The Mix-Tape of Music in Life
#11- Our deep-rooted connection & love for music at every stage is a testimony to its ability to impact us physiologically, culturally & socially.
Music holds the power to accurately depict an emotion. It can provide the solitary pleasure of an escape as well as bring people together, brewing a sense of community. While it’s looked as a mode of entertainment, it plays a larger role in our lives. Its significance spreads across our social and cultural fabric. In this article, we explore this harmony and its pivotal role in our lives.
A small story of mundane in Mumbai
Act 1 : Farooque
A long, arduous day in office. It has been incessantly raining. . It’s 8 pm and there are still some slides pending. Farooque decides to go home and finish the balance work by putting in a few hours post dinner. The day hasn’t been easy : difficult meetings, hurried lunch, rising guilt of that pending call to parents, dreaded cabbage & chapati waiting at home for dinner. To top it off, three cab drivers canceled bookings. Finally this next one agreed -’ Shaikh is on his way’ said the app on his mobile screen. He waited for the cab, holding an umbrella in one hand, tiffin box in another, parallely adjusting the string of his laptop backpack, feeling gloomy about the Friday night ahead.
Act 2 : Shaikh
A long, arduous day in a series of difficult days. The last month’s incentive is yet to be credited, expenses are mounting with vehicle’s emi and rising fuel prices. He has been feeling guilty over that pending call to parents and wife back in the village. He is worried he may break down over the call. The day started with the realization of a scratch on the left door. This will add to the mounting expense. The traffic moved at snail’s pace throughout the day, but his thoughts refused to pause. It has been one of the days where Shaikh really wondered if he should have gone back to his village when he had the chance two years ago.
Act 3 : Is Shehar mein har shaqs pareshaan sa kyun hai
As Farooque boards the cab, he looks outside the window. The view was filtered by the hustling droplets on the glass. The cab radio played the next song ‘ Seene mein jalan, Aankhon mein Toofaan sa kyun hai, Is shehar mein har shaqs pareshan sa kyun hai ( Movie : Gaman)’. Both Farooque & Shaikh, seated diagonally in the cab, hum each line, under their breath. The quiet humming was reflective of a deeply personal emotion, yet a ‘Sur’ that connected both of them.
The immersive experience of music has been a source of escape for families across the country - be it Bombay or Begusarai. It is a great leveler, an egalitarian source of entertainment. Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘ Ajeeb Daastaan Hai Ye’ would evoke a similar emotion for a family sleeping on terrace on a summer night in Belgaum or a newspaper vendor running a kiosk at Jaipur station.
Music provides a template to express ourselves - a moment of celebration, a silent tear, a cherished hug or an impactful achievement. How many times have we imagined life with background music? Walking out of a successful meeting and the ‘Dhan Te Nan’ music playing in the background.
Music assimilates countless moments to make a mix tape of memories. The role of music in adorning our lives is priceless. We are surrounded by moments that get elevated with music-
- The air on Independence and Republic day is filled with patriotism. While there is pride and gratitude, an indispensable part of these special days is to listen to blaring loudspeakers slingshotting Lata Mangeshkar’s Ae Mere Watan ke logon, Rehman’s Vande Mataram, Mahendra Kapoor’s Mere Desh Ki Dharti or Mohd Rafi’s Ye Desh Hai Veer Jawanon ka ( This one is also an orchestra favorite in wedding baraats).
- Indian households love Antakshari. Cinema has established it as an important family gathering ritual over the years. It brings different generations together, playfully competing in teams, flaunting their film music knowledge and singing prowess. Antakshari is an example of how memory structures operate. Few songs have held the pole position for a respective alphabet for years. The game starts with M ( after the designated toss ‘Baithe baithe kya karein…) and the team inadvertently sings Maye ni Maye from Hum Aapke Hai Kaun.
In fact, most songs end up being the same few old ones that draw high associations. Take this test next time- how many songs from the past 5 or 10 years feature in your game of Antakshari?
- Mornings at many South Indian homes start with the aroma of filter coffee & the mesmerizing sound of MS Subbalakshki's Suprabhatam. An expression of devotion for some, a calming meditative experience for others - this melodious rendition has been a ritual marking the dawn of a new day for years.
- Birthdays at school were extra special. You could wear a colored attire instead of the uniform, carry a bag of candy/eclairs and feel like the most important person on the planet. The moment peaked when classmates burst out at the top of their voices to sing ‘ Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear ……, Happy birthday to you.’ The chorus excelled till this point. After this point, it’s a colossal mess. Nobody remembers the words properly and they sing over each other. The unusual thing is, even as grown ups, when people sing this wish for you, this part continues to be a colossal mess.
