An Analysis of Music and Society in the Modern Era Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between music and society in the modern era. It examines how ideological, historical, social, and technological factors have shaped musical trends and impacted music history. The report explores changes in music motivated by ideology, the complex interaction between music practice, ideology, and social class, and the harmonic, rhythmic, and structural features of music. It discusses nationalism, modernism, and the influence of social issues like rock music, morality, and emotional impact. The report also touches upon the influence of social class on musical tastes and ideologies, and how music plays a vital role in people's lives, affecting emotions and behavior. Finally, it details various musical elements such as melody, rhythm, harmony, and structural features like dynamics and timbre, and how they contribute to the overall musical experience.

MUSIC AND SOCIETY THE
MODERN ERA

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Changes in music during the modern era that have been motivated by ideology..................1
Historical, social, ideological, and technological issues that have had a significant impact
upon music history.................................................................................................................2
Complex interaction of music practice, ideology, and social class........................................3
Harmonic, rhythmic, and structural features of music...........................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Music and society are in an interrelationship with each other that both affects each other
in various terms effectively. It can be said that music is changing perception of people which
have a significant impact on societies. The report will cover changes in music during the modern
world that has been motivated by ideology and historical, social, ideological, and technological
issues and also the impact they have had a significant impact upon music history. In addition to
this, complex interaction of music practice, ideology, and social class and harmonic, rhythmic,
and structural features of music will be discussed in this report.
MAIN BODY
Changes in music during the modern era that have been motivated by ideology
The nationalism emerged in the 19th century as a musical movement which is connected
with political independence movements and characterised by an intensity on national music
elements such as rhythms, fold songs and dances, symphonic poems nationalist subject for
operas and other music effectively. When the new nations were started to form in Europe, its
effect on music as a reaction in nationalism against dominance of mainstream started (Fisher,
2017).
In addition to this, composers and musicians started to separate themselves from various
standards set by the French, Italian and especially German traditionalists. In music, the term
modernism refers generally to the significant departure in musical languages that occur at or
around the beginning of the 20th century, creating new understanding of harmonics, melodies,
Sonics, and rhythmic aspect of music. Innovation is taking place and it is also motivated by the
ideology which makes changes in the music effectively.
Joseph Parry Born in Wales but moved to UK when he was a child. He performed Welsh
Songs with Welsh texts and also composed the first Welsh opera in 1878. Edward Elgar was best
known for Pomp and Circumstances Marches. Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged many folk
songs and also wrote many pieces based on folk melodies such as the Five Variants on Dives and
Lazarus and Fantasia on Green-sleeves.
1

Political expression in song in terms of a connection between music and politics has been
seen in different cultures. It can be said that music affects political movements and rituals.
However, it is not clear how people judges and relates the music on political level. Music
expressed the protest themes, anti-establishment including patriotic songs, national anthems, and
political campaigns. Ideologies are driving music that the world is changing and perception of
people is also changing with that (Weber, 2017). They are now more relative towards music and
want something new. There are only few people left according to a survey who likes old music
but the era has also transformed the way people are listening to the old music nowadays.
Historical, social, ideological, and technological issues that have had a significant impact upon
music history
It can be said that technological, ideological, social and historical issues had a significant
impact on the music history. Music is everywhere in culture, present, past, times and places. All
people of the world love music including isolated tribal group that have been presented in the
ancestral population prior to the dispersal of human around the world effectively.
In addition to this, social issues also have a significant impact on music with the modern
era that worldwide scope and popularity of rock music has a powerful impact on societies. It
influenced fashion, daily life, behaviour, language and attitudes towards social development. The
original generation of rock and roll fans is matured and also music became an accepted thread in
the popular culture. It can be said that the popular music reflects today's world.
One of the most outrageous example of this situation is the song Selfie by Chain Smokers
which is spot on commentary towards media and youth culture of today's world. The culture is
changing more frequently than it was ever before. There was a time when music might remain
for hundreds of years (Taylor and Cobb, 2016).
Now, it can be said that music taste changes so quickly. The modern media and culture is
also supporting rock music. Parents are so stressed that their children who were involved in bad
activities such as drugs, alcohol and other things was coming in their lives so earlier. Culture and
music is flowing together and it is very important for parents to be aware of modern day culture
in order to create better understanding with their children so that they can stop them towards
involving in bad activities effectively.
In addition to this, morality is about what is wrong and what is right towards behaviour of
an individual. Music has also affected morality of people that it changes their thinking and
2

