In her book, Ratner conveys that humans can survive despite all difficulties because they possess instinct and humanity that forces them to move on. When the protagonist comes to her homeland, she sees that two distinct groups, perpetrators and victims, learn to live together using their beliefs to overcome some struggles. They express humility with their situation and never renounce their religion, which unites them regardless of their social groups and statuses: “Who among us, dear old man, has not been touched by tragedy?” (Ratner, 2017, p.21). Their belief in the better also facilitates their survival as people think that if they are destined to survive, they will succeed: “It was their shared belief that after what they had been through, they’d overcome anything” (Ratner, 2017, p.25). Moreover, survivors help each other in difficult situations. For example, the Old Musician, a homeless elder, receives support from the local people near Wat Nagara, a temple. They provide him with food, shelter, and clothes. Through these figures, the author illustrates the generosity of survivors, which helps them to survive.
The novel’s protagonist, Teera, immerses several times in long-buried memories to reminisce about her father. Collective memory examples include Teera and Old Musician’s memories when they hear traditional Cambodian music played on a lute, an oboe, and a drum. When it comes to individual memory of Teera’s childhood, the author explains the connection between her memories of her father and musical instruments: “Perhaps it’s because as a child she grew up listening to her father trying to master it” (Ratner, 2017, p. 35). For the Old Musician, nature’s visual elements force him to recall his daughter: “the world appears… vaporous as a child’s etching on a fogged surface” (Ratner, 2017, p.69). These two examples of individual memory share strong emotions: love and missing loved ones.
Reference
Ratner, V. (2017). Music of the Ghosts. Simon & Schuster. Web.
Commenting on the latest news regarding the death of Michael Jackson, it can be said that it might take a lifetime to assess someone’s influence on the culture and the achievements that can qualify him to be named a legend. In the case of Michael Jackson, the example might be distant from an influence on a century, specifically as his main influence was on pop culture in general. Similarly, there are many other figures whose influence was outstanding at their time, and their legacy still influenced generations ahead.
An example of such a figure, which definitely deserves the 20th-Century Genius Award, is Howard Cowell. Howard Cowell was an American pianist, composer, musicologist, and a revolutionary innovator whose influence extends from the period of modernism until covering 20th-century music in general, influencing many artists, an example of which can be seen through “New Music: Piano Compositions” (1997), a document of a three-concert festival held in 1997, which highlighted Cowell’s influence on 20th-century music with performances of works by Terry Riley, John Cage, Charles Ives, Lou Harrison, Meredith Monk, and others. (“Henry Cowell,” 2008).
This paper analyzes the life and works of Henry Cowell, presenting arguments on why his figure stands as a genius of Western culture.
Background
Henry Cowell was born on March 11, 1897, in Menlo Park, California. (Stone) Spending his early childhood in San Francisco, Cowell was influenced by a variety of traditional and exotic music, and after his parents’ divorce, he heard “the Irish and Midwestern airs and dances and folk tunes of his mother’s family.” (Stone) Regarding the claims that Henry was self-taught, it can be noted that Cowell studied with Charles Seeger, “the most important musicologist in the US in the twentieth century.” (Garland, 2006)
Additionally, Cowell studied in the music department at the University of California at Berkley. (Stone) Although Cowell’s public appearance was at the age of six as a violinist, his notable performances started in 1912, presenting a group of his pieces(Stone), and subsequently his concert activities in New York and Europe in 1920, including his Carnegie Hall debut and the performance in Town Hall in 1924. (Stallings, 2005)
Describing those times in terms of the influence and direction, it is possible to refer to the works of Cowell himself, who also wrote many articles, and “from an early point in his career was dedicated to musically educating the American masses. “(Stallings, 2005) In that regard, one of his earliest articles Cowell defended modern music, was responding to many critics he wrote that there is a need for “a new type of critic who will specialize in a genuine understanding of the aims of the moderns. Not that he will always praise, but that his likes and dislikes will be based on a knowledge of the laws underlying modern musical construction.” (Stallings, 2005)
Additionally, the influence of that time can be seen through his bohemian parents, Harry Cowell, a writer who established himself “in the shadow of the better-known bohemian literati of San Francisco” (Hicks, 2002), and Clarissa Dixon, an early political activist and a published writer in progressive, aesthetically oriented journals, where both were part of the same circle of “avant-garde poets, philosophers, and artists.” (Hicks, 2002)
Contributions
The contributions of Henry Cowell vary in many aspects, including music, critique, and pedagogy. In terms of music, his contributions start with the fact that the attention was mainly paid to European music modernists, and Cowell, in the 1920s, “was one of the first champions of American musical modernism.” (Stallings, 2005)
Going into specifics, its innovative approach of Cowell can be seen in many aspects. One aspect is tone-clusters, a “radical” technique used by Cowell, which represents “whole swaths of ‘wrong’ notes produced with pounding fists and forearms.” (Nicholls, 1998) It was in 1916 when Cowell showed early examples of such technique in one of the first Irish-themed works, “The tides of Manaunaun,” where striking neighboring notes with his palm, fist, or forearm and rolling these clusters, he represented “the waves of the sea, over which he superposed a folk-like modal melody.” (Stone)
The clusters were just a single side of his many innovative techniques, where Cowell composed nearly one thousand compositions during his lifetime through which he proposed his theories of the relation between rhythms and harmonic overtones. Through his collaborations with Varian, there were attempts to construct new instruments such as “drum piano,” a” gong piano,” and other keyboard instruments, which were found to be impractical. (Nicholls, 1998)
For example, a harp built by Varian resulted in Cowell writing specific pieces that either honor the mythological significance of the harp or adapt the harp techniques to the piano, e.g., “The Harp of Life,” which represented “the cosmic instrument as played by the Dagna, the God of life in Irish mythology.” (Nicholls, 1998)
In addition to Cowell’s new visions on music procedures, which he described in “New Musical Resources” (1930), a work written in 1916- 1919 and revised in 1930, he collaborated with Lev Termin to invent a transposing keyboard instrument. (Stone) Rhythmycon was the “world’s first electronic rhythm or drum machine with a photoreceptor-based sound production system.” (Stone). This device was capable of producing polyrhythmic sounds proportional to the pitches of overtones. (Stone)
Another aspect of Cowell’s contributions can be seen in his literary works on music. In his works, Cowell advocated and promoted American music, specifically emphasizing innovations. Nevertheless, Cowell never promoted technology and innovation only for themselves, where he stated that “the first requisite of the modern is that he sincerely feels in the idiom that he employs.” (Stallings, 2005)
After 1950, Cowell was a consultant and a writer for Folkways Records, Music of the World’s Peoples, Folkways’ Primitive Music of the World, and Musical Quarterly, as well as hosting a radio program. (Stone)Additionally, along with his wife Sidney, he was a cultural ambassador for the state department, “collecting music from around the world, for Henry had become Senior Music Editor of the Overseas Division of the Office of War Information.” (Stone)
Influence
Being an innovator, Cowell influenced many artists as well as music in general. In that regard, nothing is more indicative of Cowell’s influence than the fact that some of his techniques, such as the piano clusters, “sound as fresh and alive today as when they were first composed, almost a century ago.” (Garland, 2006)
In that regard, it can be stated that “[n]o technique of Henry Cowell’s was more celebrated or vilified than his tone clusters… Modern music theory or history textbooks, even when they ignore Cowell’s theories of rhythm, dissonant counterpoint, and so on, describe his tone clusters.” (Hicks, 2002)
Among the artists that were influenced by Cowell such names can be mentioned as John Cage, Stephen Scott, and Lou Harrison. Other people Cowell promoted were part of the avant-garde scene, of which he was at the very center, such as “Arnold Schoenberg; Wallingford Riegger, born in Albany, Georgia, but lifelong New Yorker; Chicago-born Ernst Bacon (influenced by American indigenous and vernacular music); Midwesterner Otto Luening; New Yorker, Francophile, and Moroccan expatriate Paul Bowles; Brooklyn-born, French-trained jazz, and folk enthusiast Aaron Copland; and New England transcendentalist Charles Ives, among many others.” (Stone)
Accordingly, the Rhythmicon, despite being Theremin’s invention, the idea was originally conceived by Cowell, who suggested the photoelectric cell as a prime element. (Nicholls, 1998) It can be said that Rhythmicon was the origin of electronic music, which was forgotten until the 1960w when similar devices were used for progressive pop music purposes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it should be stated that assessing the genius of Henry Cowell can be a difficult aspect, as many of the directions today in music can be at least partially influenced either by him or by one of his successors. In that regard, considering that music is based merely on seven notes, it can be astonishing to see how people continue to extract all the possibilities that can be imagined from those notes.
Accordingly, music as a cultural phenomenon once in every epoch witnesses a turning point after which it takes time until this point is absorbed, followed, improved, and evaluated to the degree that such point exhausts all its potential. One of such points can be seen in the contributions of Henry Cowell, in which it can be said that the full potential was exhausted yet, as people still use his clusters, and the electronic music, not to say his musical theories, is widely practiced by many contemporary musicians.
In that regard, the achievements of Cowell are not estimated based on his compositions alone, whereas claiming that he is a candidate for the 20th-century genius award is based more on the fact that he created a direction, a style, and a technique, which can be varied in many other musical works, rather than making similar compositions.
Accordingly, being distinguished at the times when the only modernist artist was considered to be only from Europe can be perceived as a vital point for Cowell in promoting other American artists and music, in general, connecting several artistic forms whether pre or post his era. Thus, due to the aforementioned facts, I think that Henry Cowell can be seen as a genius figure whose contributions extend beyond his lifeline, and it might be said that they will extend beyond ours as well.
References
Garland, P. (2006). Henry Cowell: Giving Us Permission. Other Minds. Web.
Henry Cowell. (2008). Epitonic. Web.
Hicks, M. (2002). Henry Cowell, bohemian. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Nicholls, D. (1998). The whole world of music: a Henry Cowell symposium: Routledge.
Stallings, S. N. (2005). “New Growth From New Soil”: Henry Cowell’s Application and Advocacy of Modern Musical Values. Florida State University.
Stone, P. Sidney and Henry Cowell. Cultural Equity. Web.
The influence of American cultures on other countries is notable globally. The Scandinavian culture remains one of the observable traditions that have harbored significant manipulations from prevalent global cultures. Renowned academicians as well as writers have noted these influences and presented them within their literary works. Mikael Niemi and Erlend Loe are such authors that present the notable ways through which young Americans have influenced the Scandinavian culture.
Generally, these two novels appear to be a presentation of fictional imaginations about the lives of two young Americans and how they relate with the society as well as people around them. They are both fictions that tend to give a comic and humorous depiction of the lifestyles of two young personalities. This paper thus compares and contrasts the diverse ways through which the young Americans have influenced the Scandinavian culture.
Contrasts and Comparisons
Foremost, a critical analysis of the two novels presents the atmosphere of humor as well as comic relief. The authors appear humorous in their artistic work. The description of the Scandinavian culture assumes a comic presentation with both young main characters taking the enter focus. It is observable that the “popular music from Vittula” gives a presentation of a typical village as well as native Swedish cultural practices.
On the other hand, Erlen Loe’s Naïve Super, presents a modern metropolitan atmosphere of New York that includes a multicultural state of affairs. In particular, the cultural interactions within the two settings presented in the two novels are multi-dimensional. In Vittula specifically, the young Americans there indicate their lives as that predominantly observed in Alaska, Arkansaa, or Idaho.
These are places known to be very far off the beaten track. While the young Americans popular music from Vittula tries to transform the Swedish life to fit that of the typical American countryside, the Erlen Loe’s novel presents a high class urban life that tries to globalize all cultures and mainstream them into a singular international one.
The closeness of Vittula to the border of Finland enabled most of its occupants to speak Finnish as well as Swedish as their predominant languages. The young Americans within this area as depicted in the Mikael Niemi’s novel have played a critical role in influencing the teenage lifestyle. For instance, when the main character in the popular music from Vittula meets the Finnish friend for the first time, it is observable that he tries to speak in English.
It is notable that that the young American occupants of Vittulah tend to ignore the Scandinavian culture and assume their occupancy of the area as the most vital happening. This is despite the fact that the young Americans are well acquainted with both the Scandinavian languages as well as the American. On the contrary, as depicted in the Erlen Loe’s novel, there seems to be more pressure placed on the Scandinavian culture as well as its people or personalities to adopt a more universal or global cultural outlook.
It is vital to note that the predominant first person narrators are the major cultural transformation agents. Something similar to both the popular music from Vittula as well as the Erlen Loe’s novel is that the young American characters prevailing in the novels tend to appreciate the human humor as well as comic. For instance, the young character in the Mikael Niemi’s popular music from Vittula presents a typical conversation with an equally young Finnish friend that he meets for the first time.
