Music is the Way of Life

 

        Everyone has that certain genre of music that they listen to. Whether its Hip Hop or Indies Rock, we all have that preference of music that makes us feel better. Some music has a bad rap for being a cause for depression or anger issues. I do not believe that this is true. Everyone deals with their situations in different ways. I in particular, use music as an escape from reality to for a while. When I listen to music it isn’t the upbeat pop music but more into Sleeping with Sirens and Pierce the Veil more known as Post-hardcore. When I moved from North Carolina it was extremely difficult. My friends were constantly telling me to come back as if it was that simple. Moving into a new place and leaving the people I grew up with was not as easy as one…two...three; it takes time. Not only was I in a new place but I had to also make new friends and learn how to be on my own for a while. When you are the new kid, it makes you feel isolated in a room filled with strangers. I am not one of those people who can just walk up to a stranger and talk to them like I have known them for years because I had not, so I do not have anything to say. I have to get to know people before I can carry conversations with them. During the time on my own, it gets lonely, and the music helps to take that feeling away. Every friend that I lost from moving is a repeated song on my play list. When I lost my old friends, it hurt and listening to music was the only luxury that made me feel better. The songs might not always be the most positive or have happy endings, but they are filled with real emotions that you can relate to. Music will always be there when people are not.

        While researching, I found an article by Amie Ninh called "Study: Are Music-Loving Teens More Likely to Be Depressed". It shows a study on teens by Dr. Brian Primack, and whether music causes their depression or not. In this study you find out that teens resort to listening to music when they are depressed, but you don not find out if the music is what causes depression. And quoted by Primack "At this point, it is not clear whether depressed people begin to listen to music to escape or whether listening to large amounts of music can lead to depression or both."(Ninh, 2011) This says that music is not for a fact a cause for a depression, more just an assumption from others. They completed this test on multiple teams from all over only about forty showing signs of depression which was not prove to be caused by the music. Even, Primack had said it could have just been used as an escape from their worries for a while. Many teens go to music for a sense of freedom and taking it away could just be negative to their well-being. Everyone feels their emotions differently; maybe if there was an experiment that showed how depressed teens were without the music it would be more relevant to the situation. It's quite hard to believe that just listening to a song could make you depressed when you are a very happy-go-lucky person. It's more likely that the sadness that comes while listening to a song is tied to past event or past emotions. As I read in another article, "Why I Can't Stand Christmas" by Maureen Dowd, about a woman who could not stand Christmas because of the struggles it brought her parents and sisters while growing up. Every time a Christmas song would play, it would put her into a negative mood. It was not because the music was negative in any way or the amount of time she listened to the song, just more the fact the memories that are associated with the Christmas music. Christmas songs are simple and joyous. Since I do not have an emotional history with Christmas music, I will not be able to relate to Dowd and her feelings towards Christmas. This article is very helpful to the point I am trying to make, because not many people will feel sad listening to Christmas music if they do not have emotional history to connect it with.

        Music is not a cause for depression. Almost everyone in the world listens to music whether it is a theme song or a song on their play list. Everyone is surrounded by music. Just because it is listened to for multiple hours does not mean it is going to make you depressed. When people are sad or depressed, they tend to want to be alone yet not absolutely alone because at least they have the music there to say the words that they need to hear in that moment that others will not be able to do for them. Multiple people go to therapist to help fix their problems, but if they are constantly going back are their problems actually being fixed? And, if they are not being fixed, why is not therapy on the list of causes for depression? When connecting it to therapy, the fact that music creates depression seems more and more unlikely; when music is a therapy itself. Music helps to either clear your mind or to energize it. It helps to define your character and even help some of us figure out who we want to be in life. We might not be always happy and smiley all the time because that is just not how the world works. Even the happiest people get knocked down. Just because we are down for a while does not mean we are going to be like this forever. But in the meantime, music will be the one who listens to us, understands our problems, and in the end no one is sad about being able to listen to their favorite songs.

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