Of Music and Men

Ah music! As what Homer stated, manly music recharges the wavering soul of a man and prompts him to do unimaginable feats. Of course, he was referring to a mighty warrior of eons past and the music in question was obviously the beating of war drums and the shrieking battle cries. But nevertheless, Homer made an important point here; music, as always, stirs the emotions inside.
But then, you cannot bring in battle drums and trumpets with you if you plan to take on the whole world now, can you? Kidding aside, music is inseparable to everyone’s way of living. Tradition or cultivation, we enjoyed it so much that technology made music mobile. The Apple iPod, along with its Ipod Accessories and Ipod Accessories, and music phones like Motorola, complemented by Motorola Cell Phone Accessories, allows us to enjoy music whenever we want to, anywhere we want to.
But let us leave the devices to the techno people and focus more on music and it moving power. To start off, we define music. But what is the real definition of music? There are quite a number of definitions chipped in by musicians, lexicographers, philosophers, etymologists, and a lot of experts related to word construction and musicology. But perhaps we can all agree if we label music as a series of organized sound patterns designed to entertain specific types of audiences (I made that up). Every culture has its own restrictions and borders as well as roaming ground on how to make music. But music is also an art. As a separate form of aesthetics, making music is as much as breaking the rules than adhering to them. But if it works, it works well indeed.
I was seven years old the first time I encountered the kind of music described by Homer (the one that lifts up your spirit when you are down) when I watched Rocky starring Sylvester Stallone. There were these scenes when Rocky was working out for his upcoming title fight with Apollo Creed. While training hard, the theme Gonna Fly Now was nicely blending in from the background. It was moving song and it complements those scenes. As a kid, I kept playing the song from memory, humming the parts I remember whilst releasing a barrage of straights, crosses, and uppercuts at an unseen enemy. And I was not alone. Gonna Fly Now became a part of American pop culture along with Rocky Balboa as both song and character were embedded into minds of Americans; that with hard work and sheer determination, everything is within reach.
That said, music also pushes the individual to do feats of grotesque in nature. A good example of which is Frank Sinatra’s My Way. In the Philippines, the singing of the said song in karaoke bars is considered taboo because of the bizarre twists that befalls the singer after singing the song. For some stupid reasons (forgive the language), a certain listener will, to say the least, start an argument after the song has been sung. That leads to injury, or worst, death of either the singer or listener along with their respective drinking buddies and some innocent patrons. Such was the popularity of My Way’s peculiar incidents that it was almost unofficially banned from karaoke bars in the Philippines.
Psychologically, music has a direct effect on its listeners, though the manifestations of these effects vary differently. As to how music moves people, the answers are in multitudes. Whether they are satisfying or not is totally up to the person seeking the answer. Personally, how music moves people will remain a mystery as no branch of science and philosophy will produce a sufficient answer.
Music has its way with people. I, for one, have been moved too many times more than I can remember. I pursued a girl way back in college because I heard Adam Sandler singing I Wanna Grow Old With You on the radio. I cried to Kenny Loggin’s For the First Time. I was elated and sang ¬We Are the Champions by Queen when we defeated a rival school on a championship basketball game. I know music will move me for times to come. And no, I will not sing My Way on Philippine soil.