He seductively as well as assumedly talks in English first before confirming whether his friend understands or does not understand English. Thereafter, a Finnish conversation follows. The striking thing is that this consequent conversation is full of American ideologies and culture. Perhaps a vivid illustration of their conversation would provide a typical instance of the scenario.
The tendency of the young American occupants in Vittula to transform their peers to be English speakers is notable in the character’s first encounter with the Finnish friend. For instance, he first asks through self wonder that “what’s your name?” when he meets the Finnish friend.
It is however observable that after he guesses that the Finnish friend cannot answer, he opts to instead use the Finnish language: “Mikas sinun nimi on?” which typically stands for the same question he earlier on asked in Finnish (Niemi, 2004). The friend then answered because of the language familiarity. Contrary to the presentation evident within the Erlen Loe’s novel, the young characters are reluctant to apply the use of the Scandinavian languages.
It is evident that they are reluctant to apply the Scandinavian culture in their daily lifestyle as well as interactions. The latter is set on a globally cultural sensitive environment that rather influences the surrounding to a more globally accepted practices, culture as well as lifestyle.
Evidently, both the major characters in the Erlen Loe’s novel as well as the Mikael Niemi’s popular music from Vittula are depicted at first to be culturally insensitive and unaware of the happenings around them. In the ‘Naïve, Super’ for instance, the character admits that he was “troubled by the inability to find any meaning in life” (Loe, 2011). Their ability to categorically influence the younger generation critical and can be observed by their younger ages.
For instance, the main character in the Erlen Loe’s novel of Naïve, Super is only a 25 year old narrator. Likely, the major character in the Mikael Niemi’s popular music from Vittula is a younger teenager still dependant on his parents’ insight and knowledge.
This is particularly seen when he asks his dad a question about the extent of the world. For instance, in Chapter one of the novel, the character asks the dad a simple question: that “how big is the world?” Consequently, the dad answers that, “It’s enormous” (Niemi 2004).
The young Americans in Vittula embrace mechanization at a higher rate relative to their Scandinavian counterparts. It is stated in Mikael Niemi’s popular music from Vittula that the “there was not much work there outside the timber industry, and with the advent of mechanization most of the lumberjacks are chronically employed” (Niemi, 2004).
There is evidence that with the advent and influence of the young Americans inVittula, even the native practices and professions such as the lumberjacks had to suffer or transform to the more mechanized approaches of doing things.
The cultural influence of young Americans as depicted in the Erlen Loe’s novel of Naïve, Super is however based on the demands and practices of native or countryside American culture. Instead, it is based on the global perspectives of life itself. To begin with, it is notable that the main character quits the university and eventually arrives at his brother’s New York apartment. The character then depicts the nature and behavior of a person never satisfied with the state of his present life.
Consequently, he decides to “write a list of things that will assist him discover what life is all about” (Loe, 2011). In doing this, the youthful character looks down upon the beliefs of his contemporary age mates who are actually the Scandinavian. It is thus observable that their beliefs and cultural practices become gradually transformed into a more city and globally dictated pattern or form.
Unlike the gradual acceptance of reality and life’s consequences of the character in the Mikael Niemi’s popular music from Vittula, the the Erlen Loe’s novel of Naïve, Super depicts a rather culturally impatient character with an urge to adopt the most recent lifestyles and cultural practices.
There is demonstration that such a character looks down upon other characters and cultures. This can be evidenced by the fact that he does not particularly embrace his culture given by the fact that he himself decides to quit his u university education in search of a better life and culture. The appreciation of art in both cultural influences that can be drawn from both cultures is critical.
Conclusion
It is notable that whilst the Vittula novel setting appreciates the Native American musical accompaniments and taste, the New York set the Erlen Loe’s novel of Naïve, Super demonstrates a more refined musical taste.
This is because the occurrences and cultural influences are devoid of the appreciation of the Native American culture and music. Conclusively, it is notable that the two novels indicate a significant influence that young Americans have on the Scandinavian culture. It is also notable that upon a critical analysis, several instances can be drawn from the novels.
References
Loe, E. (2011). Naïve super. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.
Niemi, M. (2004). Popular music from Vittula: A novel. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.
In reference to Ottaviani and Pudelka (2007), YouTube is one of the most famous sites that enable users to share music and films. It was founded in 2005 and reported to be one of the fastest-growing public sites after one year. According to YouTube (2015), the company was purchased by Google in 2006. The website has been subjected to many lawsuits relating to copyright infringement. The research utilizes a case study design to analyze various cases relating to copyright infringement. It reveals that the most common penalty is the removal of the materials uploaded. The research concludes that copyright infringement limits the promotion of communication and culture.
Introduction
Music and films are important in the promotion of culture (Ottaviani & Pudelka, 2007). Additionally, a copyright ensures that the owners of the music get credit and benefit from their efforts. In the presence of copyright laws, the owners are able to get creative and obtain economic benefits. Copyright infringement limits the role of music and films in culture. This research focuses on YouTube’s copyright infringement of music and films as it hinders the promotion of culture and communication. The company was purchased for 1.65 billion dollars, and Google had to cover more than 150 million dollars that were related to copyright infringement cases.
Viacom accused YouTube of copyright infringement and demanded the removal of unauthorized contents from the site. According to Ottaviani and Pudelka (2007), the case ended after both companies agreed to share revenues from advertising. Other cases presented in the research include Rand’s presidential campaign video, Pharrell Garcia’s lawsuit, and Lenz and Jonathan on fair use. YouTube (2015) indicates that most of the copyright infringement issues are brought about by its users.
Ottaviani and Pudelka (2007) note that the penalties for copyright infringement vary from cases to cases. In regard to the cases represented in this research, the penalties included the removal of the videos from the site. The aim of the current research is to assess YouTube’s copyright infringement of music and films. Additionally, the research utilizes a case study methodology to explore some of the copyright infringement cases that have faced YouTube in the past. Therefore, it connects to the research question, which is how is that case study contributes to the production and distribution of culture.
Discussion
Law of YouTube on copyright, actions, and penalties
Mashable (2015) indicates that YouTube has faced a lot of lawsuits in the past that relate to copyright infringement. As a result, the company has various laws that try to limit the number of lawsuits. However, the incorporation of the advertising platform in 2006 has increased the number of copyright lawsuits (Breen, 2002). YouTube (2015) indicates that one of the laws involves the restriction of the materials uploaded on the website. Based on the website:
“Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), YouTube isn’t responsible for the copyright violations of its users, provided the company removes that content when notified by the rights holders” (Mashable, 2015).
The DMCA is a copyright law in the United States, and it protects the company from copyright infringement among the users. Specifically, the company cannot be sued if the copyright materials are removed after complaints from the owners. According to Ottaviani and Pudelka (2007), the DMCA’s section 512 offers a safe harbor for the company since violations from the users are inevitable. However, scholars have argues that one of the weaknesses of the DMCA is that it is too old a law (10 years) to protect a company that keeps changing its technologies.
It is important to say that the presence of the DMCA does not mean that the company will not face lawsuits but rather acts as a platform through which such cases can be argued and expose their infringements to their right through. There are three main requirements stipulated by the DMCA in a bid to protect the company from copyright liability (Ottaviani & Pudelka, 2007). The first requirement, a company has to fit the definition of a “service provider” (Ottaviani & Pudelka, 2007, p.10).
YouTube is recognized as a service provider under the DMCA. The second requirement, a company has to have copyright laws that terminate the accounts of those users who infringe the copyright law. You tube’s copyright law stipulates that repeat offenders of copyright infringement should have their accounts terminated. The last requirement, a company, should never alter the procedures in which copyright owners protect their materials. It is important to know that YouTube does not interfere with the copyright protection processes of the users. Therefore, the DMCA protects YouTube since the company complies with the three requirements. Conversely, the DMCA has not always provided a safe harbor for all the copyright infringement lawsuits against the company, which is another weakness of the law.
YouTube introduced better technologies to curb copyright infringement; in establishing the Content ID system. This system enables the company to get prompt notifications concerning infringement and apply the takedown requests. Mashable (2015) indicates that the Content ID allows the owners to get notifications when their materials are subjected to copyright infringement. It was established in 2007 after the website stakeholders agreed that technology would help the company to avert infringement. Specifically, the system applies fingerprinting technologies on films and music uploaded on the site.
In contrast, the service faced challenges because the available fingerprinting technologies were not very effective. In reference to YouTube (2015), the music or film owners must submit copies of their materials or identification files. These files are then compared with the materials uploaded by the different users. In addition, the company affords the owners of copyrighted contents the right to develop and give policies to their works to prevent infringement.
Mashable (2015) identifies three policy alternatives given to the owners. These policies explain the repercussions of any copyright infringement among users. First, the block policy, which stipulates that in case of a content match on a video, the company should remove it. Second, the track policy, which allows the content to stay online after the company, discovers any copyright infringement. However, the owner of the material is given the opportunity to track the number of views and is given the information concerning the reviewers. Lastly, the monetize policy allows the owners to serve ads on their materials. In addition, they are given any revenues that result from such advertisements. Users who infringe on the copyright of the videos are also subjected to the ‘copyright school’ to learn more about the policies. Their accounts are terminated until after the completion of the copyright course.
YouTube’s (2015) doctrine of fair use also provides a solution in dealing with copyright infringement in the United States. The doctrine allows users to reuse copyright-protected materials without seeking consent from the owners. However, one of the major weaknesses of the web service is that it lacks proper guidelines on the actions that fall under fair use. Additionally, there are variations concerning the freedom of fair use.
Thus, the application of the doctrine depends on the kind of content, the objectives of the materials, and the locality of the users. Many users accused of copyright infringement tend to argue that they are protected by the fair use clause. Ottaviani and Pudelka (2007) argue that American law is not very clear in regard to copyright infringement by service providers like YouTube. Despite this, the penalties can either be civil or criminal. In regard to the civil penalties, the guilty parties are ordered to pay the real or statutory compensations. In the criminal penalties, the guilty parties are subjected to imprisonment for up to five years or monetary penalties of up to half a million dollars.
Methodology
The current research applies a case study methodology for the collection of data. According to Simons (2009), case studies are used as an alternative to surveys and other complex research designs. It is a critical method that is effective in narrowing a very broad area of study. Moreover, it allows the creation of hypotheses that can be tested further using other research designs by having much literature review. The author notes three instances that a case study design becomes the ideal methodology. The first one is when dealing with an explanatory question, which is what I am doing in this paper: The research will explain the events that followed various copyright infringement cases against YouTube.
The second one is when comparing the research of a certain aspect within its real-world context. The third, case studies are used in evaluations. The current research presents and compares different real cases associated with copyright infringement of YouTube. Then I will explore an analysis presenting similar cases, outlines, also the responses from the users and the court rulings toward the infringement of the copyright of music and films. These cases are then compared with each other and their implications in communication and culture outlined.
Cases of copyright infringement by YouTube
Case 1: Pharrell Williams versus YouTube and Viacom versus YouTube
According to Koziol (2014), Pharrell Williams was the representative of a group of Musicians who sued YouTube due to copyright infringement. The musicians argued that the service had posted over 2,000 songs belonging to Global Music Group. However, YouTube refused to remove the music from the site. The suit stated that the service had failed to provide evidence that it had the performance rights relating to the songs. Although the lawsuit had not been filed yet, the lawyers speculated that the case would earn the musicians about one billion dollars banality. In its defense, YouTube argued that they had obtained multi-year licenses to the service to allow them to upload such music freely on the site. Pharrell’s lawyers demanded to see the right performance licenses, but again, YouTube was not cooperating with them.
According to Ottaviani and Pudelka (2007), these licenses allow service providers to use songs uploaded on their sites for public broadcast. Koziol (2014) notes that the debate came amidst a planned unveiling of Music Key by the service. The subscription would allow the service to upload concert videos. In this regard, the lawyers wanted contended music to be excluded from the platform. The law affords the service the freedom not to take action until the owners identify the type of infringement. Although the case had not yet moved to court, Koziol (2014) argues that Pharrell is unlikely to win the case based on the decisions of past lawsuits against the company. The author predicts that Pharrell will lose the case by indicating that:
“Those who take on Goliath better watch out. YouTube has dodged several bullets over the years, including a $1 billion lawsuit filed by Viacom, a cinema and television company, in 2007” (Koziol, 2014).