- Music makes celebrations wholesome. The Navratri Garba ( also known as ‘Falguni Pathak Resurgence Mela) , Christmas carols, devotional bhajans have all been symbolic elements during festivals. It is a powerful syntax in community celebrations. Weddings are no different. While pop culture has uncountable references of the ‘ wedding baarat’, the role of music has deep rooted significance across cultures. The jaggo & dholki ceremony in Punjabi weddings; the shehnai played during nikaah ; the naadaswaram and thavil music in South Indian weddings ; The ululudhwani and conch playing in Bengali weddings. These are examples of how music is indispensable to create a wholesome wedding atmosphere.
- Music pervaded in pop culture even through advertising. Many brands have been built through campaigns that ran as radio jingles or TV ads, in a relatively clutter free environment. This also added to their stickiness. The music of Cadbury Dairy Milk ‘ Asli Swaad Zindagi Ka’ , NDDB’s Doodh Doodh, Humara Bajaj amongst many others lives rent free in our minds even after decades. (Other Notable mentions - Thumbs Up , Vicco Vajradanti, Nirma, Dhara, Titan, Saridon).
- Music has played an integral role in the society by also becoming the voice of the deprived. Due to restricted access to education, the means for documenting their reality in the written text was difficult. Music was their language. Folk songs across tribes played an importnat role to express the challenges and realities of their times. This became a pivotal resource to document history and pass it across generations.
There are hundreds of use cases where music plays a relevant role in our lives. Be it accompanying during a mundane commute, passive listening while cooking a meal, setting the mood for a road trip or a house party, or losing inhibition with unhinged singing on a karaoke or as a bathroom singer - our life is a mix tape of memories, adorned with music.
Why do we like music? The relation of music & our brain.
Music is not a survival tool. It’s not an essential skill for us to ace the evolution game. Then why do we like music? The relationship with sound started as a survival tool - pattern of animal sounds, hustling leaves indicated proximity of a predator. So auditory senses evolved to survive. Slowly as evolution moved from hunter gatherers to settlements, softer skills like rhythm to sounds found relevance. There are hypothetical theories on this. One theory speaks of the neurological rewards of music - our brains love patterns and music is a pattern. Patterns started as a survival tool, and slowly conditioned the brain to value it more. This led to increased enjoyment of entertainment that provides patterns. The dopamine release is the highest when a music reaches a peak and our anticipation of the drop of beat is in sync.
Music also leads to entrainment - a phenomenon where our physiological rhythms like heart beats operate at a similar frequency as external stimuli. Thus, while dancing to a fast paced track, The beats of the music stimulate and then sync with the accelerated pace of our heart beats and the adrenaline rush.
Music & its association with places :
This applies to not just music, but to any form of sound patterns. We have established associations that transport us to places. An urban landscape has hoarse sounds of hustle : the sound of vehicles, vendors selling on streets or construction sounds. These sounds may not always be cacophonous, but do not have a calming effect either.
We experience a contrasting feeling while we visit a natural landscape. When you stand on a narrow road surrounded by deodhar trees in a mountainous hill station, you experience a beautiful sound - the sound of silence.
This calm is layered with sounds of chirping birds or the burbling of a nearby stream. While the majestic view definitely relaxes our nerves, the sounds of a place play a pivotal role in hoisting tranquility.
Music & Social Bond :
While music can easily qualify as an effective solitary pleasure, it plays an instrumental part in building social connections as well.
There is research that establishes the higher oxytocin release while creating or consuming music regularly. The hormone plays an important role in building trust and bonding between people. This possibly explains the added layer of trust or fondness when we encounter someone who shares a similar penchant for a music piece or artist with us. There is an unsaid assumption of shared values and personality, purely stemming out of this one thread of shared liking for a specific music choice.
Music & its role in social bond plays out in so many ways around us. A lot of these can be seen in the examples mentioned in the beginning of the article - Patriotic songs, community devotional music, karaoke singing, folk songs passed down generations.
Music & Nostalgia :
Revisit a song that you had liked as a teenager and it will transport you to that period instantly. You would have a clear visual memory of where you were ( the city and home you lived in), what stage of life you were in and under what circumstances you developed a fondness for the song . There is a scientific explanation to this. Hearing songs on loop, especially during our formative years, makes them stay for long. This is the period when our brain develops and a specific music that’s exposed to it has a higher stickiness. .
So it’s no surprise how in a party, while people dance through the night, the tempo really elevates to 90s bollywood music. It was the staple music in our formative years and the brain always happily puts a red carpet to welcome it back.
There is no denial of the systemic pleasure that music provides. This surrendering of guard is also a possible reason why few cultures frown on it. Music can just be entertainment for someone, it can be a representation of culture for someone, it can be a cerebral subject to understand evolution or just a trip down memory lane. Irrespective of your relationship with music, there is never a bad time for you to hum your favorite melody or play an old classic. Escape in the melody and the rhythm of the words.
Life doesn’t only have to be a mixed bag, it can be a mix-tape of your fondest feelings.
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