Does music really affect people’s

behavior?
The argumentative essay

Josefa Arévalo.
Eleventh grade B 2023
Teacher: Miss Gloria Muñoz.
Have you ever felt like the music you were listening to was perfect for the moment you were
living? Well, that's actually because music does get you into the feeling.

Some people would say 'that's utterly impossible' it's not, trust me. First, I would thoroughly
ask to keep in mind that music is just another type of artistic impression. With this, its
purpose is to transmit any kind of emotion the creator, in this case of having a singer, is
feeling. Music translates something the creator cannot bear to explain with plain and vague
words, that's why the melody that each piece of music manages, somehow, to exploit every
single one of the emotions we need to express, leaving us with an enormous satisfaction.

Now, have you ever asked yourself; why does music affect us in the way it does?
Since ancient times, mankind has believed music, produced by some kind of primitive
instrument, such as the flute, would strengthen the body, mind and spirit.

Further into the contemporary era, the discovery of social effects, such as unity, inducing a
group of people into the same type of physical reaction. This would not be possible if the
sentiment wasn't coming from the music. Please tell me, what do you feel when you listen to
your national anthem?

Another well known effect of music, it's concretely, when you learn to process it further than
the common of people, in other words, when you are able to learn music. Practicing music
develops one's creativity, concentration, abstraction, expression and hearing.

According to the Social sciences, humanity and arts Magazine of Colombia, the brainstem is
the first step to music. This organ is susceptible to loud, sudden and urgent sounds, this leads
us into emotional reactions, associated with this kind of stimuli. The behavior could be
directly related with events of the past, this could be because of the emotion-induced
memories, germane with music.

The emotionality of being able to express yourself freely is totally priceless. If we look a
little back into chilean history, music has been just another way to criticize and talk about the
huge sociopolitical issues Chile was facing in the second half of the XX century. Some good
examples of this is Los prisioneros with some lyrics such as “Con sus cuerpos llenos de
comida, crecen rubios y robustos… …por qué los ricos tienen derecho a pasarla bien.” This
could easily be translated into english as “With their bodies full of food, they grow blonde and
strong… …Why do the rich have the right to spend a good time” or “Y me arrastro por el
húmedo cemento, y en mi cabeza se repiten mil lamentos, de cuando vino la miseria, los
echaron y dijeron ‘no vuelvan más’... Las industrias (que no vuelvan) muevan las industrias
(que no vuelvan)” translated as “ And I creep through the humid concrete, in my head a
thousand of laments repeating, from when misery came, they threw them out, telling them not
to come back ever again… The industries ( they don’t come back) move the industries (they
don’t come back.) Some of this are the lyrics that revolutionized the Chilean younglings,
encouraging them to speak up to try and make big changes in the dictatorship Chile was
going through.
Like Los prisioneros there are plenty of bands and musicians whose message is to encourage
and support people. A great example of this, in the band Imagine dragons, they promote a
campaign against suicide and depression, this campaign came up due to the lead vocalist’s
depressive diagnosis Dan Raynolds. Dan learned to appreciate his own life, discovering in his
own hole, a font of inspiration, not just for his own band, but to the entirety of the world. One
of the songs that can hit you hard with the message is “Demons” with “When you feel my
heat, look into my eyes, is where my demons hide, don’t get too close it’s dark inside… don’t
wanna let you down, but I am hell-bound, though this is all for you, don’t wanna hide the
truth.” This is a song of “how to bear with these demons” Dan stated to BioBiochile in an
interview.

So, when a person's soul has been intertwined with music, such as myself, it could lead you
into a point that if it were not of music, I wouldn't be able to feel as freely as I do now. Music
brings every emotion I can't explain, neither process, into life. This freedom has had a great
impact in my life, it allows me to manage my emotions more than what I would do if I didn't
have an emotional relief of that magnitude.

But, of course, nothing is entirely pink, even if we wanted to. There is some type of music
that could lead you throughout the path of wrong. You would ask yourself, what kind of
diabolic music are you talking about? It’s not the music in itself. We have already reviewed
how influenceable the human brain was to music, so what if the aesthetics of the music you
are often exposed to, were about drugs, prostitutes, sex, implying that it was the best life
someone could ever aspire to. This could totally change, in a surprisingly easy way, people's
perception of society. Have you ever wondered why, recently, everybody wants to rule the
world?

We have reviewed how music can impact into someone’s life, what can music mean in
people’s life; sometimes it can mean freedom, love, lust, sadness, sorrow, heartbreak, a
process of healing oneself, music it’s just another language to be comprehended, another
vessel to encourage people to speak for themselves, another way of freeing our minds and
souls into an space no one but us can reach, where you can be who you truly are.

We also saw the other side of the coin, with what the artist can transmit with their aesthetic,
how influenceable people could be to music, and its aesthetic, as long as they feel a minimum
of representation in the lyrics, people will connect almost immediately with the songs
exposed.

Music does affect people's behaviors, it can make them good or bad, it can make them
compassionate, and that’s what matters in the end. It matters how we use music, to improve
the world and the society to its core.
Bibliografía:
https://docta.ucm.es/handle/20.500.14352/3611
https://www.colibri.udelar.edu.uy/jspui/bitstream/20.500.12008/30492/1/tfg
_pdf-1.pdf
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4766791.pdf
https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/espectaculos-y-tv/notas-espectaculos-tv/
2018/03/18/el-triste-origen-de-una-de-las-canciones-mas-famosas-de-imagin
e-dragons.shtml