Case 2: YouTube versus Viacom
Peguera (2011) indicates that the lawsuit presented grave violations of copyright by the service users. Viacom accused the service of allowing the users to upload thousands of videos owned by the company without a prior agreement. In this regard, Viacom argued that the violations were real and not protected under the DMCA. In Viacom’s lawsuit, the focuses were on the principles of secondary liability and third party violation of copyright violations. The question now, what is a secondary liability? The author defines secondary liability as a type of violation where the service provider contributes to copyright infringement by the users. In regard to secondary liability accusations, the DMCA was unable to provide a safe haven for the service, which clearly was one of the weaknesses for the users to be protected.
Additionally, the two companies had different opinions over who should bear the burden of third party copyright infringement. Viacom stated that YouTube should bear the responsibility of its user’s violation of the copyright. Mashable (2015) indicates that the regulations of YouTube blame secondary liability on the users. Peguera (2011) argues that the users had violated the doctrines of contributory and vicarious accountability. As a result, YouTube was accused of failing to control the actions of the users. However, the article does not assess the response from the users. Koziol (2014) states that the court ruled in 2010 in favor of Viacom.
The judges argued that YouTube lacked adequate information on the users who had uploaded the copyrighted materials indicating its lack of control over the users. Moreover, the court stated that the service had not removed the materials even after the lawsuit by Viacom. However, the parties sorted the matter out of court. Breen (2002) focuses on the same case and describes it as a “murky moving target” (152). The author argues that the DMCA is a safe harbor for most of YouTube’s copyright infringement cases. However, the service needs to alter its copyright guidelines to conform to the requirements of the courts in the United States.
The two cases provide relate to music infringement and provide evidence that YouTube’s users play a huge role in most of the copyright infringement cases. As it was clearly implied in the reading of Van Dijck that YouTube, in its mechanism, allows users to produce and distribute their own cultural content :
“YouTube’s case perfectly illustrates the need for a more comprehensive approach to the user agency.. User agency in the rhetoric of production rather than consumption”(Van Dijck, 2009).
It is also clear that the company has been unable to control the actions of the users concerning the upload of videos. While the first case focused on third-party liability, the second case focused on both third party and secondary liability. However, both cases argued that the DMCA did not offer a safe haven for the copyright infringements presented. Moreover, the first case was merely an accusation, and the musicians had not yet filed the lawsuit. In the case of Viacom, the lawsuit had already been filed, and the court ruled against YouTube. In the case involving Viacom:
“The complaint frames YouTube as an Internet pirate seeking its fortunes by brazenly exploiting the infringing potential of digital technology” (Ottaviani & Pudelka, 2007, pp. 9-10).
Generally, both cases are not as different as they focus on similar copyright infringement by the service users. As it was said before, music plays an important role in the promotion of culture (Ottaviani & Pudelka, 2007). Copyright infringement limits the production of music, as the real owners of materials are not recognized. Thus, they are unable to produce music, which is a critical part of American culture.
Case 3: Rand versus YouTube’ and Garcia versus YouTube
The third case focuses on Rand Paul, whose presidential announcement clip was pulled down by the service. In reference to Bump (2015), the video was removed due to a copyright infringement claim by Warner Music Group. The removal was based on the Content ID system. As aforementioned, YouTube’s (2015) Content ID system consists of a database in which videos are checked for copyright infringement upon downloading. If they discover a match, the copyright owner has the authority to block the material. In this case, the content owner was Warner Music Group. The group indicated that the video contained the song “shutting Detroit Down” (Bump, 2015), which belonged to it.
The song was a lamentation of the dilapidating economy and had been produced some years back. According to Bump (2015), the Warner Music Group argued that the clip was a violation of the fair use doctrine and had abused the DMCA procedures. In the case of violation detection on the Content ID technology, the user is given an opportunity to settle the dispute with the owner before the video is uploaded again. Bump (2015) argues that the Warner Music Group should have first checked the presidential aspirant’s statistics before pulling down the video as it would have been an advantage for them in terms of an increase in revenue.
Case 4: In the fourth case concerning Cindy Lee Garcia and YouTube
Lawrence (2015) states that the actress was misled by her producer into making an anti-muslim movie. The actress thought she was making an adventure film. The film was then posted on YouTube, and it contained a manipulated account of the life of Prophet Mohammed. The trailer was 14 minutes long, and the actress’s voice was overdubbed with lines supporting anti-Muslim demonstrations.
As a result, Muslims in Egypt protested, and an order of arrest and killing was issued against all the cast in the film. As a result, the actress began to receive death threats, which led her to request the DMCA to order a takedown notice. Despite her letter to YouTube requesting the video to be pulled down, the service did not agree. She was angered by the response and moved to court, claiming copyright infringement of her material. In the court case held in Los Angeles, the judge ruled that the actress was unable to provide evidence of copyright and ownership of the film. Thus, the judge denied her motion and claimed that the actress had delayed in seeking a ban in the film after watching it. She appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which agreed to issue a secret order stating that the video should be blocked from the site.
Google was also ordered to take down similar videos against Muslims and prevent further uploads. However, when she went back to the court, the judges argued that there was no evidence that the order was issued by the Ninth Circuit. After several court sessions, the judges contended that the actress was not an author of the material, and the film was not her original work. Despite this, the court ruled that the video be pulled down as the contents were altered, and Garcia’s voice had been dubbed. Lawrence (2015) notes that the actress has constantly been complaining that the video is available on the site from time to time as the users keep on uploading it. Currently, Google has filed another petition for the case to be reconsidered.
While the copyright infringements in the two cases are different, they both relate to violations relating to the film. The first case deals with secondary liability in which the presidential candidate, as a user, uploaded a clip containing copyrighted materials (Bump, 2015). In reference to YouTube’s (2015) copyright regulations, all contents uploaded by the users have to be free of copyrighted content. Moreover, the site has the authority to remove the content after a formal complaint by the owner. Although the second case was presented as a secondary liability case, the material was not copyrighted. Moreover, the complainant was not the owner of the clip. Lawrence (2015) notes that the case could be argued under the doctrine of fair use. Additionally, Garcia did not present any formal agreement with her producer concerning the use of the video.
Thus the producer was the owner and had the freedom to alter and upload the video. Similar to the first cases, these cases limit the role of film in culture. This is become such violations prevent the enjoyment of film upon takedown. The removal of Paul’s campaign video is likely to have grave impacts on his popularity and the course of his political career. Similarly, Garcia’s portrayal as an anti-Muslim activist in the video had a negative influence on her life. The fact that YouTube users keep on re-uploading the video is an indication that the site has failed to take full control of the copyright infringement issues. Perhaps, more advanced technologies are required to promote their copyright regulations and ensure that the users adhere strictly to them.
Case 5: YouTube versus fair use
The fifth case deals with the upload of remix videos as a form of copyright infringement. Collins (2014) notes that many users tend to apply the doctrine of fair use in defending the upload of remixes. Moreover, it is difficult to prevent the production of remixed videos due to the advancement in technology. Most of these remixes are a modification of the existing copyrighted materials. As aforementioned, the doctrine of fair use allows users to upload materials without seeking permission from the owners. The doctrine has been reported to infringe on the copyright law of the United States.
Particularly, the law indicates that the owners must have exclusive rights to their materials. Thus, fair use is a form of copyright infringement. In the case of Jonathan McIntosh versus YouTube, the user uploaded the video “Buffy vs. Edward” (Collins, 2014, pp. 93). The service removed the video claiming copyright infringement as the user had included the audio track from “Twilight” Collins, 2014, pp. 93). The track belonged to Lion’s gate. They claim that the video was protected by the fair use clause was rejected by the service, and his account deactivated. Although the case did not move to court, it presents an example of the violations relating to the fair use clause.
Case 6: In the case between Stephanie Lenz and YouTube
Jampol (2013) reports that the user uploaded a video titled “Let’s Go Crazy #1” (9), which focused on her children. Later the Universal Music Group claimed that the user had included several titles of songs belonging to Prince. The Group was responsible for the musician’s copyrights and hence requested the service to remove the video. After removal, Lenz submitted a complaint indicating that the clip was protected by fair use. After taking the case to the courts, the judges sided with Lenz, indicating that the clip was uploaded with “good faith belief” (Jampol, 2013, p. 9). The court also noted that the Universal music group had failed to recognize the fair use doctrine when uploading the music. The motion of the group was denied even after proceeding to trial.
In summary, the two cases relate to music infringement and are an indication of the lawsuits that relate to fair use doctrine. While the video in Johnathan’s case was removed, Lenz won the case against the Universal Music Group. In the second case, the judges argued that provided there is evidence that a user uploads a copyrighted video with “good faith belief” (Jampol, 2013, p. 9), he or she should be protected under the fair use doctrine. Both cases are an indication of the discrepancies that exist in applying the fair use clause under the DMCA. Ottaviani and Pudelka (2007) recommend the evaluation of the fair use clause to ensure that it is applied equally among the users. Remix videos are likely to promote the production of music and the promotion of culture. However, this is only possible when users respect copyrighted materials and apply the fair use doctrine properly.
Conclusion
As aforementioned, copyright infringement limits the production of music and films. Since the owners depend on the uploaded contents as a source of revenue, copyright infringement is likely to prevent them from producing music in the future ( Ottaviani & Pudelka, 2007). Additionally, entertainment through film and music promotes cultural identity. Different culture takes pride in different kinds of music and films. An example is hip-hop music, which is known to promote African American culture. Thus, copyright infringement has negative impacts on the promotion of American culture. Specifically, it limits communication and prevents the distribution of entertainment materials.
The current research represents the issues surrounding copyright infringement by YouTube. The research utilizes a case study research design to describe various lawsuits relating to YouTube’s copyright infringement. Based on the analysis, it is clear that most of the copyright infringement cases have been caused by the users. Depending on the ruling, the contents are either retained or removed from the platform. In summary, YouTube has faced many lawsuits in the past and has been accused of failing to control the actions of the users. It is clear that the infringement has negative implications of communication and culture.
References
Breen, J. C. (2002). YouTube or youLose: Can YouTube survive a copyright infringement lawsuit? Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal, 16(7), 151-182. Web.
Bump, P. (2015). YouTube’s copyright system has taken Rand Paul’s presidential announcement offline. Web.
Collins, S. (2014). YouTube and limitations of fair use in remix videos. Journal of Media Practice, 15(2), 92–106. Web.
Jampol, N. (2013). Lawsuits for allegedly improper takedown notices face uphill battle. Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal, 25(8), 8-10. Web.
Lawrence, A. J. (2015). Google ordered to remove all copies of anti-Islamic film from YouTube after actress with Bit Part threatened by outraged Muslims. Web.
Mashable. (2015). How YouTube fights copyright infringement. Web.
Ottaviani, J. E., & Pudelka , G. G. (2007). YouTube lawsuit raises novel internet copyright issues. The Licensing Journal, 13(5), 9-14. Web.
Peguera , M. (2011). Secondary Liability for Copyright Infringement in the Web 2.0 Environment: Some Reflections on Viacom v. YouTube. Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology, 6(1), 1-14. Web.
Simons, H. (2009). Case study research in practice. London: Sage Publications. YouTube. (2015). Copyright on YouTube. Web.
Among musical composers, the genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is singled out by the fact that within his short thirty-five years of life he managed to create an overwhelming amount of works that amaze the audience with their perfection. One of the explanations to this fact, apart from a God-given talent, is that Mozart started his musical activities at a very early age.
On the other hand, the life conditions of the time stimulated Mozart’s involvement into performing and composing music of all possible contemporary genres. Mozart’s genuine talent and extensive education, together with the demands of his time, constituted the fertile ground for producing over six hundred works in an unprecedented genre variety.
The seventh child, and the second to survive, Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 to a family of gifted practicing musicians: his father, Leopold Mozart served as a violinist and composer in the Kapelle of the Archbishop of the Austrian town Salzburg[1].
It is noteworthy that in Mozart’s time, the Archbishop and the Primate of Germany was the person who defined the course of whole life in political, social, and cultural spheres, and this influence of exploitation was also felt by Mozart in his mature years[2]. Mozart’s early childhood years went in the thoroughly musical atmosphere of his father’s home.
On the one hand, Leopold Mozart often invited his musical colleagues to make music at friendly informal meetings. Those frequent musical gatherings allowed Mozart Jr. to enrich his musical knowledge with a large repertoire of contemporary music.
On the other hand, Leopold started giving keyboard lessons to Mozart’s older sister, Nannerl, when she was as young as five years, and naturally the little genius could not but join in. Already at the age of four he undertook attempts at scribbling first notes on the music paper, and surprised Leopold by taking initiative in learning to play the harpsichord and the violin[3].
