin.rodriguez@pepperdine.edu
