music unites essay

How Music Unites Us

June 12, 2020

Adrienne Braithwaite

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A spike in online music streaming

Social media and online streaming platforms like TikTok and Spotify , have seen a spike in users streaming music and live video.  People are not just watching or listening to music, they are actively participating in video and music challenges.  Online music challenges are turning everyday people into artists; people are creating music as a form of self-expression and individuality.  Harvard Health research reveals how listening to music is beneficial for mental health ; music helps us relieve stress, feel connected during times of social isolation, and is a mood booster.  During COVID-19, the biggest spikes in music streaming have been fitness-related, children’s music, and mood-calming playlists.

COVID-19 and the music industry

But what impact has COVID-19 had on musicians and the music industry overall?  A recent CTV News report reveals musicians are adapting to the changing economy by offering curbside and live (distance) concerts for devoted music lovers.  Music often fills a natural need for human connection and response when faced with crisis.  It can unify us and represent of our cultural identity.  With reduced accessibility to fine arts and with mass performances being cancelled this summer, you have a chance to support your local musicians by participating in “Curbside Concerts”.  Online streaming and low-cost, impromptu concerts might permanently change the music industry as more and more musicians struggle to persevere in this economy.  Plenty of opportunities are available to support your local and national musicians.  An online fundraiser put on by Edmontonian Dan Davidson, raised $53,000 in support of struggling musicians during COVID-19.

Music as a form of resistance

Music can also break down social and cultural barriers.  At AU, diversity is encouraged and celebrated and music can facilitate a sense of connection between social and cultural groups.  There are many examples online of people embracing and celebrating culture and diversity through music and dance.  As a display of unity, soldiers and protesters danced along-side each other in the streets of Atlanta.  Some protests in the U.S.  are becoming calmer and more focused on music and dance as an expression of community support and unification .

Music is often used as an expression of resistance by oppressed people groups and often ignites an emotional response from individuals.  Some protesters have reported that music has substantially “changed the atmosphere” (Kim, 2020), from hostile to more community bonding.  From a mental health perspective, music also provides a healthy physical outlet for anger and frustration.

In reflection

As we move forward, reflecting on our relationships and connection with others, remember how music can play a unifying role.  As we stand together as a student body, we can support those who are feeling discrimination and show solidarity.  In a recent online post, AU President, Dr. Neil Fassina challenges students to engage in conversations about diversity by saying, “[e]ducation plays a vital role in raising awareness about racism, and we will work to confront and reject all manifestations of discrimination.  Education raises people up and brings us together.  We embrace and celebrate the diversity of our community, our learners, and our team.”

Live Music Streaming Events During COVID-19

CBC Music : An up-to-date list of Canadian live streams to watch during COVID-19 .  (2020, May 5) https://www.cbc.ca/music/an-up-to-date-list-of-canadian-live-streams-to-watch-during-covid-19-1.5500113

Billboard : Live Streams & Virtual Concerts.  (2020, May 27) https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/9335531/coronavirus-quarantine-music-events-online-streams

The Social Distancing Festival : Livestream Listings.  (2020) https://www.socialdistancingfestival.com/live-streams

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How Music Bonds Us Together

At GGSC’s recent awe conference , Melanie DeMore led the audience in a group sing as part of the day’s activities. Judging from participant responses, it was clear that something magical happened: We all felt closer and more connected because of that experience of singing together.

Why is singing such a powerful social glue? Most of us hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.

There’s little question that humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.

Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection.

Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.

In one study , researchers found that performing music—through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.

In another study , researchers compared the effects of singing together in a small choir (20-80 people) versus a larger choir (232 people) on measures of closeness and on pain thresholds. The researchers found that both choir groups increased their pain threshold levels after singing; however, the larger group experienced bigger changes in social closeness after singing than the smaller group. This suggested to the researchers that endorphins produced in singing can act to draw large groups together quickly.

Music has also been linked to dopamine release, involved in regulating mood and craving behavior, which seems to predict music’s ability to bring us pleasure. Coupled with the effects on endorphins, music seems to make us feel good and connect with others, perhaps particularly when we make music ourselves.

But music is more than just a common pleasure. New studies reveal how it can work to create a sense of group identity.

In a series of ingenious studies , researchers Chris Loerch and Nathan Arbuckle studied how musical reactivity—how much one is affected by listening to music—is tied to group processes, such as one’s sense of belonging to a group, positive associations with ingroup members, bias toward outgroup members, and responses to group threat in various populations.

The researchers found that “musical reactivity is causally related to…basic social motivations” and that “reactivity to music is related to markers of successful group living.” In other words, music makes us affiliate with groups.

But how does music do this? Some researchers believe that it’s the rhythm in music that helps us to synch up our brains and coordinate our body movements with others, and that’s how the effects can be translated to a whole group. Research supports this thesis, by showing how coordinating movement through music increases our sense of community and prosocial behavior. Indeed, one study found two year olds synchronized their body movements to a drumbeat—more accurately to a human they could see than to a drum machine.

More on Music & Social Connections

Learn four ways music strengthens social bonds .

Jill Suttie explains why we love music .

Discover how playing music together can help kids develop empathy .

Explore how singing together makes us healthier and more connected .

This tendency to synchronize seems to become only more important as we grow. In another study , adults listened to one of three types of music—rhythmic music, non-rhythmic music, or “white noise”—and then engaged in a task that involved cooperating and coordinating their movements. Those who listened to rhythmic music finished the tasks more efficiently than those who listened to the other types of sound, suggesting that rhythm in music promotes behaviors that are linked to social cohesion.

In another study , people seated side by side and asked to rock at a comfortable rate tended to coordinate better without music, but felt closer to one another when they did synchronize while listening to music. In a study by Scott Wiltermuth and Chip Heath of Stanford University, those who listened to music and coordinated their movements to the music were able to cooperate better and act more generously toward others when participating in economic games together (even in situations requiring personal loss for the good of the group, such as in the Public Goods Game ).

All of this evidence helps confirm music’s place in augmenting our social relationships. Perhaps that’s why, when you want people to bond, music is a natural resource for making that happen. Whether at concerts, social events, or awe conferences, music can help us connect, cooperate, and care for each other. This suggests that, if we want to have a more harmonious society, we would do well to continue to include music in our—and our children’s—lives.

About the Author

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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Music Unites Us All

An Essay by ETM Alumnus Cassandra

It was March 2020 and I traveled home from school on a normal Friday afternoon, fully expecting to return to school the next week. By Monday, it seemed as if the whole world had turned upside-down. Quarantine had started.

I couldn’t go to school, travel on public transportation, leave my house, or visit my mother who lived on the other side of the Bronx. The city that never sleeps became a ghost town.

After waiting months—which felt like centuries—NYC is slowly reopening. But how will things work now? There is still so much uncertainty for the future. Because of that uncertainty, we are at risk of losing one of the most influential programs that NYC public schools have to offer: Music.

That cannot happen. In this essay, I will share my experiences as a performing arts student and how it has impacted me, along with my thoughts on what school would be like without music, and how music education could work in a COVID-19 world. 

What Does Music Mean to Me?

I love music , and I feel as if it is a form of expression. Sometimes it is just too hard to put my feelings into words: Like when I’m so excited that I bounce up and down and start squealing like a hyperactive tea kettle or when I am red-faced and pulling out my hair because life is just so stressful.

But with music, you don’t need to explain yourself. Some lyrics are just so relatable that it is like it’s telling your story, or it’s as if you can feel the emotion behind the melodies.

Consequently, I will listen to different types of music depending on how I am feeling. When I want to focus I listen to the smooth, relaxing sounds of Lofi Hip-Hop, and when I am happy and want to dance I like the lively beats of rock or electro-swing.

Music also allows us to individualize ourselves , as the music that we enjoy can say something about us. As an example, I really enjoy listening to Chiptune—synthesized electronic music based off of the eight bit sounds that you would probably find in old arcade games. That being said, I really enjoy playing video games!

Most importantly, you can use music to show your artistic side . I love to write my own songs and sing them. It is a great way for me to get my thoughts and ideas out and has helped me to process different emotions. Music has been especially helpful to me throughout my years in foster care. By listening to, writing, and singing different songs, I was able to let out all of my pent up anger, sadness, and disappointment in a non-destructive way. 

My Experience With Music in School 

When I entered [ETM partner school] M.S. 180 I was presented with mountain of choices for an arts class. After going back and forth— for what seemed like ages— trying to choose whether I should do art or choir, I threw my arms up in the air and finally decided to just try something new. I joined the band and played the trumpet. Having no prior experience with any instrument except for the recorders they gave my class in fourth grade, I was pretty excited.

Turns out, it was way harder than I expected. The sheet music looked like a jumble of black splotches, and I had a bit of trouble getting the trumpet to make the noises that I wanted it to, mainly because you could get three different notes (without moving a finger!) depending on how you blew into it.

Yes, it was challenging, but after a few months of practicing it became fun! I felt so satisfied when I was able to play a song correctly, or when those black splotches finally made sense!