This interest of his younger son to music could not go unnoticed with Leopold Mozart who considered it his sacred duty to develop and promote his children’s talents. Therefore, together with teaching music, languages, and other academic subjects, Leopold organized a series of travels round Europe for his children, where they played in concerts as child prodigies.
The period of the Mozarts family travels spanned over a decade, with the route of the first trip starting in Munich, Vienna, and Prague in 1762 and moving on to Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, and back to Salzburg via Paris, Zurich, and Munich. This first journey took the Mozarts over three and a half years, which were not at all luxurious.
The means of travelling were primitive: a horse-driven coach was the only means of transport at the time, so the family often experienced big delays due to technical problems and even suffered severe illnesses on the way[4]. The next significant trip was undertaken to Vienna in 1767, where due to the epidemic of smallpox the family had to stay for about one and a half year, which did not make Salzburg Archbishop happy at all.
Those were not the best days for the family, since the public stopped taking Nannerl and Wolfgang as child prodigy due to their older age, and the success of the concerts was quickly fading[5]. In order to enrich his son’s academic experience and to establish the necessary social bonds, Leopold took him for two years to Italy in1769[6]. There young Mozart created his first operas which despite his father’s hopes did not secure him a job by Milan court.
From 1773 to 1777 Mozart worked in his native Salzburg and initially enjoyed his activities since his artistic success was quite admired there. During the Salzburg years, Mozart established his individual compositional style in a series of symphonies, chamber music pieces, and minor operas[7].
His particular achievement of that period was a series of five violin concertos — a genre which he never took up again, since he himself preferred playing the viola and had obviously composed the violin concertos for the court violinist Antonio Brunetti[8].
He dedicated some of his other works, like piano concertos and music for events, to influential aristocracy and virtuoso performers, and did not neglect the church either, producing sacred music that included a series of Masses (e.g., Missa brevis and Missa solemnis), Litanies, and Vespers[9].
But with the course of time, as the artistic atmosphere in Salzburg grew tougher, Mozart felt he needed a broader stage to employ his talent. After a two year trip to Paris in 1777–78, he departed to Vienna where he spent most of his consequent years. In Vienna, his musical talents developed to the fullest: working incredibly long hours, Mozart enthusiastically involved nearly in any possible musical activity.
He gave lessons, performed in academies, and wrote a great number of music works, ranging from small pieces for solo instruments to large operas, symphonies and concertos[10]. After a great scandal, he finally received dismissal from the Salzburg court of Archbishop Colloredo and could start his own independent career.
Mozart’s private life also settled, with his marriage to Constanze Webber in 1782. To support his family, the composer had to write tremendous amount of works, and initially he focused his attention on the genres of keyboard music — sonatas and concertos — since he could also perform his own compositions and earn additional money[11].
This idea was triggered in the composer’s mind after emperor Joseph II arranged a competition between Mozart and the contemporary virtuoso Muzio Clementi, which Mozart won due to the especial expressiveness of his play[12].
Mozart’s success in Vienna as a composer was additionally emphasized by the acclaimed premiere of his 1782 opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail[13]. Subsequently, Mozart’s composing interests shifted even more to the genre of opera: in 1785 he started collaborating with the renowned librettist of the time, Lorenzo Da Ponte.
As a result of this creative duo’s activities, such masterpieces appeared as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Jiovanni, and Cosi fan tutte[14]. However, his last opera, The Magic Flute, was written to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder.
The last period of Mozart’s life was characterized by exceptional activity: within just one year, the genius managed to compose two operas, La Clemenca di Tito and The Magic Flute, a piano concerto, a clarinet concerto, two cantatas, chamber music works, and numerous minor pieces[15].
One of the most mysterious events of the composer’s life is the creation of Requiem, which he did not manage to finish completely due to his own illness.
Immensely hard work exhausted Mozart to such extent that his body could not stand the stress any longer. Long financial crises did not contribute to his wellbeing either; the genius composer died on 5 December 1791 and was buried in a common grave.
However, his music stays with the people for centuries on end, glorifying its marvelous creator. Mozart’s countless symphonies, operas, concertos, sonatas, masses, and minor works amaze the public with their melodic and harmonic perfection which could not have been produced by anyone less than a genius.
Works Cited
Gutman, Robert W. Mozart: A Cultural Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999.
Melograni, Piero. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography. Trans. Lydia G. Cochrane. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Rushton, Julian. Mozart. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Footnotes
Julian Rushton, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1–2.
Robert W Gutman, Mozart: A Cultural Biography (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), 6.
Robert W Gutman, Mozart: A Cultural Biography (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), 6.
Robert W Gutman, Mozart: A Cultural Biography (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), 90.
Piero Melograni, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 27.
Piero Melograni, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 33.
Julian Rushton, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 41.
Julian Rushton, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 43.
Julian Rushton, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 43, 45.
Piero Melograni, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 161.
Julian Rushton, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 106.
Julian Rushton, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 106–107.
Julian Rushton, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 106.
Piero Melograni, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 192–227.
Piero Melograni, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 228.
In the world of music, one of the most prominent figures is the nineteenth-century Polish composer Frederic Chopin. Called “The boldest and the proudest poetic spirit of the age” by his musical contemporary Robert Schumann, Chopin embodied the essential ideas of the romantic period with his tragedy of losing his native land and spending life in vain attempts at supporting his countrymen in their struggle for freedom.
A Slavic soul in the Western world, Chopin expressed all his pain at the loss of motherland in his lyrical music that forever won the hearts of audiences. The composer’s short but eventful life was a struggle between the outward success and recognition in the musical world and the inner contradictions and home sickness, worsened by the deadly disease — tuberculosis.
Born on March 1, 1810, in a small Polish village Zelazova-Wola six miles away from the Polish capital, Warsaw, Chopin was the second child and the only son in the family. His father, Nicholas Chopin, was a French emigrant of Polish origin and worked as an educator to the children of the Polish aristocracy. His mother, Justina Kryzanowska, of poor but noble family, “possessed of all the womanly virtues”.
Chopin’s highly educated and refined parents cultivated his love of music since his early childhood. His first piano lessons were given by his mother, and at the age of six he started studying with Adalbert Zwyny. The young boy’s affection to piano playing was so big that by the age of twelve, he already possessed enough skill to play at public concerts and even experiment in the sphere of technique and tone, “revolutionizing the world of music and the keyboard”.
At the age of twelve Chopin entered the Warsaw Lyceum for classical education in languages, and later on enrolled the Warsaw Conservatory where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Joseph Elsner.
The latter recognized Chopin’s outstanding talent as a musician and provided the young composer with the professional knowledge and skills to develop Chopin’s natural talent. The young man’s greatest passion was music and he would often spend nights at the piano trying out and rehearsing the compositions he had created during the daytime.
He drew inspiration from acquaintance with the works of such masters as Bach and Mozart, but already managed to create his own lyrical style of romantic music. Chopin’s skills as a pianist also developed and found recognition among the contemporary public who acknowledged him as an unsurpassed pianist of the time.
Having finished his studies at conservatoire, Chopin set out to see the world in 1828. His first big trip was to Berlin where he enjoyed his time meeting contemporary prominent musicians and exchanging professional experience with them. He saw Spontini, Mendelsohn, and Zelter, and heard Webber’s “Freischutz”. His heart was bursting with ideas and hopes for success since his improvisations on Polish melodies found a response in the audiences’ hearts.
In 1829 in Warsaw, Chopin met with such giants of contemporary music as Hummel and Paganini and debuted with solo concerts in Vienna. The Viennese public was used to astonishing bravura virtuosity of popular pianists and found his playing too quiet and timid for big stage. Some critics dismissed Chopin as a parlor pianist whose play “pleased the ladies”. But despite this, his charming play paved him the road to international recognition.
In 1831, Chopin settled in Paris never to return to Poland again. At that time the French capital was a major cultural center, a place where arts prospered and flourished. At first, Chopin attempted at giving solo concerts but due to the specific intimacy of his performance, those concerts turned out to be financial failures. Therefore, to support himself and to earn his living, Chopin engaged into private piano tutoring and playing small piano pieces in salons of the French aristocracy.
Gradually enlarging the circle of his contacts, Chopin won the admiration of such influential musicians of the time as Schumann, Liszt, Cherubini, Bellini, Berlioz, and Meyerbeer; among his devoted friends were also the painter Delacroix, the poet Heine, and many others. Despite Chopin’s professional success, he never forgot his motherland and took hard the failure of Polish Revolution, expressing his anxiety and nostalgia in his nocturnes, mazurkas, studies, and scherzos.
One of the most influential people in Chopin’s life was the French feminist writer and leading literary woman of the time, George Sand. Chopin met her in 1836 and was initially averted by her defiant mannish behavior but consequently, they developed a mutual affection which lasted for over a decade.
George Sand took the same care of Chopin as she did of her two children and tried to arrange his life so that to restore the composer’s weak health. For this reason, they spent winter 1838–39 on the Spanish island of Majorca, but bad weather only worsened the composer’s condition. Initially caring for Chopin, George Sand gradually cooled down to him and they drifted apart being more in patient-nurse relations than actually lovers.
Miserable and jaded, Chopin returned to Paris where doctors recommended that he should lessen the intensity of his working schedule — but naturally, the composer’s genius required constant activities and work on improvement of his creations. The last years of his life, heavily marred by his illness, were marked by Chopin’s gradual breaking with his friends and social bonds.
Growing ever-suspicious and critical, he became estranged from active social life, and thus his career as a private piano tutor gradually tailed. In 1848, London heard Chopin play for the last time, when in a patriotic impulse the composer put all his remaining energy into a concert in aid of Polish refugees. By that time Chopin was hopelessly ill, and a year after his last performance, on October 17, 1849, the great Pole died, bequeathing his heart to be taken back to his motherland.
Chopin’s life is a story of painful survival and nostalgia for homeland against the background of outward success and public recognition. Although Chopin spent half of his life away from Poland, he never forgot his national roots, bringing them to the fore in his music. An example of this can be seen in the way Chopin revived and popularized the traditional Polish dances, polonaise, and mazurka.
His music is a fancy union of joy and sadness that reveals the composer’s inner conflict of a successful immigrant who could not help his suffering land. Perhaps, this yearning for the impossible constitutes the special charm of his masterpieces which appeal to the innermost notes of human heart.
Music therapy is the use of music interventions to achieve individualized goals of healing the body, mind, and spirit. It involves skilled music therapists, who act as mediators to interact with patients, assesses their physical, emotional, and mental needs, and offer them with the necessary healing through music. Music therapy integrates various musical elements and certain therapeutic protocols to achieve certain objectives (Bruscia, 2000). Many people obtain some kind of healing whenever they have emotional, cognitive, or social issues through music. People living with disabilities or certain illnesses have often found music to offer a soothing environment that facilitates the healing process. Music uses creative, emotional and a non-verbal language to enable users to gain self-awareness and self-expression. In many cases, people have found music to be more powerful than plain words, as it offers a unique channel of communication and expression. Essentially, people suffering from autism and Alzheimer’s disease, and those having developmental disabilities can always become beneficiaries of music therapy. This paper will give a brief history of music therapy, and its role as an alternative treatment for autism and Alzheimer’s disease. Thereafter, the paper will give a brief discussion on the politic of making music therapy a real treatment.
History of music therapy
Music therapy traces its history back in the times of Aristotle and Plato. The writers wrote great articles describing the effect of music on health and personal behavior. After the First and Second World War, musicians felt that the only way to show gratitude to the war veterans was to visit them in the hospitals and soothe them with nice music. Surprisingly, the veterans responded positively to music, as their rate of recovery from physical and emotional trauma increased significantly. Their response triggered the doctors to confirm that music had some miraculous healing power. The doctors and nurses went ahead and ordered the hiring of musicians to help in relieving trauma in patients. Within no time, the demand for trained music therapists rose significantly, and Michigan State university began offering training in music therapy. Its first group of students graduated in 1944, and the society was impressed with the existence of the remarkable course. Thereafter, several developments occurred in the field of music therapy, and the ringleaders founded the American Music Therapy Association in 1998.
In today’s world, music therapists are imperative in hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centers, and nursing homes among other places. Some medical practitioners have backed up sociologists in approving the power that music has in reducing stress, easing anxiety, and bringing a relaxation mode to patients (Lisa, 2009). Indeed, music plays a great role in promoting the emotional, physical, and mental well being for patients suffering from the autism spectrum disorder and Alzheimer’s disease among many other diseases.
