Types, Creation, and Impact of Music on Society

Introduction

Given the importance and widespread nature of music all across the world and the wide range of uses for which individuals use it for, this essay sets out to analyze the concept of music its creative process as well as its purpose and consequent impact to the globe thus far. While music is found in each and every culture past and present, Black (2013) points out the difficulty in being able to pinpoint the exact origin of music given that it most likely began through clapping or beating of hands on surfaces to whose archeological records are not available. For students willing to delve into the complexities of music studies, seeking media dissertation help can give invaluable guidance into the multifaceted area of musical exploration. This essay however shifts its focus from the history of music to specifically highlight among others, the different types of music available in the current era, the process of its creation in the current era as well as the different consequences or impact that music has in the society and how it can be used for useful causes such as social change. The essay will further collect information through a content analysis and review of available documented literature with regards the areas of focus to show a significant variance between the development and creation process of different types of music as well as the impact of these different types to the broader society. As such the major sub themes tackled within the assignment include Types of music, the creation process of different music types and genres as well as the use and impact of music to the society

Types of Music

While currently there exists a wide range of music types and styles that an individual musician can tap into depending on their experiences and the direction in which their creative juices highlight, Hayes (2019) point out that most of the genres are associated with iconic musicians and personalities who are credited to be the pioneers of the music type. However throughout history while artists from different genres tend to be identified with a single genre, most of them often can make music across many different types. This highlights that a respective creative process associated with the creation of a single music genre is not only limited to that one genre but can also be effectively replicated in the development and creation of other genres of music. Based on the Music Genres list (2019) genres are defined by the use of specific instruments and type of play.

For instance, if the piece was being played in a certain style using orchestral instruments, then it could be classified as classical music. Similarly, if the instruments are highly distorted guitars, the music is classified as rock or heavy metal. Some genres however are also based on instruments and timing. Blues music for instance uses a series of patterns and is played by a traditional live band using guitars and a drum kit. Likewise, drum and bass use a very fast beats per minute and is primarily electronic. While most of these music genres are accompanied by composed music lyrics which compliment the beats a wide range of modern music genres are effectively just instrumentals alone.

Different music genres are meant to impact different moods and impacts in people, for some, music may be a source of relaxation, while for others it could be the means to let out their internal anguish (Klickstein, 2019). However the availability of the wide range of music types ensures that even people with the least inclination towards melody and rhythm recognize and react to a piece of music instantaneously. Lifestyle Lounge (2018) highlights the most common types of music genres to include: classical music, rock, heavy metal, jazz, trance, Hiphop, folk music, Techno and the most recent genres including the house and electronic music which are exclusively developed by musical computer software

The availability of a wide range of music types subsequently highlights the availability of a wider range of creation techniques and mechanisms that artists can take into account while developing music and subsequently present varied consequences and impacts to the society. While some music genres can be developed instantaneously in the process of instrument exploitation leading to a very fast and unstructured creation process, others engage a critical analysis of the combination of different tones and beats in the development of an effective rhythm following musical rules and instructions and couples them with meticulously write lyrics that flow and match with the rhythm created to produce a rhythmic, systematic and harmonized sound eventually referred to as music (Hayes, 2019).

The Creative Process

While the process of music production varies significantly from one musician to the other Leviatan (2017); Schmidt (2016) and Rory (2019) all highlight up to five key steps that are currently involved in the process of music production. These include: Composition, Arrangement, Sound design and production, mixing and Mastering. In the current music industry artist can employ division of labor by having different individuals take care of different stages of the process professionally including writers as well as producers. However the whole process can be effectively highlighted as the creative process involved in the creation and production of Music.

Rory (2019) highlights that the composition stage involves the process of generating musical ideas and involves creating melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas all of which collectively define a songs genre, vibe, and style. The main creative ideas focused on in this process as highlighted by Schmidt (2016) include: deciding on the song, tempo and time signature, selection of the music instruments to be used Creation of the main chord progression, melody, counter-melody, baseline, and motifs. In this stage further basic beats that support the melodic and harmonic ideas can also be developed. While these activities are often done by the artist himself having a vision of what the song they make should sound and feel like, most artists in the current century hire producers to be able to develop this part for them in the creative process.

