Music Against The World



We know everybody has their taste in music, you know why? Probably because everybody is different which is really the big thing. Yeah, I agree to some point. But come to think of it, why is it that a beautiful painting from an unknown artists looks appealing to almost everyone, both artist and non-artist? Even if you aren't a fan of graffiti, you will sure admire one if you see it. But in music, many good, beautiful songs gets released everyday by unknown artist and little or no people give that an attention. know everybody has their taste in music, you know why? Probably because everybody is different which is really the big thing. Yeah, I agree to some point. But come to think of it, why is it that a beautiful painting from an unknown artists looks appealing to almost everyone, both artist and non-artist? Even if you aren't a fan of graffiti, you will sure admire one if you see it. But in music, many good, beautiful songs gets released everyday by unknown artist and little or no people give that an attention.

I am going to take you on a journey of comparisons between a painting and a music, trying to explain why music is such the way it is.

Painting Over Music

First humans are visual animals, our primary source of information comes from our eyes. That is we involuntarily infer many meanings from what we see. Hearing is a secondary sensory ability, we mainly use it for the purpose of language or communication. Therefore we don't involuntarily infer meaning from what is heard rather we absorb the meaning passed itself. This point indicate that a painter will be successful creating weird not understandable painting while a musician must try to pass what is meant across. Our minds subconsciously finds meaning to what is seen. We try to give meaning to the meaningless. While a rubbish song remains rubbish because what was actually sung was literally rubbish.

Music has two ways of consumption, we can listen to music because we want to listen to what the musician is trying to say, or we just want to enjoy the melody the mood etc. That means music does not necessarily requires our full attention, we naturally don't give the required attention to details of songs we hear everyday, we listen on the surface so much we don't see the pun, the catching story the artist is singing about. But a painting is a visual information that requires our full attention. So you will very much appreciate the increased detailed of the pupil, because you are giving your total attention to it.

How a music is felt is determine by how you feel, what your are doing and your environment. How you feel about a particular painting does not depend on your mood, you will definitely know a good painting even though you are sad. That means a happy person will find a sad song repugnant, while a sad person will embrace sad songs because it feels the way he/she feels. The result is there is a larger audience that loves a painting than a song.

Painting can't easily be owned or maintained, therefore a great piece of painting is rare and more cherished than music. Music has evolved so much since the age of digital electronics and the internet. So it cost nothing to have a song or keep it for life, aside that the internet makes music the most abundant substance in the world after Oxygen.

Thanks again to technology, nobody gathers around their favorite artist to hear him/her sing through their mouths anymore. Everybody listens to music through different sound systems ranging from big concert, wired ear phones to embedded Bluetooth speakers. All of these sound system handle music signal differently that you might not love a song playing through your earphones but love the same song when you play it through your DVD Home Theater sound system. The fact that many people listen to songs using faulty equipment and some of them don't even play the bass frequencies worsen the situation. In painting, you don't need electronic systems to show you visual information. You can experience them with your naked eyes and everybody sees the same painting the same way. Therefore it is more likely people don't recognize great music when they hear one than to seeing an average painting.

Music Over Painting

There are some properties of music that you will find interesting.

Music is sequential and follows some pattern which your brain tracks whether you like the song or not. If you keep on listening to the song in different occasions you will end up getting familiar with the song or the artist style of music. If you initially don't care about it you might end up liking the song. Unlike in a painting, your stance that a painting is bad or good will not change even if you see it a billion times in its current form.

The effect of music can be enhanced by doing other activity and vice versa, that is, music can enhance our ability in the current activity we are doing. In fact music, when combined with other forms of entertainment, is used to increase the effect and enjoyment of that entertainment. On the other hand, we won't enjoy a piece of painting more by playing a video game. In fact we can't share our visual attention.

Music can be bundled with other forms of entertainment, so you can continuing enjoy the same form of music even better after many years of listening to it. But painting cannot be changed nor can it be part of a different form of entertainment. Therefore you will get bored of looking at a great painting after some hours.

Music is consumed more than painting. Because of the property that music can be added to any form of entertainment, any form of activity. It doesn't requires full attention, it doesn't even requires attention at all (because whether we give it attention or not your brain subconsciously listens to what your ears picked up) makes music to be more common and an easily consumed form of entertainment. So, there are more people listening to music than than people looking at a piece of painting.