Role of music therapy as an alternative treatment for Autism and Alzheimer’s disease
Autism is a condition that is common in children and adolescents while Alzheimer’s disease is common in the elderly; however, the two conditions affect the brain. Autism is a developmental disorder that affects children’s verbal and non-verbal ability before they attain the age of three years. The commonest condition is the child’s inability to communicate and interact with other people. On the other hand, Alzheimer’s disease occurs when neuronotoxic proteins develop in the brain and lead to the damage and death of brain cells. Patients suffering from the Alzheimer disease loose memory, they develop mood swings, and they often become confused while doing their chores. However, music has a special way of calming down the psychiatric patients, and it acts as an alternative treatment to the illnesses as discussed below.
Enhancing the patients’ lives: The best thing that one can do to people with incurable conditions is enhancing their lives and making them happy. Music enhances the feeling of well-being, and it enables the patients to fight against stress and ill health. Music therapy has proven to be very effective in enabling patients with autism and Alzheimer’s disease to communicate. Although the patients are unable to express themselves by talking, music therapy enables them to express their innermost feelings. Music has a supernatural way of stimulating the sensory organs and enhancing the physical, psychological, and cognitive processes of the patients. The therapy promotes stress management, and it enhances the memory, which would otherwise be impossible under normal biomedical treatments.
Calming psychiatric patients: One of the commonest characteristic of people with brain disorders is the display of violent behaviors. People suffering from autism and Alzheimer’s disease have a tendency of experiencing mood swings, they feel sad, and their frustrations increase on a daily process. However, music therapy does the magic, as the patients’ violent behaviors decreases significantly in response to music. In fact, music calms down the patients better than the psychotropic drugs do. It is worth noting that patients suffering from autism and Alzheimer’s disease tend to display their violent behaviors when isolated in dark and quite rooms. In the presence of music, the agitation that some of the patients have reduces significantly.
Increasing social companionship: In many cases, physicians isolate patients with mental conditions to avoid the potential problems that may arise if they begin acting violently. The patients feel isolated, and their actions aim at obtaining attention from other people. However, music therapy plays a great role in reducing the social isolation experience that psychiatric patients encounter. The patients liken music sessions to storytelling sessions that console, relax, and offer them with the best time of their life. Medical caregivers will always have an easy time dealing with the patients, who experience some form of social companionship with music. Music enables the patients to recollect activities of past events, which arouses their spirits. Essentially, music therapy plays a great role in enhancing social interaction, stimulating speech, and in improving the mood of the patients.
Sociological aspects of music therapy
Their Increasing role in medical practice
Although biomedical healthcare is predominant in most countries globally, music therapy has proved to have an increasing role in the medical field in countries in the west. Other than offering physical healing to the affected patients, music therapy offers mental healing. Music therapy has proved to promote the healing process of post-surgery patients. It is worth noting that in spite of the fact that singing does not have a direct effect on healing the wound, it enhances the sense of well-being and the feeling of social connectedness. Moreover, music therapy has played a great role in rehabilitation centers by helping patients to quit their addiction. Although not scientifically proven, drug addicts obtain some form of relieve while drumming and playing loud music. Moreover, most nations in the west have utilized music therapy in special education schools to help in achieving social, emotional, behavioral, and psychological needs of the people living with disabilities. It is evident that music therapy has an increasing role in the medical field, and the nations that still disregard it will soon embrace music therapy because of its endless rewards.
The politic of making music therapy a real treatment
Music therapy has encountered various views in the medical field, as it is just a complementary or alternative treatment. While some countries strongly believe that music therapy is an essential treatment for psychiatric illnesses, other countries have marginalized music therapy as a form of treatment. Essentially, the politic of making music therapy a real treatment mainly involves the medical practitioners and sociologists.
It is evident that many people believe in superior treatment methods that fit into the biomedical field. The strongest believe in biomedical treatments lies in the fact that every treatment is predictable and controllable. Medical practitioners mainly focus on the disease, and they would rather treat psychiatric patients using medicine rather than using the music therapy approach, which would be ineffective at other times. Believers of biomedical treatments have confidence in the evidence-based approach to deal with diseases. If need be, the practitioners set up control groups to determine the suitability of a certain drug. Therefore, from a rational point of view, medical practitioners disqualify music therapy because it is not evidence based, as the music therapists might find it difficult to have control groups to carry out randomized trials (Plum, 2011, 2012).
On the other hand, some sociologists strongly back up complementary and alternative treatments like music therapy, as the therapies have little or no side effects. According to them, music therapy is a non-biomedical treatment that uses a holistic approach to address medical conditions and promote health. Moreover, music therapy has the power to provide social, emotional, behavioral, psychological, and physical healing concurrently unlike the biomedical treatments. The power of music therapy lies in its ability to make the best out of ordinary activities like dancing, singing, and listening to music. The sociologists disregard biomedical treatments because of their inability to fulfill the social, moral, spiritual, and scientific needs of the society and the patients.
Conclusion
From the discussions, it is evident that medical practitioners and sociologists have reasons to support their schools of thought; therefore, the politic of making music therapy a real treatment is not about to end. However, it is factual that music therapy has the capability to act as an alternative treatment to patients suffering from autism and Alzheimer’s disease among other diseases. However, medical practitioners and music therapists should work together and base their treatment on certain objectives that may vary from one patient to another. While some patients need some sensory stimulation, others need some speech simulation or mood improvement. It is noteworthy that autism is a spectrum disorder that affects patients differently, thus, the level of illness varies from one patient to another. While other patients may have difficulties in their common senses of smell, taste, hearing, touch, and sight, others may have learning difficulties. Therefore, they need different treatments. The same thing applies to patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, as they may have different impairments that require different therapies. Overall, in spite of the existing politic in making music therapy a real treatment, it is evident that it is indeed playing a major role in advancing the healing process of patients living with mental disabilities.
References
Bruscia, K. (2000). The nature of meaning in music therapy. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 9(2), 37-43.
Lisa, B. (2009). Alzheimer’s disease: The role of music therapy in symptom palliation. Web.
Plum, C. B. (2011). Sociology of medicine: How music therapy is affected by the dominant position of the biomedical model pt 1. Web.
Plum, C. B. (2012). Opposition to music therapy: How music therapy is affected by the dominant position of the biomedical model pt 2. Web.
Music therapy is “clinical and evidence-based use of music intervention” to achieve certain goals within a therapeutic relationship by a certified health expert who has successfully completed an approved music therapy course (American Music Therapy Association). Music therapy is a well-established medical care vocation in which highly trained and qualified healthcare experts use music to address social, emotional, cognitive, physical, and psychological needs of patients or clients (Wainapel and Avital 13).
After carefully reviewing needs of a patient, a music therapist provides the client with music therapy treatment that mostly includes playing, singing, and creating music (Whipple 123). Scholars have argued that music provides good communication avenues, which are very essential in solving problems for clients who have difficulties expressing themselves (Whipple 94).
Music therapy is also essential in facilitating treatment, increasing motivation, expressing feeling, and providing patients with emotional support necessary to promote good health (American Music Therapy Association).
Apart from providing people with entertainment, music is widely used for treatment (Whipple 94). Because of this feature, music therapy is considered as “an art and a science” (Whipple 94). In a hospital setting, clients are referred for music therapy session by other doctors after carefully assessing their condition and healthcare needs. On the other hand, clients can also choose music therapy without necessary being referred by a health expert; this is known as self-referral (American Music Therapy Association).
Music therapists are almost found everywhere especially in healthcare centers and they play a vital role in helping patients with special needs to improve communication and motor skills (Wainapel and Avital 124). Music therapists also work with elderly people and they are useful in helping them to cope with life at old age.
Music therapy and stroke patients
Music can act as stroke therapy especially when combined with other treatment techniques (Wainapel and Avital 93). In a number of cases, music therapists have assisted stroke victims to recover. Scholar and researchers around the world have proved that music has a great effect on the human brain. According to research, music is able to “affect human emotions and social interaction” (Wainapel and Avital 92).
In fact, research has proved beyond doubt that music is able to reduce stress, improve the general mood, and decrease the level of depression in human beings (American Music Therapy Association). Most recent studies have showed that music can help in reducing negative feeling hence improving clients’ motivation (Whipple 99).
Health experts have also argued that when music is combined with other traditional treatments techniques, it can facilitate faster recovery of stroke patients. This is because music has shown ability to improve emotional and motivation for patients (Wainapel and Avital 123).
A study conducted recently showed that, when music is incorporated in therapy session of a stroke patient, such a patient is likely to recover faster than when exercise is used alone for treatment (Koen 16). In addition to this, research has shown that stroke patients become more involved in therapy sessions once music is incorporated in the treatment program; this is the motivational aspect of music (Wainapel and Avital 111).
Wainapel and Avital argues that music therapy helps in clients’ social functioning therefore motivating them to participate more in the rehabilitation process (265). Different researchers have supported that when music is used together with traditional therapy, it is able to help stroke patient deal with emotional and social deficits that arise from stroke and hence speeding recovery of such patients (Koen 29).
Moreover, music has shown to improve motor skills for stroke patients. Different rhythms produced by music are responsible in stimulating the auditory nerves in the human sensory organ (Goodman 37). Once music therapy is combined with traditional therapy during patients’ rehabilitation, it improves recovery process enabling the patients to walk.
The outcomes of combining therapy session with music therapy have been studied extensively. In fact, research has shown that when stroke patient receive music therapy especially learning how to play instruments such as piano and guitar, they tend to improve motor skills within a short period (Goodman 37).
In addition, music therapy enhances communication by improving speech for stroke patients (Wainapel and Avital 102). Combination of music therapy in the rehabilitation process of stroke patients really helps in developing speech. In a study conducted by American Medical Association, stroke patients were divided into two groups.
One group received traditional therapy only while the other group received traditional therapy combined with music therapy. Under observation, the two groups continued receiving therapy for specific period. The group that received traditional therapy combined with music therapy showed quick recovery rates than the one that did not receive music therapy.
The patient receiving traditional therapy and music therapy showed great improvement in speech and communication since they were regularly singing, rapping, and chanting (Goodman 27). Such exercises (singing, chanting, and rapping) have proved to improve mouth muscle recovery for stroke patients.
Why music therapy is effective in treating stroke patients and others
I believe music is very helpful in improving health. Generally, stroke patients experience walking difficulties, communication problems, headaches, numbness, and visual problems (Goodman 42). On the other hand, music therapy has proved to facilitate muscle recovery, speech, motivational, and mood among others problems (Goodman 7). Activities such as playing guitar, piano, or a drum can facilitate muscle movements for stroke patients.
In addition to this, music that contains certain message can enhance cognitive development for patients (Wainapel and Avital 121). As such, activities such as writing lyrics and performing creative music can help stroke patients and others to improve their mental state. On the other hand, activities that allow movement of mouth muscles such as singing, rapping, and chanting can be of great help to stroke patients who have speech problems (American Music Therapy Association).
Finally, since music has the ability to affect human moods and feelings, once patients are engaged in activities that provides aesthetic qualities of music, they tend to improve their moods and motivation hence improving the general health (Goodman 23).
In conclusion, music therapy has the ability to improve the quality of life. This is because music has great effect on the human brain (Whipple 112). In fact, music has certain form of effect on emotions that in turns triggers a certain response in the human brain (Wainapel and Avital 124).
Patients who have incurred injuries in the brain or have brain problems also appear to respond to music therapy. Because of this, music therapists have continued using different music rhythms to organize the brain hence helping patients with disabilities to respond to other treatment techniques and therefore promoting fast recovery (Wainapel and Avital 124).
Because of its vital role in the healthcare sector, music therapy as a discipline is found in different settings including schools, hospitals, correctional centers, and nurseries among others (Goodman 23). When combined with other treatment models, music therapy can play a vital role in recovery of stroke patients, clients with heart problems, and epilepsy among others. As such, music therapy can greatly improve the quality of life.
Goodman, Doron (2011). Music Therapy Education and Training: From Theory to Practice. Illinois: Charles Thomas Press, 2011. Print.
Koen, Benjamin. The Oxford Handbook of Medical Ethnomusicology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
Wainapel, Stanley, and Avital Fast. Alternative Medicine and Rehabilitation. New York: Demos Medical Publishing, 2003. Print.
Whipple, Jennifer. Music in intervention for children and Adolescents with Autism: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Music Therapy, 41. 2 (2004): 90–156. Print.
The use of propaganda has been an integral part of human history and though the public played no direct part they were still seduced and instructed by different forms of media. Back to ancient Greece for its philosophical and theoretical origins. Used effectively by Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, and the early Christians, propaganda became an integral part of the religious conflicts of the Reformation. The invention of the printing press was quickly adopted by Martin Luther in his fight against the Catholic Church and provided the ideal medium for the widespread use of propagandistic materials.
