Have you ever taken the time to notice the influence background music has on the dynamics of a social interaction? In viewed media, music is the glue keeping us stuck to a motion picture or a television show.
This aspect of music – music that is heard and not interpreted (listened to) – tends to affect a wide range of behavior within a social setting.
Elevator music in its conception was designed to ease the awkward tension that arises from standing still in a small cube with a stranger.
Simply add a little smooth jazz and an otherwise cramped, uncomfortable and potentially tense environment becomes calm, cool and peaceful. Silence in small spaces cramps us, where smooth jazz can create the illusion of more space.
Often, we do not see the significance of this concept within our own social circles.
Consider two scenarios, each involving the role of background music in a social atmosphere.
In each situation, you place yourself in a slightly unfamiliar town, at a party mostly filled with people you have never met, or know only by association, aka, you’ve Facebook-stalked them.
The night is rainy, forcing everyone at the house to remain either inside the house or underneath the carport. There is a small set of speakers hooked up to an iPod in the corner of the room near the chair of the host.
In the first scenario, the owner of the house creates a playlist by allowing each member of the party to select a song. The iPod makes its rounds a few times, and then is plugged back into the speakers and plays on a moderately low volume for the remainder of the night.
In the second scenario, the host is far less gracious and quite drunk.
In a vain attempt to display the prominence of his musical taste, he has assumed complete control over the music for the evening, and his repressed fear of failure seeps out subtly.
His drunken fears cause him to change nearly every song after as little as 30 seconds to a minute, each time increasing the volume with which the music is played.
How is the atmosphere of the party affected by the consequence of his behavior?
Do you enjoy yourself or your company any more or less?
Is it possible any specific actions, reactions, introductions, conversations or altercations were prevented from occurring or created because of how the music was arranged?
Music can encourage interaction as easily as it can encourage reflection, provoke imagination and conjure emotion; it is evocative and active, abstract, relative, creative, yet strangely perceptive.
As a whole, music should be listened to with much more conscious intent. As a learning tool, it is unique.
Not to harp, but the continued development of digital music technology is driving us further and further away from a connection to music and self. Having the ability to stop music at any second of any song, we demand less from our musical artists as album makers, and adversely, they require far less from us as listeners.
Expand your palette by seeking out styles of music you have never enjoyed, understood or even acknowledged.
The music world is much broader than popular radio; FM radio is much broader than the mainstream popular stations.
Maybe the next time you get in your car, you dedicate an hour of your drive to the gospel radio station or public broadcasting. There is an enormous base of incredible musicianship right here in the Southeast in all of your hometowns – Southern gospel music.
There is also a tremendous market for discovering music via the Internet. Pandora, Grooveshark and Musicovery are three prominent examples.
First and foremost, take the time to perceive the effects of different styles of music in different environments. I trust if you do so, you will gain a more well-informed understanding of how people are influenced subconsciously by external circumstance.
John Mustain is a junior majoring in landscape architecture. He can be contacted at [email protected].