I continued with band for two years and then had a change of heart in eighth grade. After watching the choir perform again and again, I started to realize that I wanted to sing rather than play an instrument. Playing the trumpet just didn’t give me the same level of happiness and satisfaction that singing did. I had a desire to do what I loved, and I had already spent enough time in the band to know that while I thought it was cool, it wasn’t for me.

Once I joined the choir, it was as if a door magically opened for me. I was instantly welcomed to the group and caught up quickly with the lessons and learned songs. By the end of my first month, I felt as if I had been there for the whole three years. Singing in a group felt normal to me. I felt like an equal, rather than a newcomer, and I was never excluded in activities due to my lack of experience.

The classes were productive and engaging. I quickly joined chamber choir, an after-school version of choir where we practiced for concerts and out of school performances. We sang at [ETM’s] gala, participated and performed at a middle school fair at P.S./M.S. 194, went Christmas caroling at an office for the workers, did special performances at school concerts, and more.

It was an incredible experience, and I made a lot of friends. I started to feel more comfortable singing around other people and I felt as if I had a whole community of passionate singers around me.

I would be heartbroken if music education is taken away from schools. It is so hard for me to imagine M.S. 180 without the band, choir, and orchestra—after all, it is a school for the arts, and music is definitely a form of art. 

What Would School Be Like Without Music?

It makes me shudder to think of what my time with M.S. 180 would have been like without music classes. If I hadn’t been exposed to it, I wouldn’t have experienced the buzz of excitement or gut-wrenching nervousness that comes from performing on stage; nor would I have had the courage to belt out lines from Charlie Puth’s “Attention” with my friends!

There would not have been any concerts—a BIG deal in any performing arts school, and kids like me who enjoy performing would not have been given the opportunity to nurture and showcase our talents.

If music education is taken away from schools now, future students will not have an opportunity to have the experiences and music-inspired friendships that students like me have had— which is cruel.  

How Can We Keep Music in the Future?

Seeing as it is not safe for people to be in groups, having virtual music classes might be a way that we can continue music education in a safe and engaging way. For instance, my choir teacher [Mr. Q] had a set-up where each day of the week would focus on a different aspect of music and singing, like “Technique Tuesday” and “Writing Wednesday”. He also used a program called Musicfirst to assign us activities: like composing our own melody in eight measures or more, or giving us songs to practice.

The part of virtual music class that I loved the most were the projects. As an example, a songwriting project! Mr. Q showed us videos about the structure of a song and the basics for constructing one. Then, we were free to create! Each week we worked on a different part of our song, and the goal was that by the end we would have a recorded version of the whole thing.

I spent hours writing each week, and realized how much fun it was to do. It was soothing to write down my troubling thoughts and feelings in a way that was easy for me to express. Since then, I have continued to write songs and plan on making many more!

Sadly, we don’t all own a crystal ball to predict the future, and a lot of things have—and will continue to—change. However, removing music from schools should not be one of them. Music is a key to open the doors of imagination, freedom, and self-expression. All children should have an opportunity to learn about it. Music unites us all, and we cannot lose it. 

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How music can unite and heal america.

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Billy Ray Cyrus, left, and Lil Nas X perform "Old Town Road" at the 2019 BET Awards.

American polarization, particularly heightened after the last four years of deliberately-sown division and mistrust, may seem insurmountable. But eight years working to build bridges in the most famously divided city in the world—Jerusalem—have shown me that there are still ways we can reach one another.

Through the Jerusalem Youth Chorus , an Israeli-Palestinian music and dialogue project I founded in 2012 and have directed since, I have experienced how music taken from diverse traditions gives both singers and audiences windows into unfamiliar cultures, histories, and realities, and a less threatening way to connect to one another. For communities that can barely stomach saying the other’s name, music is a way to not only speak to one another but to hear each other, too.

In the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, Ala, a Palestinian Muslim teenager who spoke only Arabic, and Eden, an Israeli Jew who spoke only Hebrew, proudly built a deep friendship despite their language barrier, through their shared love of music. Despite being frequently stopped by the police, and even tear-gassed on the way to rehearsals, Ala has gone on to help other Palestinian youth feel valued in the chorus as a now-trilingual member of our staff. Eden, who sacrificed many friends at her religious high school over her membership in the chorus, made history as the first Ethiopian-Israeli voted to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Competition—singing a song in Hebrew, English, Amharic, and Arabic.

Throughout human history , music has been used as a tool to build community and foster a sense of shared identity. Indeed, singing with others is one of the few human activities that releases oxytocin —often called “the trust hormone”—in the brain. Even just listening to music can trigger empathy, firing up the mirror neurons in the brain that help us attune to someone else’s emotional state. Music helps drop us from head level to heart level, and engage one another not on the level of irreconcilable positions but on the level of fundamentally shared human needs—to be loved, to feel safe, to have dignity, and to be a part of something larger than ourselves. In an American national landscape devoid of trust, empathy, and belonging, music that can bring us together seems like exactly what we need these days.

In foreign affairs, cultural diplomacy is a classic tool for building trust and exposing nations to one another. Particularly in the context of conflict, multi-track diplomacy has been effective in complementing the political process with a more ground up, people-to-people approach. Why not harness the tools we have honed for so long abroad and apply them to the problems we face at home? 

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The United States needs a national initiative to strategically incorporate music into efforts to bring the country together. Musicians, whether as performers or educators, possess the tools we need to help us reconnect to one another on an emotional level and remember the feeling of togetherness that we seem to have forgotten as a nation. Such an initiative could activate and empower musicians as powerful agents of the healing and unity that we so sorely need.

At the same time, such a mobilization of musicians would help revitalize the creative sector of our economy, much as the Works Progress Administration did during the Great Depression. Musicians and other creative professionals have been among those hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic: according to an Americans for the Arts survey released in May, 95% of working artists have experienced loss of income due to the pandemic and 62% lost their jobs entirely. Before the pandemic, the arts contributed more than $800 billion annually to the US economy — five times more than agriculture —and provided jobs for millions of Americans. Let’s put musicians and their creative compatriots to work in uniting America.

Of course, music is not going to solve all of America’s problems. Even in the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, music is just an entry-point into building deep, resilient relationships between people who otherwise would never even talk to each other. A professionally facilitated dialogue process complements our musical programming to equip participants with tools that can help them think critically, hold complexity, and transform conflict into creativity. Any musical intervention with a hope of meaningfully repairing America’s frayed national ties will similarly need to be grounded in an understanding of group process and conflict transformation. Indeed, when the Jerusalem Youth Chorus took its first U.S. tour in 2015, it was the dialogue process that we facilitated for the Commonwealth Youth Choirs in Philadelphia—giving them the tools to explore, together, their experiences and understandings of race in America—that left the longest-lasting impression on all of us. Together, music and dialogue can have a far deeper and more sustained impact than either one alone.

Clearly, our country will need a multi-pronged approach to national reconciliation. Like Jerusalem, America must rebuild the capacity to think critically, hold complexity, and transform conflict into creative approaches to our shared challenges. So much can be accomplished if we can break out of our echo chambers to listen to one another, as organizations like Braver Angels , Convergence , and One America have proven over the last several years. But with our country so deeply polarized, we’ll need something to remind many of us that it’s even possible to try. Music could be the perfect place to start.

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MUSIC UNITES PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS, SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS IN REMARKS INTRODUCING ‘WHY MUSIC MATTERS’ LECTURE

Following is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s introductory remarks at the lecture on “Why Music Matters” by Professor Leon Botstein in New York, today, 8 November:

Dear colleagues and friends, I am delighted to welcome you to another lecture in this series.  Today, our subject is music.

“What’s that got to do with the UN?” you may be asking.  My answer is that music has to do with everything.

From the first lullaby sung to us as newborn babies, music provides the “soundtrack” of our lives.  So much so that I think many of us take it for granted -- just as we do the soundtrack of a film, which we often hear without listening to it.  That is, we enjoy the film without realizing how much the music conditions our reaction.

Music penetrates almost every part of our lives:  our rest, our entertainment, our education, and our worship.

Throughout history, it has celebrated the triumphs and tragedies of life.  As Plato said, music “gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination”.

Music both shapes and reflects society.  Dancers follow its beat; protesters use it to find their voice.  It can promote ideals -- like peace and solidarity -- but it can also prepare armies for battle.  It is part of almost every important personal and collective moment.

But it is also mysterious.  Rhythm and pitch can be expressed as mathematical formulae; and musicians know the techniques by which they produce a certain sound.  But no scientist or musician can explain the power that music has over our emotions.  That, surely, is what another Greek writer had in mind, who said that song is a divine gift from God.

In a world of diversity where often values clash, music leaps across language barriers and unites people of quite different cultural backgrounds.  And so, through music, all peoples can come together to make the world a more harmonious place.

You see, I am getting carried away I’d better stop -- I’m not the one who’s here to give the lecture.  But luckily for you, you don’t have to listen to me giving the lecture; that is not my plan.  We have someone much better, much better qualified here with us to give that lecture -- Professor Leon Botstein, who is President of Bard College and music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra.