Each new medium of communication was quickly adopted for use by propagandists, especially during the American and French revolutions and later by Napoleon. By the end of the nineteenth century, improvements in the size and speed of the mass media had greatly increased the sophistication and effectiveness of propaganda.
The history of propaganda is based on three interweaving fundamentals: first, the mounting need, with the growth of civilization and the rise of nation-state, to win the battle for people’s minds; second, the increasing sophistication of the means of communication available to deliver propagandistic messages; and third, the increasing understanding of the psychology of propaganda and the commensurate application of such behavioral findings. Throughout history, these three elements have been combined in various ways to enhance and encourage the use of propaganda as a means of altering attitudes and for the creation of new ideas or perspectives.
Revolution is a religious faith (Billington, 1980). The modern revolutionary faith was born, not in France, but in 18th-century Germany. Frederick the Great, the antichristian occultist who turned his kingdom of Prussia into the foremost military machine of Europe, Legan to develop a philosophy of revolution as a secular, redemptive convulsion which would radically transform the world. Frederick’s ideas were then imported into France where. they were translated into action in the French Revolution, one of the most crucial turning points in history.
It was “the hard fact” of the French Revolution which “gave birth to the modern belief that secular revolution is historically possible” (Billington, 1980, p. 20). In many ways, the French Revolution set precedents for those which were created in its image. Beginning ostensibly as a revolution for ‘democracy” in the name of “the People,” it soon revealed the irresistible drive toward centralization that is the hallmark of modern revolutions.
This paper is designed to look into the aspects of propaganda played in bringing about a people’s Revolution, how the masses were made aware and a public opinion was created through music. And analysing the role music played in creation of propaganda and public opinion. In doing so we have followed the work of Constant Pierre, Musique des fetes et ceremonies de la revolution francaise: oeuvres de Gossec, Cherubini, Lesueur, Mehul, Catel, etc, (1899) where he has documented the compositions along with their nature of writing by different composers during the revolution. We will do this in the form of identifying the kind of music that was played and the eminent composers whose works moved the masses. The different ways in which the music was brought to the people i.e. press and performance and the effect of both.
Revolution and Propaganda
French Revolution
1789–1799 saw the end of the monarchy in France. The revolution was initiated to establish a constitutional monarchy, where the powers of the king would be limited by a parliament. By late 1792, however, demands for long-pending reforms resulted in the proclamation of the First Republic and the death sentence of King Louis XVI. The republic was weakened to a great extent due to violence of the revolution, attacks by other nations, and bitter factional struggles, riots, and counter-revolutionary uprisings across France. This aided to bring the extremists to power, and the Reign of Terror followed. French armies then succeeded in stopping the foreign invaders and one of the generals, Napoleon Bonaparte, seized power in 1799.
In the decades prior to the French Revolution, France was occupied in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) and the American Revolution (1775–1783. The price of these wars was financial crisis in France. The French government borrowed large sums of money at high interest to finance them. By 1787 the French monarchy and government was bankrupt, and King Louis XVI and his government were forced to seek fresh remedy to their problems.
In 1788 King Louis XVI summoned the States General (three ‘estates’ of clergy (first), nobles (second), and commons (third)) in order to raise taxes. By calling the States General, King Louis XVI was admitting that the monarchy was in a distressed position, leaving him at the pity of his enemies in France.
The States General met in 1789. it was in this meeting that the representatives of the third estate (all the people of France who were neither nobles nor Catholic priests) insisted that the three estates should be merged into a single national assembly. The demand was intended to force the king to recognize the rights of the French nation and people. Priests from the first estate too joined the deputies of the third estate, along with many liberal-minded nobles from the second estate.
Louis was forced to back down and accept the existence of the National Assembly. But at the same time large numbers of soldiers were gathering on the hills surrounding Paris. The combination of the attempt to stop the formation of a national assembly and the presence of troops around Paris created a tense atmosphere in Paris by the second week of July 1789.
These actions of Louis led to the storming of the Bastille prison by the Paris mob on 14 July 1789. The Bastille was the symbol of the tyrannical power of the monarchy. This was followed by the creation of a revolutionary city government in Paris, known as the Paris Commune, and a number of peasant uprisings outside Paris.
In August the National Assembly introduced the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’, which contained the ideas of liberty and equality. The king refused to agree to the Declaration, however, and in October there were more uprisings in Paris. In 1791 the royal family attempted to flee the, but Louis XVI was captured and was later forced to accept a new constitution.
The new constitution established a constitutional monarchy. It reduced Louis’s powers and gave authority to the National Assembly over lawmaking and financial matters. Power had passed from the hands of the monarchy to the representatives of the French people. Under the constitution, France was reorganized into 83 départements. This was for the purposes of efficiency and to mark a break with the past. The constitution also reformed the court system by abolishing the old parliaments which had been dominated by the nobility. It also gave government control over the Roman Catholic Church by requiring both judges and priests to be elected to office, as well as extending religious tolerance to Protestants and Jews. The National Assembly also took ownership of much of the Catholic Church’s vast lands and property, which were sold off in order to pay off the nation’s debts.
During this period a segment of the aristocracy moved abroad, and tried to plead other nations to fight against the revolutionary government. Many of these aristocrats settled in Prussian (German) towns in the Rhineland. They used their fortunes to raise armies and produce propaganda pamphlets against the revolution. They wanted to get the Prussians and Austrians to launch a war to restore Louis XVI and the monarchy to its pre-1789 position in France. The émigrés were particularly confident of getting the Austrians to attack the revolution, as the Austrian emperor, Joseph II, was the brother of Marie Antoinette, the French queen.
The revolution’s supporters outside France were also suffering increased attack, and France eventually went to war with Austria and Prussia (who supported Louis XVI) in April 1792. The Austrian and Prussian armies invaded France, and for a time the war threatened to destroy the revolution. The armies of the revolution lost every battle they fought with the Austrians and Prussians, and it seemed inevitable that Paris and the revolution would soon fall. By 2 September 1792 the Austrians had captured the fortress at Verdun and the road to Paris was open to them.
However, on 10 August the Paris mob had stormed the Tuileries Palace, where Louis XVI had been living, and had imprisoned the king and his family. The constitutional monarchy established by the 1791 constitution was brought to an end. On 20 September 1792 the French won a crucial victory at the Battle of Valmy and effectively saved the revolution. A National Convention had been formed by election and, on 21 September, the Convention abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic. Louis XVI was put on trial, found guilty of treason, and executed at the guillotine on 21 January 1793.
After Louis XVI’s death, there arose a struggle for power within the National Convention between the moderate Girondins and the more radical Jacobins, led by Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Jaques Danton, and Jean Paul Marat. The Jacobins arrested the Girondin leaders in June 1793, and control of the country was passed to the infamous Committee of Public Safety, which was headed by Robespierre, Lazare Carnot, and Bertrand Barère. The committee announced a policy of terror against all those seen as rebels or opponents of the revolution, supporters of the king, and Girondin sympathizers. During the Reign of Terror, thousands of citizens were sent to the guillotine and many more died in prison without being formally brought to trial. One of the more famous victims of the Terror was Marie Antoinette, the widow of Louis XVI.
Propaganda during French Revolution
Propaganda first became associated with politics during the French Revolution. The revolutionaries used propaganda as a means to propagate the system of equality of liberty. This, as in so many other things, the French revolutionaries was replacing religion with politics. In 1792, French radicals called fro the Propagators of Reason, who would form the cadres of ‘la propagande revolutionnaire’. Propaganda in political sense was part of a programme of public instruction that aimed at total regeneration of the French people. All possible means was mobilised in an effort to produce a people of virtue: festivals, songs, medals, ribbons, speeches, newspapers, prints, posters, even the design of plate ware and playing cards could carry the revolutionary gospel.
At the beginning of the Revolution, there were no systematic plans for public instruction in revolutionary virtue. What is interesting about this early period is the spontaneous way in which new symbols and images were created.
During the Revolution, propaganda and promulgation of political ideas among the common people played a major role in initiating a mass uprising. Some historians believe that the ideological reason behind French revolution was enlightenment, including both mainstream enlightenment and intellectually iconoclastic and highly influential through works like that of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Though some historians like Robert Darnton (Darnton 1971) suggests that the writings of the philosophes never called for social or political revolution. He rather emphasized on the frustration and embittered writers, who were lured to Paris by the success of the philosophes, were disillusioned and hence took to writing pamphlets attacking the social and the political. But it is widely believed that it was the pamphlets, newssheets, foreign based newspapers and other underground literature encouraged the French people against the establishment and the elites (Maza 1993). David Hudson has shown that the courtier and the minister hired their own pamphleteers to rebut their adversaries (Hudson 1974). Hence a re-evaluation of the origin of the Revolution shows:
Its main source was not enlightenment alone.
The attack on socio-political status quo was far more complex than just a simple division of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’.
Research has shown that it was from the nascent report of the public sphere – the salons, the academies, coffee houses – gave birth to a Republic of Letters, which laid down the blueprint of a democratic public sphere. Due to its commercialized birth to socio-political status quo it formally adhered to principles of equality and inclusiveness and commoditised products of the cult-works of art, music, literature and philosophy thus developing elite public sphere.
The public was used as a connotation for a ‘court of law’ in such phrases as Le tribunal de la nation. Print as such by putting and applying forward varied events and functionalized issues to the lay readers became a powerful tool in propagating the need to reform. Its political impact was such that it called upon ‘public opinion’ to perform a function once invested in the king (or the Bureaucratic government).
Music as a means of Propaganda
Music and singing were fundamentally important parts of the revolutionary experience. Amateurs and formally trained composers alike produced thousands of songs and hymns to celebrate or criticize the Revolution. Men and women sang during revolutionary festivals, in bars, cafés, and theatres, and they fought with others who dared to sing royalist or reactionary songs. Theatre audiences struck up enthusiastic choruses when news of military victories was announced, and mothers taught the latest tunes to their sons and daughters.
Songs, Anthems, Hymns
Revolutionary music was highly accessible to all. Certainly, some popular songs seem to have been composed by ordinary citizens who left no more than a name and perhaps occupation or residence—”Bellrose, singer,” or “Derant the Younger, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye”—but others were produced by government bureaucrats, journalists, or theatrical authors whose learning was equal to that of composers of hymns. Marseillaise composed by a reasonably well-educated army captain, possessed of a relatively complex tune and quite learned lyrics, this piece of music crossed all social barriers: performed as a hymn at festivals and on the stage, it was also adopted as a popular song in parks and cafés and taught by republican mothers to their young sans-culottes.
If the form and content of music can no longer be presumed to give us sufficient information about revolutionary culture and society, what then can we learn from music? As the example of the Marseillaise suggests, we can learn a great deal by considering how, where, and why it was performed. During the Revolution, as today, music did not necessarily become popular because it adhered to objective aesthetic standards. Songs became popular because they spoke to a current mood, or because they recalled a symbolically important event, or because they seemed to express a keenly felt political aspiration. Singers revealed such associations in a variety of ways, using particular kinds of performances or specific arenas to make their meaning as clear as possible.
So, for example, when revolutionaries sang Ça Ira as they assisted in preparations for the Festival of Federation, they expressed not only their hopes for the future but their commitment to the revolutionary cause. When they performed that song in a café, they were warning royalists to stay away from what was now their territory. And when, after Thermidor, young toughs sang The Alarm of the People against soldier’s choruses of the Marseillaise, onlookers knew that the singers were defending competing interpretations of the Republic’s past and the Revolution’s future.
What makes musical culture especially significant is the accessibility of singing. Although there were many other ways to express political opinions or revolutionary aspirations, alone and collectively—speeches, pamphlets, newspapers, festivals, cartoons—only singing was available to everyone. Whether revolutionary or royalist, one needed neither government contacts and publishers, nor even literacy to publicly express an opinion through song.
One needed only the knowledge of a tune and a quick memory for new lyrics. Music and singing practices highlight different political opinions and the ways in which even the meanest citizen could contribute to the creation of revolutionary culture, and they illuminate the tensions between different governments and the unruly populace that were so fundamental to the revolutionary process.
With the mass departure of the aristocracy, who were the patrons of the artists, after the Revolution, the economic base of thousands of French musicians was removed. No longer did they have stable writing or playing minuets for the nobility. On the other hand there was the new democratic Republic, surrounded by enemies, and engaged in a desperate struggle for survival.
