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Tobias Ellis

Dr. Adrienne Cassel

Eng 1201

14 September 2017

Walk-in Music

Starting sometime around sophomore year of high school I had a friend named Christian. We are

still friends today to be clear. Anyway, Christian and I had the same route to and from school

everyday. We rode the same bus, it picked us up and dropped us off at the same spot and we

lived on the same street. Now Christian and I were really good friends so when we would walk

either to the bus stop from home or home from the bus stop, we would talk about random things.

The conversations varied from things that happened at school, girls, music, family, etc. Some

random morning while we were talking on the way to the bus stop, we started talking about

music. Obviously, new music is released everyday so when new singles or albums would drop,

we would talk about how we felt about them or if one of us hadnt heard about a specific song or

artist the other would try to get them hip to it. This morning we were talking about some new

album, and I remember him telling me that he liked one song in particular because it sounded

really good and it kinda gave him a feeling of power. I, having heard the song as well, agreed

with him saying that the song was my walk-in song. There began the birth of the term walk-in

song, that we would incorporate in our conversations about music from that point on. Now this

term didnt seem too strange to people who we introduced it to, because it was so simple to

understand. Its called a walk-in song because its a song you listen to specifically when you

walk into a place. Its like that feeling if youve ever been a part of a big performance that you

arent nervous about at all and you walk on stage, and everyone is just cheering for you because
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they know youll do good. Instead, that feeling is all stuffed in between your two ears. So, from

that point on it was always funny because Christian and I would walk into school after getting

off the bus and show each other what walk-in song we were listening to. Sometimes we would be

listening to the exact same song , sometimes we werent listening to the same song but different

songs on the same album. It never really mattered it was always just something fun to compare

and talk about it.

It also, in a way, gave us a more broad view on music itself because Christian and I were

two different people when it came to the types of music we listened to. He was an old head and

listened to more old school R&B, and I favored the new generation type of music more.

Therefore, at the end of the day, I was able to show him a lot about the new school style of

music, and he taught me a lot about old school Hip Hop and R&B. Of Course, hes a part of this

generation, so he kind of already knew a lot about the new school as well as the old school so I

would say for the most part, I was the one doing a majority of the learning. I learned of all

different kinds of old school music artists, styles, stories, etc. In the end, I gained a stronger

appreciation for old school musical art and was able to teach some of my own knowledge and it

all originated from the term walk-in music.

Overall, music can be a big factor in the connection between high school students. There

are many ways for students to make friends in school including similar music interests. A study

took place by Professor Selfhout of Utrecht University to show if similar music interests between

adolescents had any effect on the discontinuation or continuation of friendship. In the study, 283

children of different ages and backgrounds were questioned in two waves throughout the period

of one year. In both waves, the results showed a high amount of similar music interests between

friends. Moderately similar results were found when comparing the music interests between the 2
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waves. In the end, the results showed that these music preferences had nothing to do with

discontinuation of friendship between the adolescents but that they only contributed in the

building of relationships between them.

This research study connects with my situation with my friend Christian. Our similarities

in our music preferences helped us build our relationship or in the studys terms, continue our

friendship. Christian and I come from two different places giving us different backgrounds and

when we noticed that we listened to different types of music, it allowed us to connect deeper

both with music itself and friendship. Not only does the study conclude that friendship

continuation is a direct result of similar music interests, but it also says that it causes friendship

formation. This point related to the point in the story where I talk about me and Christians music

interests rubbing off on other fellow students. We could sit at a table before school, after school

or at lunch and just talk about music and other students would join in the conversation because

they were either interested or had heard about the music before and had their own opinion on it.

These conversations created new friendships and all they were about was music.

In the study, Professor Selfhout touched on the importance of the students also being in

different cultures and how that barely changed any of the data that was received. What this

means basically, is that children of different races, cultures and ethnicities presented similar

results in the study. No matter what type of music a child grew up on, their connection to other

children through music was positive. With my experiences concerning similar music interests

with my fellow high schoolers as well as the information gained through Professor Selfhouts

research, it can be shown that music can be one of the biggest factors in the building of

relationships between high school students.

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Works Cited

"The Role of Music Preferences in Early Adolescents' Friendship Formation and Stability."

Journal of Adolescence, no. 1, 2009, p. 95. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.11.004.