The Groundhog Issue #3 - Groundhog Day!

Why Do We Love Music?

This started as a hypothetical question, but I’ve learned things about others that I never would have if it weren’t for music. Somehow music opens the heart and allows us to feel and process emotions. There’s that feeling you get when a song finally clicks. It binds people together that otherwise never would have understood each other. Whether playing, listening, or talking about it, music gives us an opportunity to be ourselves.

For most of the population, music is something you put on when you’re going somewhere or working out. It’s only ever in the background. Participating in the Vancouver and Victoria music scenes has allowed me to find other people who need it to feel whole.

The Brain

Music is intertwined with the evolution of humanity, and singing is considered to be one of the earliest forms of language. The earliest instruments discovered are at least 40,000 years old, but we’ve been making noise long as long as we’ve been around. It’s universal. Whether you’re in love for the first time, playing songs for people to dance to, or singing to your baby.

Our brains have evolved to excel at pattern recognition, which is why songs can be so satisfying to listen to. But sound does something else to us. There’s a chemical reaction in the brain.

Sound unlocks feelings we have forgotten. When Livin’ On A Prayer by Bon Jovi plays, all of a sudden it’s 5 AM, I’m seven years old and I’m on the way to hockey practice. Ivy by Frank Ocean unearths the sadness I felt the day my older brother moved away for university. Changes by Black Sabbath brings back the pain of losing my childhood cat. Songs carry us back through time and help process our experiences.

Personal Expression

Music allows us to better understand ourselves and what it means to be human. Everyone wants to find new ways to express themselves, and being able to translate your feelings through an instrument is the ultimate release.

This is the feeling that musicians are chasing, whether they’re conscious of it or not. The desire for personal expression drives us to improve. I’m grateful that I’m surrounded by artists who understand how fortunate they are.

People make music because they need to make sense of their lives. The music that makes us feel something is what sticks with us when the notes have faded. This is what makes it human.

Live

A truly impactful live performance is life changing. It sounds like a cliché, but I’ll give you an example. Two summers ago I went on a band trip. Our destination was Comox, but we spent the first night in Victoria. Before Gigpit, finding a show meant searching Instagram for every band I knew in town. After looking through a dozen Instagram accounts, I found a show at Little Fernwood with Earth Freaks and Dysaynia. I had seen Earth Freaks at the Victoria Event Centre earlier that year and was a fan, but I had never seen Dysaynia. We ended up missing the Earth Freaks’ set, and I was extremely disappointed. But the next 45 minutes changed my life forever.

Riffs pumped through the room and sent the audience into a craze. Thundering bass lines launched attendees into each other. Wailing guitar leads pulled me closer to the stage. I shared looks of “holy shit” with my friends. I had never experienced that kind of pure energy.

The feeling I got from this show is why I eventually started writing about music. I found it frustrating that I wasn’t able to use words to explain the feeling. Taking a sensory experience and trying to translate it into words seems like an impossible feat, but it’s a lot easier when you get help from other people.

We’re lucky to be surrounded by live bands that are constantly evolving and improving their sound. It’s the reason that there are so many dedicated concert attendees in the BC music scene. Witnessing an artist’s confidence grow in person is a privilege so many of us take for granted.

Music in the New World

The digital world has done wonders for the accessibility of music. Recording a song in-progress is as easy as pulling out your phone. Advances in computer programming have allowed the notes of a song to align “perfectly" on a grid. But does uniformity define perfection? Throughout the history of humanity, music has lived and breathed alongside us. You couldn’t put a song in your pocket and save it for later.

In some settings, live music has become a means of reproducing recorded material. It used to be that taking a band into a studio was a struggle to capture the life-force of their music. With the prevalence of recordings, some bands now feel pressure to present a replica of their studio sound. Imagine if someone took a photo of your smile, and from then on you couldn’t smile any other way? Recording technology is just over 100 years old, which means that music owes its existence to community and connection. Playing with other people was that only way to make something greater than yourself.

Connection

Life is the people around you. Some of my greatest friendships have formed through music. Experiencing things alone can be great, but finding pockets of magic with others is an unbeatable feeling.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone I talked to used different words to express the same feeling. They love music because of the people around them.

The Feeling

Music helps us understand how we feel. It connects us with the people around us. It makes us feel alive. It’s why we devote so much of our time and energy into it. It’s important to remember that humanity has always needed music. In times of celebration, oppression, or boredom, music is the language that every person is capable of understanding.