The Jacobin government realized that if victory was to be achieved, then all the people would have to be enlisted and inspired with the conviction that the nation’s deliverance was his own personal salvation, that it must use every possible means of firing the whole nation with that heroic enthusiasm without which the unarmed, untrained people’s army could not defeat the paid, armed, professional force of the Prussian and Austrian invaders. Not the least of these means was music. From among the people themselves came militant songs—mass songs such as La Marseillaise, the Carmagnole, Ca Ira, Le Chant du D´epart, etc.
For the Festivals of the First Republic the people wanted music of an almost religious character, exalted, pompous and impressive. It was thought that in these solemn and fervent patriotic hymns music was recurring to its original state as an expression of the common feeling of the people. The people themselves took part in the performance of Le Chant du D´epart, La Marseillaise, and L’Hymn du Aˆout. Here we see the most important quality of the music of the French Revolution – the use of massive musical effects.
For instance, Mehul conceived a chorus of 300,000 voices to take part in a Fete de l’Etre Suprme, and in the final chorus, the trumpets having given the signal, the crowd would with one impulse join its 300,000 voices to those of the musicians, while 200 drums would beat and formidable cannon shots would resound, representing the national vengeance and announcing to the republicans that the day of glory has arrived.
Composers such as Gossec, Mehul, Lesueur and Cherubini set to work for their new patron, the State, writing marches, symphonies, hymns, joyful and funereal odes, cantatas and great pageants expressing the feelings of the people as a whole. These were performed on the Champ de Mars before huge audiences. Given an entirely new function, music assumed a completely new form, structure, orchestration; it became an instrument of national life, a representation and a weapon in the hands of the revolutionary bourgeois state.
The revolutionary leaders took music seriously – they realised it is a very useful tool for changing the way people think and feel, in other words a useful means to ignite people. In 1795 a school was set up to train bands for the new army, the National Guard. A new law was passed forcing audiences to sing republican hymns in theatres before operas were performed. Composers were encouraged to write revolutionary songs – and between 1789 and 1800 more than 1300 songs were written. The most famous of these was called Le Marseillaise, which is still the French national anthem.
Songs were written to be sung aloud or performed for others, and this oral transmission made their circulation among the illiterate possible. During the Old Regime songs facilitated the dissemination of critical lyrics otherwise likely to attract the attention of the police. In addition, public performances facilitated the exploitation of a song’s suggestive possibilities. The interaction of these oral traditions with the medium of print created the dynamic revolutionary-song culture.
Newspaper publication of the songs rose dramatically during the period 1789-90 and declined steadily to reach a nadir during the Terror, the printing of songs gained momentum with the progress of the Revolution, reaching a zenith at the same moment the journals seemed to disappear. The increased production of songs was the most striking because royalist song writers, who had been responsible for almost a third of the songs written in 1790-91, had almost entirely disappeared by 1792. This can be found in the work of Constant Pierre, Hymns et chansons de la Revolution francaise (1904).
Between July 1789 and July 1790 the popular practices of singing were very much those of the Old Regime – only the subject matter of the songs had changed. Popular songs written in 1789 – “composed” by setting new verses to an already well-known tune – celebrated noteworthy event receded into the past. A few older songs, deemed relevant to current events, were also revived and played, or sung, at various celebrations and popular gatherings. Among these were the opera aria “Ou peut-on etre mieux qu’au sien de sa famille?” (“Where is the one better off than in the bosom of his family?”), played in the honour of the Royal family and the Mayor of Paris.
Although, almost all songs written in 1789 celebrated the Revolution, a few politicians who noticed them considered popular singing a generally suspect activity. The Abbe Faucet claimed that “while partisans of the old order and old ways amuse themselves with songs, epigrams, and slander, the friends of the Constitution and of the habits that are appropriated of a newly liberated people produce writings that are serious, austere, and just.” (Fauchet, 1790)
Then in the mid-1790s the street songs underwent a change. In the first fete of the Federation a new song was sung by all that was called Carillon national. Everyone sang ca ira, ca ira, ca ira. (Chronicle de Paris, 9-July-1790)
While hymns were quickly adapted and adopted by revolutionaries, informal songs had a more complex career. Street songs had been a widely shared means of entertainment and political expression under the old regime, but educated commentators scorned them, arguing that songs could only express popular passions and were incapable of true seriousness. Such prejudice lingered after 1789 among journalists and legislators, who hoped that “the people” would find less frivolous means of expression.
This attitude began to change in the summer of 1790, when revolutionaries adopted a new anthem called Ça ira. Catching on during preparations for the Festival of Federation, most versions of the song (there were several) were hopeful and claimed that tensions between members of the former estates would simply fade away as revolutionary change took place.
“Ca ira” was an extremely popular song, which needed to retain only its melody and the refrain. The verses could be, and were, altered with great frequency. This song was hopeful about the future of the Revolution and sought conciliation between social orders.
The printed version of the song is:
Ah! Ca ira, ça ira, ça ira
Réjouissons nous le bon temps viendra
Les gens des Halles jadis a quia
Peuvent chanter alléluia.
The English translation is as follows:
Oh! Things will work out
Let’s rejoice that the good times have come
The market people, once down and out
Can sing Hallelujah. (Journal des Halles no. 1, 1790)
The Chronique de Paris, in describing the work at the fete added, “We can’t repeat all the songs that were being sung…; it’s enough to say that the aristocrats were not spared.” (10 July 1790).
For the next two years “ca ira” was the emblematic song of the various parties of the Revolution, distinct from traditional songs and singing practices that continued to hold their place in revolutionary culture. It was sung to demonstrate political positions and attitude towards the Revolution.
Revolutionaries saw the singing of “ca ira” as a sign of faith in the progress of the “Revolution, and of hostility toward a recalcitrant clergy and aristocracy.”(Chronicle de Paris, 9 November 1790). Royalists on the other hand saw it as a sign of a popular, blind commitment to demagogues: “CA IRA: trivial refrain with which the fanatics of a misguided liberty have defended an ignorant people, who repeat it mechanically.” (Dictionnaire laconique, 1792) and both the parties saw it as a gauge of the advance, o retreat, of the Revolution.
What is of special importance in this context is that the lyrics of “ca ira” remained almost radically an element of oral culture. This predominantly oral transmission of “ca ira” gave the song a topical and ideological flexibility that was central to its continuing popularity during the early years of the Revolution.
As France prepared for a sustained crisis of foreign war in 1792, there was a rising question regarding the song that would/could lead the army of the Revolution. It was Rouget de Lisle who wrote “Marseillaise”, which was a unique and powerful song. According to Monsieur Rouge the tune of the song has a character that is at once touching and warlike. The singing of “Marseillaise”, like “ca ira”, became a symbol of unity and attachment to the Revolution (Dictionnaire laconique 1792, p. 260). These songs helped to create unity that stretched throughout the nation as the Parisians knew that they sang the same songs as the French soldiers had taken to the front.
Songs were drafted during this period to create republican citizenry. In this context songs were turned to variety of ends: disseminating republican principles and morals, commemorating the martyrs of the Revolution and celebrating the decade and existence of the Supreme Being. Then a debate arose between the two differing conceptions of what the meaning and goal of the Revolution should be. The “ca ira” had been able to encompass orally, if not in print, differing conceptions of the Revolution. But, in a society that had experienced the violence of both Terror and Reaction, the explicit intertwining of songs and politics and the complex of hopes and fears about the implications of political positions had made peaceful co-existence impossible at either levels.
Performance dominated during the period of uncertainty and debate about the Revolution’s direction. For singers of “ca ira” before 1792, as well as fro singers of the “Marseillaise” and “Reviel du ira” in 1795-96, popular cultural invention and popular violence became ways of establishing symbolic models and thus of laying claim to the meaning of the Revolution. During the first years of the revolution (1792-95), uncertainty and debate were silenced, and cultural production was channelled in very specific directions.
But the intensity of the efforts to propagate republicanism and prosecute the war created new means of cultural growth and preservation, and revolutionary-song texts flourished. Both were closed by the final years and the official songs of the revolution were decreed.
The revolutionary leaders built huge new parade grounds in the major cities, and organised massive musical ceremonies with names like Festival of the Supreme Being. Composers like Mehul, Gossec and Lesueur wrote marches and huge choral cantatas for these occasions. They used massive orchestras of wind instruments, which were more suitable for outdoor use.
A typical example of French revolutionary music is Gossec’s Hymn for Thermidor. This and other momentous pieces had a big influence on the French romantic composer Berlioz. He used similar massive forces in his big public works, like the Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphale.
For clarity, we may divide these thousands of compositions into two rough categories: hymns and songs. Hymns were more formal in both composition and performance. Each hymn had its own music, which was usually orchestrated, and learned, memorized poetic lyrics. Further, hymns were most often performed during festivals. Songs, on the other hand, were casual compositions that consisted of new verses rhymed to a well-known tune.
These compositions were most popular among amateurs, who sang them in streets, parks, cafés, and public squares. What hymns and songs had in common was their ability to circulate political information and opinions through a society that was only partly literate. Catchy tunes helped listeners remember instructive or polemical lyrics as they inspired political passions and military fervour.
The meaning and content of hymns and songs changed repeatedly throughout the 1790s, reflecting and helping to shape the political currents of the Revolution. Hymns were the first to receive explicit attention from revolutionaries, who had several reasons to consider their pedagogic potential soon after the taking of the Bastille: not only had hymns played an important part in royal and religious ceremonial, but enlightened philosophes claimed that music stirred and possibly even exalted the emotions.
But revolutionaries were not solely looking backward; deputies to the new National Assembly also recognized that hymns could circulate ideas among the thousands gathered in open-air arenas, where rhetoric might be lost on the slightest breeze. Thus the first great ceremony of the Revolution—the Festival of Federation, held on 14 July 1790—had music especially composed for it by Joseph Gossec. Like so many songs during the early phase of the Revolution, Gossec’s Te Deum married old and new: he used a traditional, liturgical Latin text, and he set that text to music scored for wind instruments and drums rather than organ, so that it might more easily be heard outdoors.
Social and political tensions did not disappear, however. Rather, as they intensified, royalists adopted their own anthem: O Richard, ô mon Roi. O Richard was an operatic aria that claimed the king had been abandoned by all but the most faithful. Meanwhile, revolutionaries throughout France continued to perform Ça Ira under all kinds of political circumstances, often in direct opposition to royalists singing O Richard. Ça ira‘s cheerily optimistic lyrics gave way to a verse that exhorted listeners to “hang the aristocrats”; such performances encouraged pro-revolutionary, educated elites to reconsider their disdain for popular singing. Many began to express a new faith in the ability of street songs to arouse and sustain revolutionary fervour.
In one account of a festival Pierre has pointed that in one counts five hearing for three hymns (the Song of the Victories by Mehul, Hymns of liberties of Gossec, etc.), and seven for the fine Clumt ih. Juillct by Gossec. The Marseillais figured sixteen times on the program, and the Song of the Depart had twenty executions (Pierre, 1899).
When war was declared in the spring of 1792, revolutionaries began to search for a more serious composition to accompany soldiers into battle. Although Jean-Claude Rouget de Lisle composed the famous Marseillaise (originally known as “The War Song of the Army of the Rhine”) in April, it did not become popular until troops from Marseilles brought it to Paris that summer. Renowned for their revolutionary enthusiasm and their contribution to the insurrection of 10 August, the volunteers from Marseilles taught others the rousing new anthem, whose title would evoke their role in its popularization.
The revolutionaries embarked on the republican experiment after the overthrow of the monarchy, musical culture reached its zenith. The Marseillaise, with its learned lyrics and martial tune, lent new seriousness to popular singing practices; this was one of the few compositions of the Revolution that was equally successful as both hymn and popular song. Meanwhile, republican celebrations of the sans-culottes raised the status of all kinds of “popular culture.”
Singing and song-writing were practiced widely. Sans-culottes sang in clubs and popular societies; private citizens composed songs that celebrated republican virtues; booksellers claimed that simply to buy their revolutionary songbooks was a patriotic act; theatres organized performances of music that commemorated revolutionary events or celebrated republican “martyrs,” such as Jean-Paul Marat and Michel Le Pelletier. Hymns also reflected the concerns of the new era by celebrating current events and by shedding the liturgical associations of earlier years. Hymns, like the one Ponce-Denis-Echouard Lebrun composed to celebrate the first anniversary of the King’s execution, now evoked the example of the ancients or a deist Supreme Being rather than delivering thanks to a traditional Christian god.
By this time, almost all revolutionaries praised singing as an ideal means to rouse republican enthusiasm. Songs and hymns allowed performers to proclaim revolutionary ideals and unified audiences; singing was available to literate and illiterate alike; the simplest tune could carry a sense of the Revolution into the most mundane tasks of daily life. And because singing could also be a group activity, it helped to affirm the collective solidarity of those participating. But even in the midst of this musical frenzy, some officials worried about certain aspects of popular songs. In particular, moderate deputies to the National Convention who hoped to normalize political life and demobilize popular activists in the winter of 1793–94, worried that singing encouraged the very activism they were trying to quell.