Subsequently the artist then develops ideas for the intro, verse, bridge, chorus, breakdown, and outro all of which are simultaneously recorded to enable the finding of a vocal recording that works with ones’ core musical ideas. The composition stage is therefore majorly experimenting with ideas to develop the core elements of your song, bogging down with technical aspects like sound design and mixing all with an eventual goal of generating fundamental elements that work together musically in the shortest time possible and significantly includes a bulk of the creative process in the development of music (Leviatan, 2017). All the other steps are to fine tune the already created music making it sharper and widely appealing to a wide audience which in turn impacts its popularity and eventually its consequences within a society or all across the entire globe.

However this is not the creative process most commonly used by most artists as further review of literature including Pangburn (2018) highlights up to six different creative processes used by six different artists and emphasize that the creative process is highly personalized subjective, nebulous, and altogether difficult to articulate. While one artist highlights their process to be quite random and amorphous consisting of a series of trial and errors in the search for the best sounding rhythm to make their songs, another artist highlights that the creation of music is inherently and strictly about frequencies and how they affect the brain (Pangburn, 2018).

Eventually regardless of which creative process an artist uses, the ability of one’s audience to relate to the music either through the message or enjoy the melody and rhythm is the endgame of any musician in their process of creation. Different artists create music for different reasons and as such different music present different impacts and consequences to the society depending on the purpose and genre of the music.

Impact of music in the society

Music regardless of the genre has the ability to tap directly into the listeners mind and soul and impact a change in them depending on how much they take the music seriously. Huang (2015) highlights that musicians are influencers and their music carry a significant amount of potential influence whether the artist or musician is deliberate or not about their music. As a result music is likely to significantly impact the listener.

The impact may range from psychological effects of calming down an angry person, drawing happiness or sadness as well as inspiring feelings of nostalgia and association. Or it could also impact the listeners physically through inspiring unintended action, changing a person’s mind regarding different subjects tackled in the music and generally impacting a society’s mental setup with regards to societal issues.

Atkins (2019) points out that Songs have always been a reflection of the things and activities going on around us, and, arguably therefore, music changes society like no other artform. This is so much so that in the past music has been significantly employed by people of power to influence the masses including being used as a declaration of war, being used to break down societal barriers and revolt against social evils, songs have also been used by individual in personal endeavors of vigilance as well as influencing emotional responses from mates. All these examples put forth the impact of music within the society (Atkins, 2019),

However, music also impacts negatively to the society as much as it impacts positive changes. As much as it may influence the changing of minds with regards to fixing special problems or negative view points, misleading messages within songs of popularly known artist especially may have a significant impact on young adolescence by making them believe the misleading messages are socially acceptable. This highlights the significance of music and its status as a critically influential component of human existence.

The process of creation of music also significantly impacts the artists or musicians. Andrew (2011) highlights that though the effects of merely listening to music are quite significant, the effects of musical education are even greater and deeper. A wide range of experts within the music domain agree that music lessons, include so many different facets such as memorizing, expressing emotion, and learning about musical interval and chords, the multidimensional nature of the experience all of which are significantly motivating to the IQ effect. Research further highlight that children who engage in music lessons and practice often come out more intelligent than their counterparts who do not get the opportunity (Huang, 2015) confirming the psychological and intellectual impact of music.

Conclusion

Music is indeed an essential part of human survival and existence and has evolved overtime from being just a pass time activity for entertainment and communication to being a significant tool with which a society can evaluate and correct itself with. Given the existence of a wide range of music genres and types which are globally acceptable as well as a wide range of musicians and artists who practice music production, the creativity process cannot be adequately summed up into one method but rather each artist has their unique and different creative process towards production and creation of music. Music entailing both lyrics and melody makes it more of a performance art rather than visual one and as such can be effectively spread across a wide mass simultaneously thereby impacting the society in significant ways.

Eventually music is a critical form of art which has significantly contributed to the growing intelligence of the human race as well as shaped the different societies to what they currently are at the moment. And this is possible due to the lack of a limit placed in the creative process when it comes to the development and creation of music. Different people having different ideas of creativity significantly impact the continued growth and realization of other types and genres of music all of which collectively come down to influence human life and enhance growth and development in human intelligence and socialization practices.

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