What would life be without music

Life would be nothing more than an empty canvas

Ah yes, the age old question that sort of reminds me of a horror movie. You’d love to imagine it, but wouldn’t dare to live through it.

Let’s imagine that music still exists. Along with singing, nature sounds, and instrument playing. However, these sounds no longer trigger any chemical reaction in our brains.

How different would life be if this was the case?

Life would be filled with just a collection of meaningless noises, I guess.

But you want the long answer right? Because as much as you want to imagine how drastically different life would be without these beautiful melodies and harmonies, you physically can’t.

I’d imagine it’s just as difficult as explaining music to a deaf person. Or explaining colours to a blind person.

What is music?

Music is a reflection of society, it tells us the mindset of the youth, the results of the present political system, and what our priorities are. In the same way, someone’s music taste reflects how they feel and who they are, allowing for an improved self awareness.

How many times have you listened to an album that has brought you back to a time in your life that was buried so deeply in your memory that music was the only thing that could resurface it? These combinations of frequencies act as checkpoints in our lives that allow us to relive our past experiences in admiration.

Never has there been a better tool to open the key to someone’s heart, nor to bring people together than music. So as far as importance is concerned, music is pretty music right up there.

How would its absence affect us?

This is of course a hypothetical question. Unless a terrorist comes up with some scheme to deafen the whole world, that is.

Let’s start with the actual music industry. Of course, the music industry would no longer exist, accounting for a huge drop in the world’s economy. What’s more is that during this misery we wouldn’t even have music to help us through it.

On top of this, as music is the most efficient escape we have from the conformities of society, we would essentially act as robots to our superiors. There would be no media avenue for people to vent their frustrations about the political system or society in general. We would struggle to find people to relate to on these issues.

Following this, as mental health issues rise, the need for public figures to speak up about their personal issues is needed now more than ever. In my personal opinion, the most powerful way of speaking out on personal issues is, and always has been, through music.

The beauty (and mystery) of music

This is how unique we are:

Out of all other mammals, amphibians, birds, reptiles, microorganisms, fish, pets in the whole world, music only means something to humans. To all the billions of other species on earth, music only holds any sort of meaning to us. That’s how unique we are, that’s how mysterious these melodies are.

Grasping the fact of how rare and unique it is to be human makes room for gratitude. Gratitude to be who we are, gratitude to be in this world where we can have our own soundtrack to our life.

This also makes us realise how talented musicians are. They can play, and create music that is tailored to a specific human being, while simultaneously breaking the boundaries of human creativity, sometimes leaving us jaw dropped even to this day. Of course I’m referring to the likes of Prince, Michael Jackson, Kanye West, MF DOOM, Queen, Bob Marley and so many others.

Summary

I’ve written this piece not only for curiosity’s sake, but also to promote gratitude for how awesome music is. Sometimes we tend to take advantage of the gift we have as humans to listen and admire the beauty of sound.

So next time you’re skipping all those ‘boring’ songs in your playlist, or when you can’t be arsed to venture into different genres of music, remember how rare it is to have the gift of music. You’ll look at the industry in a completely different way.

Thank you for reading!!