Concerns about the relationship between singing and unofficial activism only intensified after Robespierre’s fall. As growing numbers of people expressed anger at the political extremes a new song emerged: The Alarm of the People (Le Réveil du Peuple). The Alarm became the anthem of young reactionaries. A highly visible presence in many cities, these reactionaries terrorized café and theatre owners whose establishments still displayed symbols of radical republicanism. That such episodes of popular violence were often accompanied by performances of The Alarm of the People, or by battles between singers of The Alarm and singers of the Marseillaise or other patriotic songs, seemed proof positive to anxious officials that singing was an incitation to lawlessness and violence.
All these hymns were combinations of simplicity and ideals, had an object to glorify virtues, both moral and civic, the valiant actions, as the commemoration of events which were historic, political and social in nature. Thus invoking the masses to turn to the Fatherland, or pay homage to courage of the heroes who died as victims of the public cause; they excite the worship of the laws and the glory of the Republic (Pierre, 1899).
As battles over The Alarm of the People and the Marseillaise dragged on through the spring and summer of 1795, the deeply divided National Convention wavered, throwing its weight behind one composition and then the other. The Directory brought the battles decisively to an end in the winter of 1796 by arresting singers of The Alarm and requiring nightly theatrical performances of the Marseillaise and other republican music that finally bored audiences to silence. Now, revolutionary music culture began to lose its vigour.
Opera
French fondness for public spectacles was gratified when the Revolution by the inauguration of magnificent national festivals, fro which music was provided by composers like Gossec, Mehul, Catel, Le Sueur and Cherubini, largely in from of huge coral numbers and hymns to be sung by the empire populace (Grout and Williams 2003, p.335). Following the revolution, Parisians were able to enjoy a great variety of theatrical events. They produced grand opera along with ballets and other types of dramatic spectacles.
The French Revolution of 1789 was a cultural watershed. What was left of the old tradition of Lully and Rameau was finally swept away, to be rediscovered only in the twentieth century. The Gluckian school and opéra comique survived, but they immediately began to reflect the turbulent events around them. Established composers such as Grétry and Dalayrac were drafted in to write patriotic propaganda pieces for the new regime. A typical example is Gossec’s Le triomphe de la République (1793) which celebrated the crucial Battle of Valmy the previous year. A new generation of composers appeared, led by Étienne Méhul and the Italian-born Luigi Cherubini.
They applied Gluck’s principles to opéra comique, giving the genre a new dramatic seriousness and musical sophistication. The stormy passions of Méhul’s operas of the 1790s, such as Stratonice and Ariodant, earned their composer the title of the first musical Romantic. Cherubini’s works too held a mirror to the times. Lodoiska was a “rescue opera” set in Poland, in which the imprisoned heroine is freed and her oppressor overthrown. Cherubini’s masterpiece, Médée (1797), reflected the bloodshed of the Revolution only too successfully: it was always more popular abroad than in France. The lighter Les deux journées of 1800 was part of a new mood of reconciliation in the country.
The final years of the Revolution witnessed a de-politicization of songs and hymns that paralleled the declining political activism of France. At the upper echelon of society, educated poets and composers produced pastoral, romantic, or comic songs purged of any trace of political opinion. Working people gathered in bars and cafés to sing drinking songs or revolutionary songs that were simply old favourites. In all popular arenas, the only topical songs were those that celebrated France’s victorious armies and the increasingly famous Napoleon Bonaparte.
Eminent Composers
The power of music as a propaganda tool was not lost on the leaders of the French revolt. “During the violent phases of the Revolution,” Donakowski, “musicians enjoyed relative peace if they seemed willing top promotes the doctrines of the new covenant” (72, p.48). Many were willing. As a result, countless songs and instrumental pieces were written to commemorate specific battles and heroes, to carry the message of the Revolution to every member of the largely literate populace, and generally to keep the flames of enthusiasm burning bright.
Jean-Francois Le Sueur (1760-1837), was one of the well known composers who leaped to the call with hymns and other music for the great revolutionary festivals. Others were Gossec, Catel, Mehul and Cherubini. These men included leading composers of France’s favourite musical genre: opera. Here, too they proved to be men of hour, reflecting the spirit of the times with spectacles on patriotic themes.
The interface between music and politics during the transition between the Ancien Régime and the modern world, pivoted around the French Revolution, forms the background of this section. The musical selections include several works by François-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829) that embody a clear political message, as well as works that have a tangential connection with the contemporaneous political climate. The career of Gossec was entangled with politics from a very early period. In fact, his biography in The New Grove Dictionary of Music is divided into two phases: before and after the French Revolution. Gossec was particularly successful in exploiting the theatricality of music through spectacular sound effects, creating bombastic textures that could evoke national pride in his audience.
He was at the forefront of musical activities in France during the revolutionary period, helping to create a type of civic music through songs, wind symphonies, and choral music intended for outdoor performances involving massive forces. (Pierre, 1899) The Suite d’airs révolutionnaires, as well as the Trois hymnes à la liberté, are clear examples of music that is politically motivated. Gossec’s feeling for the power of instrumental color is evident in this excerpt from a review by Fétis, published in 1829, regarding Gossec’s Tuba mirum:
The audience was alarmed by the dreadful and sinister effect of the three trombones together with four clarinets, four trumpets, four horns and eight bassoons, hidden in the distance and in a lofty part of the church, to announce the last judgment, while the orchestra expressed terror with a muted tremolo in all the strings.
The son of a small farmer, Gossec was born at the village of Vergnies, in Belgian Hainaut. Showing an early taste for music, he became a choir-boy in Antwerp. He went to Paris in 1751 and was taken on by the great composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau. He became the conductor of a private band kept by La Popelinière, a wealthy amateur, and became gradually determined to do something to revive the study of instrumental music in France.
Gossec’s own first symphony was performed in 1754, and as conductor to the Prince de Condé’s orchestra he produced several operas and other compositions of his own. He imposed his influence on French music with remarkable success. He premiered his Requiem in 1760, a piece ninety minutes in length, which made him famous overnight.
Gossec founded the Concert des Amateurs in 1770 and in 1773 he reorganised the Concert Spirituel together with Simon Leduc and Pierre Gaviniès. In this concert series he presented and conducted his own symphonies as well as those by his contemporaries, especially works by Joseph Haydn, whose music became more and more popular in Paris, and finally even superseded Gossec’s symphonic work. In the 1780s, Gossec’s symphonic output decreased and he concentrated on operas.
He organized the École de Chant in 1784, together with Etienne Méhul, was conductor of the band of the Garde Nationale at the French Revolution, and was appointed (again with Méhul and Luigi Cherubini) inspector of the Conservatoire de Musique on its creation in 1795. He was an original member of the Institut and a chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the Conservatoire was closed for some time by Louis XVIII, and the eighty-one year-old Gossec had to retire. Until 1817 he worked on his last composition, a third Te Deum, and was supported by a pension granted by the Conservatoire.
Some of his techniques seem to have anticipated the innovations of the Romantic era: he wrote a Te Deum for 1200 singers and 300 wind instruments; several oratorios include instructions for physical separation of multiple choirs, including invisible ones behind the stage. He wrote several works in honor of the French revolution, including Le Triomphe de la République, and L’Offrande à la Liberté.
He was little known outside France, and his own numerous compositions, sacred and secular, were overshadowed by those of more famous composers; but he was an inspiration to many, and powerfully stimulated the revival of instrumental music.
Obviously, this was the kind of music intended to have the greatest possible impact on a large audience, by pulling together all their feelings of collectivity, communal togetherness, and national identity. Conversely, other selections in the program (such as the works by Mozart and Beethoven) address a more subjective aspect, elaborating on the feelings of the individual as part of a community. In this way, tonight’s program articulates the dynamics between the private and the public, the subjective and the collective, which is always at the center of political upheavals and revolutionary changes that have shaped much of our history.
Charles-Simon Catel was one of the founding members of the Conservatoire. His contribution to band music along with Gossec is immense. Two of his works, Lisle, Yode patriotique by Catel were songs t celebrate triumph for the fete of the vendemiaire (Pierrre, 1899).
Maria Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842), a Florentine who had studied under Sarti, proved to be a master counterpoint, an excellent church musician, and a gifted composer fro the theatre. He had successfully produced a number of serious and comic operas.
Etienne Henri (or Nicolas) Méhul (June 22, 1763 – October 18, 1817) was a French composer, “the most important opera composer in France during the Revolution.” He was also the first composer to be called a Romantic. Cherubini, according to Pierre, had written around 9 compositions. Some historians like M. J. Drop believes that he has written 22 hymns and Lebrun believes ha has come up with 12 (Pierre, 1899)
Méhul composed a number of songs for the festivals of the republic cantatas, and five symphonies in the years 1797 and 1808 to 1810.The First Symphony was revived in one of Felix Mendelssohn’s concerts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1838 and 1846 to an audience including Robert Schumann, who was impressed by the piece. In his mature symphonies, Mehul continued the path Haydn (the Paris Symphonies, 1785-86, for example), Mozart (Symphony No. 40, K.550, 1788) had taken, two composers who enjoyed great popularity in France in the early 19th century (Pierre, 1899). The Symphony No.3 and 4 was only rediscovered by Charlton in 1979.
Conclusion
The relationship between music and politics, albeit a strong one, has been always difficult to pinpoint. Music, as a non-objective art, has a tremendous power to awaken instinctive responses in the audience. Through this study we enumerate that it can be justly termed as a tool for political and propagandist manipulation at several junctures in history, and it can also give voice to genuine feelings of national identity and pride. In fact, for much of its history, music has been at the service of political or religious classes, as it provided those in power with a convenient and highly effective means of ideological indoctrination.
One has only to take a cursory glance at the myriad functions that music fulfilled in the Baroque courts or in the politically charged environment of the Enlightenment to understand how much of what was composed at the time was motivated by political needs. On a whole we can conjecture that music had played a vital role during French Revolution in creating public opinion through political propaganda and had shown a way to the revolutionaries of the world the way to reach the masses and ignite their feelings.
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In this presentation I am going to give an overview of music education and its relationship with music therapy. Music forms play an important role in human lives. In this paper, I want to consider music therapy. I will focus on some arguments and controversies concerning the matter. While there are many people who believe that music therapy is not effective, I believe that music can provide us with one of the most effective therapies. However, the debate and controversy about music therapy does not end here (Wheeler 13).
Music Therapy
Music therapy is the use of music as something that will have positive effects in social, psychological, and physical functioning of people with different educational or health needs. Personally, I believe that current studies are effective because they show the profound effects of music.
This involves the use of music to heal individuals with different complications. The main therapeutic responses include calming patients, easing tension, promoting movement, and reducing depression (Wheeler 18). It is possible to state that music positively affects the human brain because it eases tension and creates calmness that helps in healing different diseases.
On the other hand, there is certain controversy in this issue. Some individuals argue that music is useful for personal relaxation and fulfilment but has no therapeutic properties. Various individuals and researchers argue that music can distort somebody’s feelings especially at high volume (Wheeler 19). Such individuals argue that music cannot be used for individuals who are sick. This controversy is what has excited researchers and has encouraged them to conduct surveys to explore the relevance of music as a tool of therapy.
Application of Music Therapy
It is important to look at the different views and approaches towards the of use music for therapeutic purposes. With different views and controversies about effectiveness of music as a tool for therapy in mind, I still believe that people can use music for different purposes. Studies have shown that music can influence heartbeat and breathing (Wheeler 28). This can make the body function better and, therefore, we should be willing to use music for our own health benefits.
Music can improve somebody’s state of mind thus making it easier to deal with anxiety or any form of depression. Listening to music can help reduce stress and make the body active. Other possible benefits of music include lowering the body pressure, boosting the immunity and easing tension of muscles.
However, I would like to point out that some individuals do not see the benefits of the use of music. They argue that music therapy cannot address some of the complications. However, I think the Individuals who are sceptical about the therapeutic properties of music should try to listen to music and check if it helps ease their tensions and depression.
I would like to state that, because there are different opinions about music therapy, different individuals should be willing to use music and see whether it can be helpful (Wheeler 38). This will make it easier for them to have a first-hand experience. They will be able to come to the right conclusions as for the use of music. They will definitely agree that music can be a potent tool to treat certain diseases and conditions. This will help people dissolve the existing controversy.