I won’t say a word more and I hand you over to Leon.

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Music in the United States Culture Essay

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Introduction

Genres of music, effects of music, technology and music, works cited.

Music is regarded to as the universal language that traverses over cultural boundaries and nations thus unifying the human race. Music is believed to have the ability to evoke sentiments ranging from happy sensual emotions to sad and enraged feelings.

As an art, music has evolved together with man from a humble mostly percussion beginning to the beautiful and complicated symphonies that engage hundreds of instruments of this modern era. The developed of music was expansive thereby leading to the birth of different styles of music called genres. These genres often depend on the unique geographical and cultural settings of the singer as motivation and inspiration always come from ones surroundings.

The United States is home to a myriad of musical genres all originating from differing groups and inspiring different kinds of sentiments. These multiple genres affect people differently and the prevalence for one genre over another varies. This paper sets out to discuss music in the US cultural context. The various kinds of music and their effect on US culture shall be articulated. Advantages and disadvantages of music as a whole shall also be highlighted so as to bring about a deeper appreciation of the effects of music in America.

Owing to the extensive nature of music, there is need to categorize music so as to simplify classification and ease the process through which a person can find music that they enjoy. Musical genres can be termed as categories into which music sharing certain stylistic similarities are placed. The popularity and frequency with which music from various genres is listened to differs due to many reasons among which are demographics, religion and age groups to name but a few.

A report by Nielsen Soundscan indicates that the Rock genre is the most popular in the US. Musical sales in the year 2007 showed that a total of 150,000 Rock records had been sold making it by far the highest selling genre (IT Facts). This group of music is mostly favored by the youths as can be highlighted by the age of the crowds who throng various rock concerts. The second most popular genre according to the report was RnB music which garnered 96,000 record sales.

This genre also greatly appeals to the youths as well as segments of the older population. The other popular genres are Hip hop, Country and Metal. However, despite Rock being the predominant genre, there are indications that the Hip Hop genre is quickly gaining ground (Ramsey 199). This assertion is reinforced by popular media which hails Hip Hop as the fastest growing musical genre accruing billions of dollars in the US recording industry.

Music has always had an effect on people; from the short term altering of moods to the long term changing of perceptions or creating of ideologies. This holds true for music in the US whereby social messages are passed and stereotypes reinforced through music. Shepherd assets that the ideologies of gender in society have overflowed to popular music therefore affecting the visibility of women in some genres (234). For example, the rock music culture is characterized by an overrepresentation of males.

A majority of rock stars are depicted as domineering males with gruffly voices and athletic bodies. Shepherd theorizes that this images advance the social construct where girls are encouraged to adopt a passive and subordinate role while boys learn to be more active and dominant (233).

Music production and the medium through which music is distributed to the consumers has changed through the years as technological advances are made. The cassettes and records of the 1980’s are now rendered obsolete and have been replaced by the more efficient CDs. An even more ground-breaking invention in recent times is the iPod which had literally revolutionalized the manner in which music is listened to by consumers.

The iPod, created in 2001 has made it possible for one to listen to their favorite music literally anywhere owing to their compact nature and light weight (Ivan 1). In addition to this, the iPod has a significantly high memory capacity allowing one to load a huge number of songs into the player and listen to them at leisure.

Combining their immense power with that of the internet, the iPod has threatened to make local music stores obsolete. This is because one can by use of an iPod legally download millions of songs from the internet. This has led to music stores being rendered redundant by iPod users who can in most cases get the same music provided by the stores at significantly reduced rates (Ivan 2).

Advantages of music

From its conception, the traditional function of music was entertainment. This remains true in modern day American culture where music is still hailed as the number one entertainment activity for Americans. Research indicates that Americans dedicate more time to listening to music for leisure that they do for any other leisure activity (Shepherd 22). This may be because one can engage in listening to music while undertaking other activities such as driving or performing household chores.

From a commercial perspective, music has become a big business in America contributing over a billion dollars to America every year (Barnet & Burriss 2). One can therefore extrapolate that the music industry is an important facet of the American economy. Through the various components e.g. recording artist, production houses, agents and concert venues to name but a few, this industry creates employment for a big number of American citizens and also increases the government’s revenue accrued from taxation on sales made.

Music can be accredited as having been one of the factors that brought about integration of an America what was legally segregated from 1896 through to 1954. New genres such as rhythm and blues and rock all acted as social forces that cut across the social boundaries that segregation had built. Barnet and Burriss stress that genres such as Rap and hip hop raised awareness about ongoing prejudices and inequalities in American cities therefore leading to changes which brought about justice (43)

Disadvantages of Music

Despite the many advantages that can be attributed to music, there are also many ills that are as a result of music. Some genres of music, especially Hip Hop and rap, are infamous for their lewd content and vulgar language. Such offensive material is detrimental especially to children and adolescents who are highly impressionable. Kirsh notes that sexually explicit lyrics have led to the degradation of the American culture (7).

However, the government has attempted to mitigate these disastrous results by heavily monitoring music aired by the radio through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In addition to this, music sold in stores is voluntarily labeled by the record companies with parental advisory warning stickers notifying the listener of the explicit contents (Kirsh 7).

Some forms of music have been noted to actively promote social vices such as drugs and violence. This popularization of violence has led to an increase in violence and juvenile delinquency among the younger population. These occurrences are consistent with research which shows that violent entertainment is consistently an evil influence on youth leading to degradation of moral values and behavioral changes in some cases (Kirsh 8).

Another disadvantage of music is that it can be used to advance prejudices and stereotype images which may then be used as the basis by which people interact with others of differing cultures. As such, music has led to marginalization of some groups as well as propagation of prejudices which is detrimental to the harmony of the multicultural American society.

This paper set out to give a brief overview of music in America so as to provide a deeper appreciation of the role that music plays in shaping our culture. To this end, this paper has outlined the popular genres of music in America and highlighted the major listeners of the same. The technological advances that have turned the manner in which we listen to music have also been pointed out. Like most other things in life, music has been seen to be a two faced creature; having both a benevolent side and malevolent side.

The advantageous attribute of music have been seen to be significant in integration and nation building efforts. However, from the discussions presented herein, it is evident that the negative aspect of music threaten to break the fiber that makes up our society if they are left to run wild. It is therefore our duty to ensure that we capitalize on the advantages of music and retard the negative aspects for the benefit of our entire nation.

Barnet, D, R, and Burriss, Larry, L. Controversies of the music industry . Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. Print.

IT Facts, 2007 US Music Sales by Genre . 7 Jan 2008. Web. http://itfacts.biz/2007-us-music-sales-by-genre/9354/

Ivan, Gregor, How the iPod has Changed the Way we Listen to Music. Web.

Kirsh, Steven. Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: a Critical Look at the Research. Sage, 2006. Print.

Ramsey, P, G. Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. California: University of California Press, 2004. Print.

Shepherd, J. Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Media, Industry and Society. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2019, February 7). Music in the United States Culture. https://ivypanda.com/essays/music-in-the-united-states-culture/

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Guide on How to Write a Music Essay: Topics and Examples

Let's Understand What is Music Essay

You know how some school assignments are fun to write by default, right? When students see them on the course syllabus, they feel less like a burden and more like a guaranteed pleasure. They are about our interests and hobbies and therefore feel innate and intuitive to write. They are easy to navigate, and interesting topic ideas just pop into your head without much trouble.

Music essays belong to the category of fun essay writing. What is music essay? Anything from in-depth analysis to personal thoughts put into words and then to paper can fall into a music essay category. An essay about music can cover a wide range of topics, including music history, theory, social impact, significance, and musical review. It can be an analytical essay about any music genre, musical instruments, or today's music industry.

Don't get us wrong, you will still need to do extensive research to connect your opinions to a broader context, and you can't step out of academic writing standards, but the essay writing process will be fun.

In this article, our custom essay writing service is going to guide you through every step of writing an excellent music essay. You can draw inspiration from the list of music essay topics that our team prepared, and later on, you will learn what an outstanding essay on music is by an example of a music review essay.

What are Some Music Topics to Write About

There are so many exciting music topics to write about. We would have trouble choosing one. You can write about various music genres, be it country music or classical music; you can research music therapy or how music production happens.

Okay, forgive us for getting carried away; music makes us enthusiastic. Below you will find a list of various music essay topics prepared from our thesis writing service . Choose one and write a memorable essay about everyone's favorite art form.

Music Argumentative Essay Topics

Music essays can be written about an infinite number of themes. You can even write about performance or media comparison.

Here is a list of music argumentative essay topics. These edge-cutting topics will challenge your readers and get you an easy A+.

