Curious about Communication through music and video? This article provides some insight into this interesting topic.
Can you imagine your life without music? Even if you are not a big fan of one or several musical styles, you don’t listen to it every day and can survive if you’ve left your headphones at home, you probably can’t imagine such a silent and dull world. Music has been playing an important role throughout history. People were using musical compositions in their rituals. Some great composers even managed to control their audience’s emotions.
Music is one of the first arts. It’s a powerful instrument, meant to communicate with people. When an artist is creating a piece of art, he is expressing emotions.
Great artists who manage to write their music, express their feelings, and share them with their fans. For instance, if there are some issues in the world and people don’t pay attention to real problems, some artists are trying to raise the subject by using their music.
This is happening in our modern society. But as it was mentioned above, people were using music as a form of communication. And if now artists express themselves through music, in the past it was used as a form of communication. Imagine the world without phones and computers – most people were using mail, but it wasn’t available to everyone. In this article, you will find out about how people were using music in the past and the modern world.
The History Behind Communication
As it was mentioned above, people in the past had been using mail as a primary form of communication. Can you imagine how long people have been waiting for their replies?
But if some of them needed to inform each other within a relatively short distance quickly, drums were used. In Africa, New Guinea and tropical regions of South America people were using drums to inform each other about the intruders.
Can you imagine how amazed were different European explorers when they were visiting local tribes? Local people knew about their arrival, and even intentions before these explorers reached the village. Sometimes local villagers could spread messages on long distances relatively fast.
Drums and musical rhythms were also used during the slave trade. At first, slavers had no idea that different rhythms represented messages, and that way, enslaved people were transferring messages. But when they found out about such means of communication, they banned drums.
It was a very sophisticated form of communication. Different patterns represented different messages. Usually, one pattern was dependent on the context.
People couldn’t use drums to create new expressions. So it was sometimes difficult to understand the message even for local people due to the ambiguous nature of sounds. Drums is not the only instrument that was used. Most ethnicities had their folk instruments.
If you think about it, our ancestors are communicating with modern people through music. And if you are thinking about some spiritual stuff right now, you are wrong.
Most nations have pieces of music that represent different situations that happened in the past with our ancestors. These pieces of art would never die, and if historical facts might not be included in books, different nations know about them through these songs.
Modern Communication
Today, we have so many means to express ourselves that the only difficulty we face is when we are trying to pick a method. Artists express their ideas not only through music but also through videos.
And while some of them are just using videos as a pretty picture to make their content even more popular, some of them are trying to communicate with their fans. You are aware of some tracks and videos that are raising important issues.
For instance, Michael Jackson and his “Earth Song”. The text itself and the official video raise a very important topic.
The artist was trying to attract people’s attention to such important issues as the environment, animal welfare, etc. Another track by famous rock band Scorpions “Humanity” raises similar issues but concerning humanity. And there are other examples that attract the attention of our society.
It’s easier for such celebrities that are known everywhere in the world to raise important questions. People usually don’t pay attention to some things before their idols don’t raise such issues. Fans all over the world are influenced, and most of them think twice about accomplishing some actions that can cause problems.
How to Communicate Emotions Through Music
The most common usage of music is, of course, communicating emotions. The text of the song and its rhythm are used to transfer some emotions, feelings, the author’s emotional state, etc. There are several means to communicate emotions and feelings through music:
1. Tempo
For example, fast tempo represents such emotions as happiness, joy, anger, etc., while a slower pace is used to express sadness or tranquility.
2. Volume
It helps to communicate strong or mild emotions. For instance, loud volume expresses powerful emotions, such as anger or even joy.
3. Melody
If a song represents harmony, it shows pleasant emotions and feelings. Whereas clashing harmonies can represent such negative powerful emotions such as anger, such pieces of music can even create a feeling of suspense, tension, etc.
4. Rhythm
For instance, smooth one can express joy, happiness, and irregular one can represent either powerful positive or negative emotions.
But music is not the only aspect that influences people. Depending on how an artist represents his song, people perceive his message.
And there is where video context can be applied. Of course, video is used to highlight some questions, to make a stronger accent on the issues that are communicated through the song. Such a combination of a piece of music and video content can have a stronger influence on the listeners.
In the past, music was used as a means of transferring messages by local people. Some pieces of music that had been written centuries ago usually bear some historical facts.
So, you can say that our ancestors are communicating with us through these songs. And today, music is also used to represent thoughts, ideas, messages, to raise important questions and to suggest solutions. But if the song is combined with the video, it causes even stronger influence on people.
What are your thoughts about communication? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Watch this space for updates in the Music category on Running Wolf’s Rant.
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