The Importance of Music (So what's wrong with us)

The Importance of Music

Music.  It’s everywhere.  While you’re on hold, waiting for customer service. It’s in the background at Starbucks.  It’s on TV in commercials, the radio, retail stores, blah, blah, blah!!!!!!!!

Far from scarce, and almost intrusive, sometimes downright annoying I am willing to bet when that one song comes on the radio, you know the one,  the one that was playing when you received your fist kiss? You immediately transcend time and space and travel right to that second in time.  Music is powerful.

Music is food for the mind. Some of the greatest minds in the world attribute the fire of creativity to music as the spark that started the process in their imagination.  It’s the universal language.  You could go to a remote corner of the world, where no one speaks  or looks how you speak or look but you could bet your bottom dollar, you both LOVE Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven”.

I have never met someone who did not like SOME kind of music. That being said, through our mutual love of music, we come together despite differences.  Religions have used music for eons to do this.  On an emotional basis Heavy Metal brings out angst, Classical soothes the savage beast; smooth Jazz and R&B make me feel romantic.

There’s really nothing quite like it, and we’ve not even scratched the surface.  Music in education increases mathematical skills as well as reading and language skills too. I myself have witnessed the magical powers of music while I was doing a gig in a nursing home.  Patients that were catatonic responded to music. This to me was nothing short of a miracle or magic.

Of course, who here among us does not have a tale to tell about a live show that was so great, it has been etched in their minds and is now the show ALL other shows get measured by.  A live concert, whether it’s a rock show, hip hop, country or you name it, can be life changing.

Yet because it’s everywhere, we have made it such a commodity.  We walk by a world class violinist (Joshua Bell) who simply started busking in a Washington DC subway only to be ignored by countless thousands (both Ritchie Sambora and U2 have done this type of in cognito thing too).  Despite knowing its educational benefits, music is usually the first program to get cut in budgets. I have seen AMAZING musicians, in restaurants, not get ignored, but SHUNNED for a television with a baseball game on it, or an iphone with facebook on its screen.  What the hell is wrong with us? What have we become? What kind of culture are we becoming?

Robert Garcia is a performer who sings and plays guitar. A New Yorker through and through, these days Robert performs in the Sarasota FL area during the Winter and then the NJ Shore during Summer season. You can contact him via his website: WWW.RobertGarcia SoloAct.com