• Exploring the evolution of modern music styles of the 21st century
• Is it ethical to own and play rare musical instruments?
• Is music therapy an effective mental health treatment?
• Exploring the Intersection of Technology and Creativity in electronic music
• The Relevance of traditional music theory in modern music production
• The Role of musical pieces in the Transmission of cultural identity
• The value of historical analysis in understanding the significance of music in society
• How does exposing listeners to different genres of music break down barriers
• Exploring the cognitive effects of music on human brain development
• The therapeutic potential of music in treating mental disorders

Why is Music Important Essay Topics

Do you know which essay thrills our team the most? The importance of music in life essay. We put our minds together and came up with a list of topics about why music is so central to human life. Start writing why is music important essay, and we guarantee you that you will be surprised by how much fun you had crafting it.  

• Popular Music and its Role in shaping cultural trends
• Music as a metaphorical language for expressing emotions and thoughts
• How music changes and influences social and political movements
• How the music of different countries translates their history to outsiders
• The innate connection between music and human beings
• How music helps us understand feelings we have never experienced
• Does music affect our everyday life and the way we think?
• Examining the cross-cultural significance of music in society
• How rock music influenced 70's political ideologies
• How rap music closes gaps between different racial groups in the US

Consider delegating your ' write my essay ' request to our expert writers for crafting a perfect paper on any music topic!

Why I Love Music Essay Topics

We want to know what is music to you, and the best way to tell us is to write a why I love music essay. Below you will find a list of music essay topics that will help you express your love for music.

• I love how certain songs and artists evoke Memories and Emotions
• I love the diversity of music genres and how different styles enrich my love for music
• I love how music connects me with people of different backgrounds
• How the music of Linkin Park helped me through life's toughest challenges
• What does my love for popular music say about me?
• How the unique sounds of string instruments fuel my love for music
• How music provides a temporary Release from the stresses of daily life
• How music motivates me to chase my dreams
• How the raw energy of rock music gets me through my daily life
• Why my favorite song is more than just music to me

Need a Music Essay ASAP?

Our expert team is quick to get you an A+ on all your assignments!

Music Therapy Essay Topics

One of the most interesting topics about music for an essay is music therapy. We are sure you have heard all the stories of how music cures not only mental but also physical pains. Below you can find a list of topics that will help you craft a compelling music therapy essay. And don't forget that you can always rely on our assistance for fulfilling your ' write my paper ' requests!

• The effectiveness of music therapy in reducing stress and pain for cancer patients
• Does pop music have the same effects on music therapy as classical music?
• Exploring the benefits of music therapy with other genres beyond classical music
• The potential of music therapy in aiding substance abuse treatment and recovery
• The Role of music therapy in Addressing PTSD and Trauma in military veterans
• The impact of music therapy on enhancing social interaction and emotional expression in individuals with developmental disabilities
• The use of music therapy in managing chronic pain
• Does musical therapy help depression?
• Does music reduce anxiety levels?
• Is music therapy better than traditional medicine?

History of Music Essay Topics

If you love analytical essays and prefer to see the bigger picture, you can always write a music description essay. Below you can find some of the most interesting topics for the history of music essay.

• The Significance of natural instruments in music production and performance
• Tracing the historical development of Western music theory
• How electronic music traces its roots back to classical music
• How the music industry evolved from sheet music to streaming services
• How modern producers relate to classical composers
• The Origins and Influence of Jazz Music
• How folk music saved the Stories of unnamed heroes
• Do we know what the music of ancient civilizations sounded like?
• Where does your favorite bandstand in the line of music evolve?
• The Influence of African American Music on modern pop culture

Benefits of Music Essay Topics

If you are someone who wonders what are some of the values that music brings to our daily life, you should write the benefits of music essay. The music essay titles below can inspire you to write a captivating essay:

• How music can be used to promote cultural awareness and understanding
• The benefits of music education in promoting creativity and innovation
• The social benefits of participating in music groups
• The Impact of Music on Memory and Learning
• The cognitive benefits of music education in early childhood development
• The effects of music on mood and behavior
• How learning to play an instrument improves cognitive functions.
• How music connects people distanced by thousands of miles
• The benefits of listening to music while exercising
• How music can express the feelings words fail to do so 

Music Analysis Essay Example

Reading other people's papers is a great way to scale yours. There are many music essay examples, but the one crafted by our expert writers stands out in every possible way. You can learn what a great thesis statement looks like, how to write an engaging introduction, and what comprehensive body paragraphs should look like. 

Click on the sample below to see the music analysis essay example. 

How to Write a Music Essay with Steps

Writing music essays is definitely not rocket science, so don't be afraid. It's just like writing any other paper, and a music essay outline looks like any other essay structure.

• Start by choosing a music essay topic. You can use our list above to get inspired. Choose a topic about music that feels more relevant and less researched so you can add brand-new insights. As we discussed, your music essay can be just about anything; it can be a concert report or an analytical paper about the evolution of music.
• Continue by researching the topic. Gather all the relevant materials and information for your essay on music and start taking notes. You can use these notes as building blocks for the paper. Be prepared; even for short essays, you may need to read books and long articles.
• Once you have all the necessary information, the ideas in your head will start to take shape. The next step is to develop a thesis statement out of all the ideas you have in your head. A thesis statement is a must as it informs readers what the entire music essay is about. Don't be afraid to be bold in your statement; new outlooks are always appreciated.
• Next, you'll need a music essay introduction. Here you introduce the readers to the context and background information about the research topic. It should be clear, brief, and engaging. You should set the tone of your essay from the very beginning. Don't forget the introduction is where the thesis statement goes.
• One of the most important parts of essay writing is crafting a central body paragraph about music. This is where you elaborate on your thesis, make main points, and support them with the evidence you gathered beforehand. Remember, your music essay should be well structured and depict a clear picture of your ideas.
• Next, you will need to come up with an ideal closing paragraph. Here you will need to once again revisit the main points in your music essay, restate them in a logical manner and give the readers your final thoughts.
• Don't forget to proofread your college essay. Whether you write a long or short essay on music, there will be grammatical and factual errors. Revise and look through your writing with a critical mind. You may find that some parts need rewriting.

Key Takeaways

Music essays are a pleasure to write and read. There are so many topics and themes to choose from, and if you follow our How to Write a Music Essay guide, you are guaranteed to craft a top-notch essay every time.

Be bold when selecting a subject even when unsure what is research essay topic on music, take the writing process easy, follow the academic standards, and you are good to go. Use our music essay sample to challenge yourself and write a professional paper. 

If you feel stuck and have no time our team of expert writers is always ready to give you help from all subject ( medical school personal statement school help ). Visit our website, submit your ' write my research paper ' request and a guaranteed A+ essay will be on your way in just one click.

Need Help in Writing an Impressive Paper?

Our expert writers are here to write a quality paper that will make you the star of your class!

FAQs on Writing a Music Essay

Though music essay writing is not the hardest job on the planet, there are still some questions that often pop up. Now that you have a writing guide and a list of essay topics about music, it's time to address the remaining inquiries. Keep reading to find the answers to the frequently asked questions. 

Should Artists' Music be Used in Advertising?

What type of music is best for writing an essay, why do people love music.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

• Thoughts On Music

The Power of Music

Music is all around us; providing powerful stories, inspiration, and joy in its messages. On the emotional level, few can deny it’s intrinsic power. Its ability to influence and enhance moods is, in fact, one of music’s greatest attractions. Moving from the gut to the brain, music helps determine the way we perceive and think about the world. It could be considered a shortcut to the subconscious levels of our minds. Dr. Adam Knieste, a musicologist who studies the effects of music upon people noted: " It’s really a powerful drug. Music can poison you, lift your spirits, or make you sick without knowing why."

As a universal language, music unites people across cultures and can comfort people in times of need and sadness. Musicians see music’s tremendous power not only as a personal spiritual experience but also as a force for change, serving as a a voice for social advocacy and/or enhancing mutual understanding between differing cultures.

As detailed below, from personal or cultural expression to a unique ability to stop the "innner dialog," harvesting and harnessing the power of music can be a potent tool.

Music as a Mirror

Music suggests much about the society in which it is created. Whether it is a traditional song of an Indigenous people, a Beethoven Symphony, a gospel song or a popular rock tune; music reflects a culture. It expresses experience and creates experience, fueling feelings and responses in the listener.

Nearly everyone shares some connection with music. Whether seniors reminiscing to the sound of Bing Crosby or Benny Goodman ; to Baby Boomers blasting the Beatles or Joni Mitchell, they all glean messages and memories from music and the artists who create it.

Music can reflect the mood of the times and certan songs eventually become symbols for a particular group of people, a place or historical event. " When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World )" was popular during World War II and " We Shall Overcome " was a favorite thoughout the 60s civil rights protests.

An Emotional Connection

Music finds its primary purpose as a spiritual expression of our affections. We have all likely heard the statement, “Music is the language of emotion. ” Music gives expression to our hearts when words are often not enough.

Science all but confirms that humans are hard-wired to respond to music. There is something going on when listening to music besides sound waves, the mechanism of the ear, and synapses firing in the brain. Apparently, music and mood are intimately connected in some non-physical way. Studies show that infants prefer "consonant intervals, the smooth-sounding ones that sound nice to our Western ears in a chord, as opposed to a jarring combination of notes." In fact, the cries of babies just a few weeks old were found to contain some of the basic intervals common to Western music.

