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6 I The Best Online Education System in the world
MUSIC - A COMMUNICATIVE MEDIUM
Marian Baltazar
Class of 1980, Univedrsity of the Philippines College of Manila
AB Political Science
In a person’s life, we need to express ourselves and put our feelings into action or most probably let others
know what’s inside us through music, which we can make use of as a communicative medium. Music as a
communicative medium can have a lot of forms. An individual may use it as an expression of his emotions like
love, happiness, hatred or even fear. Others simply use it as an expression of their inner feelings or maybe their
sentiments. There are times too when music is not just considered solely as an expressed feeling but it is used
too for us to be able to communicate with our emotions. In general, everyone uses it for a thousand and one
reasons.
Music can serve as a communicative medium especially for those people of few words or maybe the very
conservative ones because they can put into words their intense feeling or ardent desire through music. Some
music lovers can even be composers simply because music is said to be an expressed form of art too. They can
verbalize different kinds of emotions that they personally feel and even how other people may feel. It can serve
as a vehicle of human emotions so as to be externalized. More importantly, it can be an expression of freedom
and your sensitivity when an individual is most vulnerable to a lot of things.
Music is a genre that never goes out of style or out of touch. It caters to the human soul and our whole being
as a person. It has no limitations and can be considered infinite. It reaches out not only to the depths of our
mind but to the inner depths of our soul as well. It can be diversified, intensified, internalized and can be an
expression of our faith as well. In its complexity and intricacy, it can also be parallel to perplexity.
Music can be a communicative medium for it shows our culture, beliefs and it serves as a means to
communicate not only our human emotions but what we perceive and what our minds conceive too. Like
language, music can also appear to be a universal human capacity. It is a human perspective that everyone is
engaged into, be it a child, teenager or the adults. It is an interactive, participatory medium that is readily
understood universally. Aside from the fact that language and gesture provide a media for communication of
emotion, as humans we have an access to the third medium, which is music which now seems to appear
redundant.
Music fulfills a wide range of functions in different societies, in entertainment, rituals and healings too. It
performs a huge array of functions across different cultures but one distinct feature that it shares is the
management of social relationships, particularly in situations of social uncertainty. We can discuss a lot more
about music endlessly but one thing is sure it serves to be an outlet of humanity. When people use music as a
communicative medium, most often than not, they tend to be a revelation of what they are and who they
really are as a person and a unique one for that matter. As a whole, we can say that through music, we can
even demonstrate the best of ourselves for it can be a very effective communicative medium.
Questions for discussion:
1. How can you express your kind of music? Elaborate on your answer.
2. Do you really think that music can be a very effective medium? Why or why not?
3. How can music serve as an inner desire within you waiting to be tapped? Explain your answer.
4. Do you express yourself through music? How do you do it?
5. How do you actually view music and how does it affect your innermost being?