Therapy for the human soul? | A 9-11 Testimony

Why does anyone waste time and energy writing or playing music? Excerpt of a speech given by Boston Conservatory's Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of the music division to his freshman music students .

I was a resident of Manhattan on September 12, 2001, the day after the terrible attack on the World Trade Center. That fateful morning, I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. Along with the rest of New York, I went through the journey of getting through that week.

From this traumatic and profound experience, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we cannot with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heart-wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does. This is why music matters.

If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

... If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the evening of 9/11, or so many other gatherings of torn and tattered souls across the planet, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.

Stopping the "inner dialogue"

Certain kinds of music have the power to pull an inner curtain aside, so to speak, so that we become temporarily aware of parts of ourselves which are usually inaccessible. What is experienced in these moments is rather like a message or a non-conscious visual film clip made conscious through the music. Music has the uncanny ability to stop the "inner dialogue."

Legendary rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix, told Life magazine in 1969, "I can explain everything better though music. You hypnotize people to where they go right back to their natural state, and when you get people at their weakest point, you can preach into their subconscious what we want to say."

It consists literally of everything we think about during every waking moment: worries about countless everyday events, planning what to eat, how to do a task, what to wear, how to spend an evening, a tune running through our heads, what others think of us and what we think of them. Think about it and you'll realize you're always thinking about something.

So why would anyone want to stop their inner dialogue? Most people don't ever think about what they think about, which sounds fairly ridiculous except that it is of supreme importance for people who wish to "stop the chatter" and delve into states of greater awareness of themselves and the world.

Altered states of consciousness

Great popular songs inspire soul searching and often act as a springboard—reflecting and fueling a listener’s deeply personal spiritual longings. Comforting the lost of a loved one, making sense and reordering the chaos of the complex world around them, binding commonality in an ever more divergent society; these are just a few of the powerful positives of popular tunes. (see Finding Spirituality in Contemporary Mainstream Pop Music for further info)

And yes the filp side... one measure of the imaginative power popular music exerts on modern culture is the semi-religious fervor that permeates much of the pop culture madness. Rabid fans rant and rave about their favorite pop musician and cravenly swoon at their concerts. Emotional frenzied mobs scream en masse and parrot their favorite's latest hairstyle or clothing accessory, treating it with the religious reverance of a maniac.

Granted, media marketing may churn up much of this manufactured "devotion" but a clever pop hook endlessy repeating itself over and over during the height of its popularity has a hypnotozing effect even on the most resistant!

The Power of Music - Further Reading

International Society for Music Education ISME is a worldwide organization that seeks to celebrate the diverse ways that people engage with, and develop in and through, music.

The Mozart Effect (good references)

Harnessing the Power of Music to Teach Social Studies

The Power of Music Interesting essay replete with historical anecdotes on the devil's tritone, etc.

Music, Sound and the Sacred

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A new Harvard study suggests that people around the globe can identify lullabies, dancing songs, and healing songs — regardless of the songs’ cultural origin — after hearing just a 14-second clip.

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Songs in the key of humanity

Peter Reuell

Harvard Staff Writer

Some musical meaning may transcend cultural boundaries and be universally human, study says

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Poet and Harvard Professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow famously said, “Music is the universal language of mankind.” A new Harvard study suggests he may have been right.

The study, a collaboration among psychology research associate Samuel Mehr, human evolutionary biology graduate student Manvir Singh, alumni Luke Glowacki and Hunter York, and Associate Professor of Psychology Max Krasnow, found that people around the globe could identify lullabies, dancing songs, and healing songs — regardless of the songs’ cultural origin — after hearing just a 14-second clip.

The finding suggests that not only is music deeply rooted in human nature, but that some types of songs transcend cultural boundaries. The study is described in a Jan. 25 paper in Current Biology.

“It seems like all humans make music in some way or another,” Mehr said. “But there’s not great empirical evidence for whether or not the different types of music they make share features across cultures. One way to test that is with this type of naïve listener experiment … and the results suggest that, in some cases, the answer is yes.”

The findings are based on a wide-reaching experiment in which 750 online participants in 60 countries listened to brief excerpts of songs collected from nearly 90 small societies around the globe, including hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and subsistence farmers.

Participants then answered six questions, rating each clip on a six-point scale according to whether they believed the song was used for dancing, soothing a baby, healing illness, or expressing love. Two additional uses — mourning the dead and telling a story — were included as controls.

A data science postdoctoral fellow with the Harvard Data Science Initiative, Mehr said the data showed that — despite participants’ unfamiliarity with the cultures, the random sampling of each song, and the short duration of the samples — people were able to reliably infer the songs’ functions, and their ratings were consistent across the globe.

The findings ran counter to expert expectations.

Mehr, Glowacki and Krasnow had also surveyed academics — including ethnomusicologists, music theorists, performers, composers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists — about whether they believed people would be able to identify the song types.

“We gave them an idealized version of the experiment we ran,” Mehr said. “Imagine you have unlimited time and resources, and the ability to record every song that’s ever been sung from every culture, and could take those and play them for people all over the world.

“The question we asked was, if we play those recordings for people, are they going to be able to tell … this is a lullaby or this is for dancing?” he continued. “Predominantly among ethnomusicologists, the answer was no. And not only that, but they predicted that people’s responses will be inconsistent with one another. That’s not what we found.”

Singh also wanted to know whether listeners were recognizing certain non-musical characteristics of the songs — lullabies are typically sung by one woman, for example, while dancing songs more often involve a group.

“The question then was if people are able to do this, how on earth are they doing it?” Singh said. “How is it that a guy in Tallahassee can recognize a dancing song from a hunter-gatherer tribe from Southeast Asia whose culture he knows nothing about?”

To test that, the team conducted a second study. This time, they asked listeners about a number of contextual and musical features, ranging from the number and gender of the singers to the tempo and melodic complexity of the song.

“From all these, we get a very simple and rudimentary analysis of each song,” Mehr said. “It turns out when you ask people these very simple questions about songs, they agree with each other very highly. Even on really subjective musical features, like melodic complexity, they tend to make consistent ratings with one another.”

When data from the two studies were combined, the results showed that songs of the same function shared similar characteristics — lullabies, for example, tended to be slower and melodically simpler than dance tunes — suggesting that something about musical characteristics crosses cultural boundaries.

“It seems like all humans make music in some way or another. But there’s not great empirical evidence for whether or not the different types of music they make share features across cultures. One way to test that is with this type of naïve listener experiment … and the results suggest that, in some cases, the answer is yes.” Samuel Mehr

Mehr said the researchers were able to draw their wide-reaching conclusions because the songs used in the study were drawn from the discography of the Natural History of Song , a Harvard-based project that creates rigorously constructed databases of ethnographic text about music and audio recordings of music.

“We assembled all of the examples of music in a systematic way, so that inferences drawn from the whole discography are generalizable to humans as opposed to merely the cultures that were studied,” said Mehr, who directs the project with Singh and Glowacki, who is now a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. “This has been a problem in music research in general. The studies that have been pitched as studies of universality in music have typically included only a handful of cultures, or didn’t systematically sample different genres of music in a principled fashion.”

Going forward, the team hopes to conduct more in-depth analysis of the music collected for the Natural History of Song, and do additional studies to improve the inferences about music’s ability to cross cultural boundaries.

“One weakness of this study is that the listeners we’re sampling from are people on the internet, so they all have access to things like YouTube, and they probably are all familiar, say, with Taylor Swift,” Mehr said. “Do the results tell us about the design of the human mind, or do they tell us about what modern listeners hear in the music of the world?”

To address that, the team is working to translate the studies into more than two dozen languages and run online experiments in many more countries. Singh and Glowacki are also working to bring the study into the field by playing song excerpts for members of small-scale societies in Indonesia, Ethiopia, and elsewhere.

“That is the most exciting part,” Mehr said. “Because these are people who have had little exposure to the internet or radio or Western culture. The only music they know is their own music. We’ll find out whether they share the same conceptions of form and function in music with our English-speaking internet users.”

In the end, Mehr said, the study and others like it will enable scientists to form a foundation for answering a number of long-running questions about music and its evolution.

“That’s one of the most important contributions we’d like to make to the field,” he said. “This kind of basic, cross-cultural fact-finding about human behavior is the first step in developing a new science of music.”

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115 Popular Music Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Music has always been a powerful form of expression, and popular music in particular has the ability to shape culture and society. If you are tasked with writing an essay on popular music, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer number of topics to choose from. To help you narrow down your options and get started on your essay, here are 115 popular music essay topic ideas and examples.

• The impact of social media on the music industry
• The evolution of music streaming services
• The role of women in the music industry
• The influence of technology on music production
• The rise of K-pop in the global music market
• The impact of the internet on music distribution
• The role of music in political movements
• The portrayal of race and ethnicity in popular music
• The influence of music on fashion trends
• The role of music in advertising
• The impact of music festivals on local economies
• The relationship between music and mental health
• The evolution of music videos
• The influence of popular music on language and slang
• The role of social justice in popular music
• The impact of music streaming on album sales
• The rise of TikTok as a platform for discovering new music
• The influence of popular music on youth culture
• The role of music in shaping identity
• The impact of music piracy on the music industry
• The portrayal of gender in popular music
• The role of music in shaping societal norms
• The influence of popular music on political campaigns
• The evolution of music genres
• The impact of music awards shows on the industry
• The relationship between music and nostalgia
• The role of music in protest movements
• The influence of popular music on film and television
• The portrayal of love and relationships in popular music
• The impact of social media influencers on music trends
• The evolution of music marketing strategies
• The role of music in cultural appropriation
• The influence of popular music on fashion trends
• The impact of music festivals on tourism
• The relationship between music and dance
• The role of music in shaping generational identities
• The influence of popular music on consumer behavior
• The portrayal of masculinity in popular music
• The impact of music education on academic achievement
• The evolution of music production techniques
• The role of music in branding and advertising
• The influence of popular music on language and communication
• The impact of music streaming on artist royalties
• The relationship between music and emotion
• The role of music in social movements
• The influence of popular music on body image
• The portrayal of sexuality in popular music
• The impact of music festivals on environmental sustainability
• The evolution of music journalism
• The role of music in cultural diplomacy
• The impact of music videos on artist visibility
• The relationship between music and memory
• The role of music in shaping cultural identity
• The influence of popular music on social media trends
• The portrayal of mental health in popular music
• The impact of music festivals on local communities
• The evolution of music distribution platforms
• The role of music in shaping political ideologies
• The influence of popular music on social justice movements
• The impact of music streaming on artist discovery
• The relationship between music and technology
• The role of music in healing and therapy
• The influence of popular music on consumer trends
• The portrayal of race and ethnicity in music videos
• The impact of music festivals on artist careers
• The evolution of music criticism
• The role of music in cultural assimilation
• The influence of popular music on social norms
• The impact of music education on creativity
• The relationship between music and spirituality
• The role of music in storytelling
• The influence of popular music on political discourse
• The portrayal of gender identity in popular music
• The role of music in cultural preservation
• The portrayal of love and relationships in music videos
• The impact of music streaming on artist exposure
• The role of music in shaping social movements
• The influence of popular music on body positivity
• The evolution of music journalism in the digital age
• The role of music in shaping cultural identities
• The portrayal of mental health in music lyrics

These popular music essay topic ideas and examples should help you get started on your essay and explore the diverse and fascinating world of popular music. Whether you are interested in the impact of technology on the music industry, the portrayal of social issues in music, or the role of music in shaping cultural identities, there is a topic for everyone in the world of popular music. Happy writing!

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Music Unites Us All Essay Example

• Pages: 2 (399 words)
• Published: October 18, 2017
• Type: Essay

Almost every nation in the world has its own respective national culture and tradition. Each has sets of language, spiritual beliefs, values, cuisines, and arts. However, when it comes to music, differences seem to blur. Music is the food of most people's thoughts and imagination. It can stimulate mind, enhancing it to be creative and artistic in different senses. For many centuries, music has been part of every culture and tradition of almost every nation all over the world.

It is an expression of different feelings and emotion through lyrical words in an artistic fashion. Music conveys strong emotions not only from the person who is performing, but also evokes the same from its audience. It can create a harmonious ambiance in a certain environment. For that reason, music also serves as way of entertainment. Music is used in many celebrations

of different occasions and events. In many other different countries all over the world, music has been the most influential and entertaining form of art.

Many people enjoy the wonderful rhythm music can give. It can relax someone, while others enhance their spirituality through music. Music has different types which depend on a specific musical instrument. In Africa, there are various musical instruments used in many kinds of gatherings, occasions, spiritual ceremonies, and other forms of traditional and casual events. Some of the traditional African instruments include okra, December drums, and kalmia. Okra is widely known and used in parts of West Africa.

It is made of a 21- string bridge-harp covered with cow skin. Most okra players and performers come from the well-known families called grist, who are historians in West Africa.

They used the okra to deliver history as singers. Usually, they are known as wandering musicians or bards. On the other hand, December drums are African instruments that are classified as percussion instruments. December drums are traditionally crafted from a Lange tree, tit a head of goatskin and body of hardwood.

Most December drum musicians come from the class known as Mankind blacksmiths, which is widely known in West Africa. There is also some modernized African instruments like the kalmia, which is commonly known as African thumb piano. The kalmia is a small box with metal keys on its top to produce different sound notes. Although there are various kinds of musical instruments all over the world, the music it produces unites almost everyone.

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Essay Papers Writing Online

The power of melodic tunes to enhance focus and creativity during the essay writing process.

When it comes to the realm of crafty penmanship, the significance of tune harmonizing with writing is often underestimated. However, by unlocking the potential of a melodious backdrop, authors can tap into a wholly different level of creativity. The amalgamation of mind-wandering melodies and thought-provoking words provides an unparalleled medium for unleashing one’s inner writer.

By marrying the artistry of music with the finesse of essay composition, a symphony of inspiration is born. As the rhythm flows from ear to mind, it ignites a fire within, setting ablaze the dormant embers of imagination. The harmonious duet of music and writing has the uncanny ability to transport us to seemingly distant realms, where ideas unfurl like unfathomable constellations, waiting to be explored.

Music has the incredible capability to influence our mood, thoughts, and emotions. With every beat, a gateway to new possibilities is unveiled. A propelling anthem can uplift the spirits and propel the writer forward on a wave of determination. Conversely, a gentle melody can provide solace and serenity, setting the stage for introspection and bringing forth the depths of one’s introspective musings.

The Science Behind the Connection: How Music Affects the Brain

Understanding how music affects the brain is a fascinating area of study that delves into the intricate workings of our minds. The connection between music and the brain has been explored by scientists for decades, revealing the profound impact that music can have on our emotions, cognitive abilities, and overall well-being.

When we listen to music, our brains are activated in various ways. Neurologists have discovered that different regions of the brain are engaged, depending on the type of music being listened to. For instance, upbeat and fast-paced music stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and motivation. This explains why listening to energetic music can make us feel more invigorated and motivated to take action.

Moreover, studies have shown that music has the power to evoke strong emotions and memories. Certain melodies or lyrics can trigger a flood of emotions, reminding us of past experiences or even transporting us to a different time and place. This emotional connection to music is facilitated by the limbic system, a part of the brain that controls emotions and memory. By activating this system, music has the ability to evoke powerful feelings and create lasting memories.

Additionally, music has a profound impact on our cognitive abilities. Research has demonstrated that listening to certain types of music can enhance our focus, concentration, and creativity. Classical music, in particular, has been found to stimulate brain activity and improve cognitive performance. This phenomenon, known as the “Mozart effect,” suggests that music can enhance our cognitive abilities, making us more alert and receptive to information.

Furthermore, the therapeutic benefits of music cannot be overlooked. Studies have shown that music therapy can be beneficial for individuals suffering from various mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, and stress. Listening to calming and soothing music has been found to reduce stress hormones, lower blood pressure, and promote relaxation. The rhythmic and melodic elements of music have a profound effect on our physiological state, helping to regulate our emotions and promote overall well-being.

In conclusion, the science behind the connection between music and the brain is a captivating field of research that highlights the profound impact of music on our emotions, cognitive abilities, and overall well-being. By understanding how music affects the brain, we can harness its power to boost productivity and enhance our essay writing experience.

Finding the Right Genre for Focus and Creativity

Exploring different genres of music can be a powerful way to enhance focus and creativity while writing. By selecting the right genre, you can create an atmosphere that nurtures concentration and stimulates your cognitive processes. The right choice of genre can inspire imagination, boost productivity, and help you tap into your creative potential.

Genre for Focus:

When it comes to finding a genre that promotes focus, instrumental music often takes the lead. With its absence of lyrics, instrumental genres such as classical, ambient, or electronic music can provide a background that minimizes distractions. The soothing melodies and repetitive patterns can help you maintain concentration for extended periods, allowing you to immerse yourself in the writing process.

Alternatively, you might find that low-tempo genres, like downtempo or chill-hop, can also facilitate a focus-oriented mindset. The relaxed beats and atmospheric textures often associated with these genres can create a tranquil ambiance, fostering a sense of calmness and enabling you to concentrate on the task at hand.

Genre for Creativity:

If your goal is to enhance your creative thinking and encourage inspiration, exploring diverse genres can be beneficial. Upbeat and energetic music, like pop, rock, or hip-hop, can elicit strong emotions and make you feel more motivated and enthusiastic. This genre choice can help break through writer’s block and generate fresh ideas.

On the other hand, genres that focus on introspection and introspection, like folk, indie, or singer-songwriter, can evoke a sense of introspection and deep thought. The raw emotions and personal narratives found in these genres can lead to a reflective and introspective state of mind, allowing you to explore and express your thoughts and emotions in a more profound and meaningful way.

Experimenting with Different Genres:

Everyone’s preferences and writing processes are unique, so it’s essential to experiment with different genres to find what works best for you. Depending on the task at hand, you may find that a combination of genres or even genre-specific playlists can be more effective in enhancing your focus and creativity.

Remember, the aim is to find the right balance that helps you stay engaged, motivated, and inspired. By exploring a variety of genres, you can create a personalized soundtrack that harnesses the power of music to enhance your essay writing and boost productivity.

Using Music as a Motivational Tool: Creating a Playlist that Energizes

When it comes to finding the perfect playlist to boost motivation and productivity, music can be a powerful tool. The right selection of songs can energize and inspire, helping you to stay focused and motivated while writing your essay. However, creating a playlist that truly energizes and motivates is not as simple as adding a few upbeat tracks. It requires careful consideration of the tempo, lyrics, and overall mood of the music.

To start off, consider the tempo of the songs you choose for your playlist. Upbeat and fast-paced songs with a high tempo can help increase your energy levels and keep you engaged. Look for tracks with a strong rhythm and lively beat that will get your heart rate up and your feet tapping. These types of songs can help you maintain a steady pace while writing, preventing any potential lulls in your productivity.

Lyrics also play an important role in creating a motivational playlist. Look for songs with inspiring and positive lyrics that resonate with you personally. The right lyrics can help instill a sense of confidence and determination as you tackle your essay. Whether it’s motivational anthems or personal empowerment songs, find tracks that make you feel uplifted and ready to conquer any challenges that come your way.

In addition to the tempo and lyrics, consider the overall mood of the music. While fast-paced and upbeat songs can be beneficial for maintaining energy levels, it’s also important to include moments of relaxation and calm. Including a variety of musical genres and styles in your playlist can help create a balanced atmosphere that keeps you engaged without overwhelming your senses. From uplifting pop songs to soothing instrumental tracks, a mix of different moods can help you stay focused and motivated throughout your writing process.

Remember that creating a motivational playlist is a personal endeavor. Experiment with different songs and genres to find what works best for you. Pay attention to how certain songs make you feel and make adjustments as needed. The power of music lies in its ability to evoke emotions and enhance your mood, so choose songs that align with your personal preferences and goals.

In conclusion, music can serve as a powerful motivator when it comes to essay writing. By creating a playlist that energizes and inspires, you can boost your productivity and stay focused throughout the writing process. Consider the tempo, lyrics, and overall mood of the music to create a playlist that resonates with you personally. Harness the power of music and let it fuel your essay writing journey!

The Impact of Lyrics on Writing: Choosing Songs with Inspiring Words

When it comes to the influence of music on our writing, we often think about melodies, rhythms, and harmonies. However, the impact of lyrics should not be underestimated. The words in a song can have a profound effect on our creative output and productivity. By carefully selecting songs with inspiring and meaningful lyrics, we can enhance our writing experience and tap into new ideas and perspectives.

Words have the power to evoke emotions, stimulate our imagination, and convey complex thoughts and ideas. When we listen to songs with lyrics that resonate with us, it can trigger a range of emotions that can fuel our writing process. Whether it’s a heartfelt ballad that touches our soul or an empowering anthem that fills us with motivation, the right lyrics can provide the emotional backdrop we need to dive deep into our writing and express ourselves fully.

In addition to emotional impact, lyrics can also influence the way we think and inspire us to explore different topics and themes in our writing. Songs with thought-provoking lyrics can challenge our perspectives and push us beyond our comfort zones. They can introduce us to new ideas and expand our horizons, allowing us to approach our writing from fresh and unique angles. By actively seeking out songs with inspiring words, we can invite a broader range of thoughts and concepts into our writing and enrich our overall message.

It’s important to note that the impact of lyrics on writing is a highly personal experience. What resonates with one writer may not have the same effect on another. It’s essential to be in tune with our own preferences and emotions when choosing the songs we write to. Some writers may find solace in introspective and introspective lyrics, while others may thrive on uplifting and motivational messages. By curating a personalized playlist of songs with lyrics that align with our writing intentions, we can create an atmosphere of inspiration and creativity that supports our unique style and voice.

In conclusion, lyrics play a significant role in the impact of music on our writing. By selecting songs with inspiring words, we can tap into the emotional, intellectual, and creative aspects of our writing process. The right lyrics have the power to fuel our imagination, challenge our thinking, and elevate our writing to new heights.

Creating a Distraction-Free Environment: Tips for Using Music Effectively

When it comes to essay writing, having a distraction-free environment is essential for focusing and improving productivity. Music can be a powerful tool in creating such an environment, helping to boost concentration and inspire creativity. By carefully selecting the right music and following a few key tips, you can maximize the benefits of using music while minimizing potential distractions.

• Choose instrumental music: Instead of lyrics that may compete for your attention, opt for instrumental music. This type of music provides a soothing ambiance and eliminates the potential distraction of following along with lyrics.
• Experiment with different genres: Various genres of music can evoke different emotions and moods. By exploring different genres, you can find the right music that complements your writing style and helps you get into the flow.
• Create a playlist: Curating a playlist specifically for writing purposes can help set the tone and provide a consistent background noise. Start by selecting a few essential tracks that promote focus, and gradually expand your playlist based on what works best for you.
• Use ambient sounds: In addition to music, ambient sounds can also be effective in creating a distraction-free environment. Rainfall, nature sounds, or white noise can help block out external noises and increase your concentration.
• Adjust the volume: Finding the right volume is crucial for using music effectively. Too loud, and it can become distracting; too low, and it may not be effective in creating a productive environment. Experiment with different volumes to find the perfect balance.
• Minimize interruptions: Ensure that your music setup doesn’t interrupt your writing process. Choose a music streaming platform or app that allows for seamless playback without ads or interruptions. This way, you can maintain focus without being interrupted by unrelated content.
• Match the music to the task: Different writing tasks may require varying levels of focus and energy. Consider selecting music that aligns with the specific task at hand. For brainstorming or creative writing, choose upbeat or uplifting music, while for editing or proofreading, opt for more relaxed and calming tunes.

By following these tips, you can create a distraction-free environment that harnesses the power of music to enhance your essay writing experience. Experiment, adapt, and find the perfect music that helps you stay focused, motivated, and creative throughout the writing process.

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Happy Independence Day 2024: Images, Quotes, Wishes, Messages, Cards, Greetings, and Pictures

Visual Stories

Serving as a professor at an R1 university in the United States can bring great challenges, but it is also a great privilege. Over the years, mentoring students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty has been one of the most rewarding parts of my job. Perhaps because I entered academia with a somewhat poor understanding of the complicated demands of a faculty position, I later made it one of my missions to guide new assistant professors through the complexities of their roles.

Starting out as a mentee

As is the case for many first-generation college students, my path through higher education was long and winding, marked by false starts and direction changes. Impostor syndrome – the persistent feeling of self-doubt where a person believes they are not as competent as others perceive them to be, despite evidence of their success – does not quite capture how I felt as a graduate student. A more apt description might be that, in the beginning, I felt clueless regarding the path forward as I navigated graduate school at the University of Arizona. But once I had found my path, the rest of the way was like a sprint through an intellectual obstacle course, keeping an eye on the graduation prize but just barely clearing each hurdle along the way. In hindsight, I think I sacrificed the quality and depth of my education for speed because I felt I had squandered too much time after dropping out of college earlier. Don’t get me wrong, my Ph.D. mentor, Audrey Holland, was a world-renowned researcher, but in some ways, I failed to take full advantage of what she had to offer because I was in such a rush to move on with my life (and, like so many graduate students, I was completely broke with lots of student loan debt).

I left Arizona without having defended my dissertation and took a faculty position at the University of South Carolina. Here was my meager academic baseline: No teaching experience, only two peer-reviewed papers in print, an “ABD” degree ( all but dissertation ), no grant writing experience, limited understanding of the tenure requirements, and no experience directing graduate students. Regardless, ready or not, in my first year as an assistant professor, I took on my first Ph.D. student. In over two decades since, I have mentored 16 Ph.D. students and 12 postdoctoral fellows. I suspect I'm a far better advisor now than when Leigh Odom and Dana Moser, my first two Ph.D. students, started in my lab. Despite my inexperience, both Dr. Odom and Dr. Moser have excelled, becoming tenured professors and department chairs—achievements that fill me with immense pride.

I emphasize the critical balance between meeting professional standards and maintaining personal well-being, stressing that sustainable success requires both.

So, as I began my career at USC in 2001, I was woefully underprepared for life on the tenure track. Thankfully, the chair of my department, Dr. Elaine Frank, took it upon herself to mentor me. Elaine was no shrinking violet, and she was always the strongest voice in the room so I knew that being her mentee would mean lots of hard work and very little hand-holding. In hindsight, she operated more like a department dictator than a department chair, but her forcefulness was always in service of the worthy goal of improving our department’s academic stature. Dr. Frank approached mentorship with the same strength and clarity of intention.

I have had many lucky breaks in my academic career – being mentored by Elaine Frank was certainly among the top two. From the start, we set up regular meetings to discuss my career plans, goals and trajectory with a clear list of to-dos. This included prepping classes, setting up a lab and outlining initial studies with a clear path to publication. These initial meetings were structured but also involved ample time for a free conversation about whatever I was struggling with at the moment. Upon my hiring, Elaine, who had recently become department chair, transferred to me some of her teaching responsibilities along with all associated slides, syllabi, and class notes. She also brought me into a couple of research collaborations she already had in the works. When it came to faculty service beyond research and classroom responsibilities, Elaine made sure that my load was minimal, but involved activities that would help me learn about the governance of the department, college and university.

Although Elaine’s approach to structured mentoring was helpful, I think that the most important aspect of our mentor-mentee relationship was having someone to act as my “go-to” person—someone who could give advice regarding difficult situations or just be there to listen when things looked bleak. In the beginning, there were lots of those moments. In my second and third years as an assistant professor, I didn’t have a single publication. Although I had managed to secure an R03 grant from the NIH, the lack of publications was a concern, which, much to my dismay, was clearly reflected in my annual reviews. Starting out from such a weak baseline, it took me a while to figure out how to be productive as a proverbial nobody in my field who was scarcely sought out by graduate students and postdocs. Without Elaine’s sage mentoring, I am not convinced I would have received tenure and promotion to associate professor.

Earlier, I mentioned two major breaks in my career. The second and biggest break was being Dr. Audrey Holland’s mentee. A giant in my field, Audrey was second to nobody. Going to conferences with her was like being with a celebrity. People were drawn to Audrey and sought her counsel on all kinds of topics. Although Audrey had been my Ph.D. mentor, our relationship in those years was nowhere near as significant as what was to come as I established my faculty career at USC. As a Ph.D. mentor, Audrey was extremely demanding, and I found it impossible to warm up to her. I suspect the feeling was mutual. After I defended my dissertation the same fall that I started my faculty job, I lost touch with her for several years. We met occasionally at conferences, but our conversations were routine and unmemorable.

Then, something happened that would change our relationship forever. I was struggling to write my first NIH R01 grant application and mentioned this to Audrey at one of the conferences where we happened to meet. Audrey had retired from the University of Arizona but maintained a very active academic life as a researcher and consultant on projects all over the world. Much to my surprise, she suggested that I visit her in Arizona where she would help me write the grant proposal. The result of that trip was my first funded R01 grant and, more importantly, the true beginning of one of the most consequential relationships of my life.

I found Audrey, the retired professor, to be kind and thoughtful and to have a first-rate sense of humor. So, starting in 2007 and most years since, I would visit Audrey annually, and we would work on grant proposals or manuscripts. Gradually, our phone calls increased in frequency, and the topics changed from grants and publications to career advice and eventually to things mostly unrelated to academia. Audrey died last year, and although age had taken a toll on her mental acuity, her passing marked the ending to our unique relationship, which merged mentoring and friendship without a clear boundary between the two.

As vice president for research, my primary goal is to enhance USC's collective research impact. The most effective way to achieve this is by supporting our faculty, including through mentorship.

Transitioning from mentee to mentor

As I mentioned earlier, my foray into mentoring graduate students was like building an airplane mid-flight. Thankfully, I had Elaine Frank to guide me through the initial hurdles, and my experiences as Audrey's student also gave me ideas. Undoubtedly, I also learned quite a bit through trial and error, hopefully without causing too much trouble for my students. Over the years, I developed a mentoring philosophy centered on setting high expectations while recognizing individual potential. I establish a clear baseline threshold that all my Ph.D. students must meet in terms of preparation and performance. However, I make it explicit that while this threshold is non-negotiable, I understand that each student's capacity to exceed it varies. Some may soar far beyond, while others may hover just above it – and both scenarios are acceptable. This approach allows me to push students to reach their full potential without applying a one-size-fits-all standard. I combine this with regular communication, constructive feedback and guidance in navigating academia beyond just research. My goal is to cultivate independent researchers who not only contribute significantly to our field but also understand and work within their individual strengths and limitations.

Drawing from my experiences as a first-generation college student and new assistant professor, my approach to mentoring junior faculty is not that much different from mentoring graduate students. I start by making sure they thoroughly understand their unit's tenure guidelines and expectations, analyzing the academic stature of recent tenure recipients to set realistic benchmarks. I emphasize the critical balance between meeting professional standards and maintaining personal well-being, stressing that sustainable success requires both. My approach involves regular check-ins to offer tailored advice, helping mentees navigate academia's unwritten rules and connect with essential resources. The ultimate goal is to cultivate resilient faculty who excel academically, maintain a balanced life and eventually mentor others, fostering a supportive academic ecosystem.

Creating a legacy of excellence

Although the previous paragraph is written in the present tense, it is mostly aspirational at this point as I have very limited time for personal mentoring due to a demanding administrative schedule. Yet, I remain deeply committed to peer-to-peer mentoring and applaud our academic units and faculty that take this responsibility seriously. That’s why one of my first acts as USC’s new vice president for research in 2021 was to institute or expand programs like the Propel Research Mentorship Program and the NSF Career Bootcamp. After just a few short years, the results speak for themselves. Never have we had as many active NIH R01 grants or NSF Career awards at USC, an accomplishment that is directly related to our mentoring programs. But beyond the numbers, it's the individual stories of growth and success that truly resonate. For example, one of our assistant professors and Propel graduates recently had an NIH R01 grant application ranked in the first percentile, an amazing feat.

As vice president for research, my primary goal is to enhance USC's collective research impact. The most effective way to achieve this is by supporting our faculty, including through mentorship. My experiences as both mentee and mentor have shown me that mentorship transcends mere professional development; it creates a supportive ecosystem where individuals can thrive, pushing boundaries while maintaining personal well-being. Developing junior faculty from the outset of their careers is one of the best investments we can make as a university.

As we welcome the next cohort of Propel participants, I challenge all of us at USC to embrace mentorship wholeheartedly. Regardless of career stage, every member of our academic community has valuable insights to offer and gain. Let's make mentorship a cornerstone of our culture, remembering that every great mentor was once a mentee. Your experiences can illuminate the path for others. In case mentoring is not already a part of your academic portfolio, I urge you to seek out mentorship opportunities, offer your guidance and advocate for mentorship programs. Together, we can foster an academic community that not only supports and challenges, but truly inspires us all, propelling USC to new heights of research excellence and impact.

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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Artists and Activists Both Have a Role. But Not the Same One.

As the literary world is roiled by fights over politics and war, are we losing sight of the writer’s purpose?

Credit... Photo illustration by Derek Brahney

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By Phil Klay

Phil Klay is a novelist and an essayist and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq war.

• Aug. 5, 2024

Two decades ago, I was a public-affairs officer in the Marine Corps, a public-relations guy for the military, tasked with “telling the Marine Corps story” and providing accurate information about military operations to maintain the trust of the American people. We weren’t propagandists — we told the truth, and in Iraq we welcomed plenty of embedded reporters who we knew would write extremely skeptical articles on the progress of the war — but there were fairly tight borders around what the military thought the American people needed to know.

Listen to this article, read by Robert Petkoff

Coming back from Iraq in 2008, though, I had a set of stories that didn’t fit perfectly with the official one I had a license to tell. Some were things I’d seen, things I could report on in a journalistic way, sure of the facts, but others were things I’d heard, stories that I couldn’t vouch for personally but that, passed to me by word of mouth and preserved in my memory, that unstable medium, nevertheless seemed to express something true and unsettling.

One was told to me by a young combat correspondent, a Marine whose job in the corps was writing articles and making videos about the work we were doing. He had been in Ramadi when a suicide bomber detonated among a crowd of civilians, killing and grievously wounding dozens. The local unit took the injured to the Ramadi combat hospital, where Navy doctors, nurses and corpsmen got to work as Marines lined up to donate blood.

Horrible slaughter in a region of Iraq where violence has spiraled out of control does not make for a good news story, but there were messages the Marine Corps was happy to put out: that unlike our barbaric enemy, who brutally murdered men, women and children, we cared about Iraqi civilians and would work tirelessly to save lives. And so this young combat correspondent asked one of the Navy surgeons, who for long hours had been feverishly working among the mangled and bloody innocents, to give an interview. And because the only quiet place was the room where they had placed and bagged the dead, the cameraman set up near the bodies of all the people they had failed to save.

Undoubtedly, the doctor knew what messages he was supposed to deliver to the camera, and undoubtedly, he believed in them, too — that he had a noble mission to carry out, and that his noble colleagues were dedicated and skilled and humane. Nor was he new to death. He was a surgeon in a shock-trauma platoon in the most violent city in Iraq, all too familiar with amputating limbs, with stitching intestines back together, with treating burns that devoured faces, ears and fingers. That day could not have been the first time he bowed his head as the chaplain whispered prayers over those who died on the table. But before the interview started and the red light of the camera turned on, he took a moment, sat down among the dead and quietly wept. The young Marine cameraman stood there, silent, patient, and waited for the doctor to collect himself so he could tell his story about the good will of the American military, whose invasion had unleashed this chaos.

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