especially, rap and hip-hop music which affects societies. Nowadays, there are number of music
styles in which lyrics consider drugs, violence and sex which affect the behaviour of people
especially children and adults.
Emotional impact is one of the most direct and identifiable impacts of music on societies.
It can be said that music creates an atmosphere and environment according to the mood which
influence feelings of human beings. Music has the potential to shift an atmosphere, create an
environment, change the mood and encourage a direct behaviour (McAulay, 2016). It is
identified that an average American listens to music for four hours in a day, so that it can be
imagined how music is affecting daily life as well as emotions effectively.
Complex interaction of music practice, ideology, and social class
It can be said that the interaction of music practice, social class and ideology is very
complex in terms of different situations. Social class is affected by modern music era and also
politics which has a great significant impact on people especially children and adults. A study
identified that education and wealth do not have an impact on people breadth of musical taste.
However, other factors such as class, gender, age ethnicity and status shapes musical
tastes in interesting and complex ways. There are different types of people who have various
tastes and preferences about music, food and other things (Bell, 2016). The main reason behind
this are various languages, living style and thinking of people which shapes their minds towards
taste of music.
In addition to this, social class also affect culture and attitude from the way people listen
to the music. For an example, most educated people does not like music such as classical as
compared to the best educated respondent. Apart from this, the higher class people dislike genres
such as easy listening, country and golden odes which is enjoyed by lower class people. This will
also divide music form in various terms. Thus, it can be said that different types of people have
their various choices regarding music which also have a significant impact on their personality,
thinking and attitude.
Ideologies Varkøy, (2017) towards music is also changing day by day that music is not
much worthy when a new one enters in the market. The world of music is increasing day by day
3

and ideologies of people is also changing with that effectively. It can be said that people are now
more aware of taste of music that it is necessary for the musicians to relate music and its
effectiveness to current thinking and culture of world in order to make it successful in the
market.
The world is full of music and people can find a lot of different music and its elements at
various places. Internet has become the main source of listening music for people nowadays. It is
very easy to find any kind of music on internet so that they can listen to it. Social class is
changing with the modern era and music is performing a lead role in this.
It has now become an effective part of a person life that everyone wants to listen to music
anywhere especially in parties and celebrations. In addition to this, interaction of people with
music is increasing day by day as there are a lot of musicians where music is available for them.
Various platforms are there for them to get in touch with music. There is a complex relationship
between music, culture and ideologies that meanings, ideas and values are changing with social
relations in terms of beliefs (Shih, 2016).
Apart from this, it can be said that cultural expression is a relatively autonomous practice
of society that has own its own development and also a specific relationship to the ideological,
economic and political levels. There is a similarity to the complexities of dominants culture in
relationship to other class culture; each class culture is highly completive that contain within
different relatively autonomous “region” and sub-culture or counterculture effectively and
efficiently.
Harmonic, rhythmic, and structural features of music
In today's world, music plays a vital role in human being lives that it is found
everywhere. This is one of the important parts of any human since its beginning. They listen to
music for different purposes such as personal entertainment, stimulation, relaxation and
contemplative activities. It is analysed that music has power to affect psychological aspects of
behaviour in both consciously and unconsciously way. In addition to this, there are different
types of music elements also exists such as texture, harmony, form, dynamics, timbre, melody,
notation, dynamics and rhythm (Ding, 2015). Notation is written on paper from which an
4

individual is able to perform same music again and again. In addition, melody is a succession of
single tones or pitches that are perceived to be unified. For an example, Brahms, symphony.
There are different types of melody such as pitch which is highness or lowness of a tone
and also depends on frequency. Interval is a distance and relationship between two pitches.
Range is a distance between the highest tone and lowest tones of a melody such as an instrument
or voice. Shape is a direction which is taken by melody to turn upwards and downward or also
remain static. Phrase can be described as a language which is a unit within a larger structure and
divided into component phrases effectively. Cadence is a place of resting in a musical phrase and
finally countermelody Collins, (2017) which is played against principle of melody.
Rhythm can be described as an element of time in music. There are some characteristics
of rhythm such as beat, accent, tempo, measure, meter, upbeat, downbeat, non-metric, poly
rhythmic and syncopation. Harmony is a simultaneous combination of notes which ensures
relationship of chords and intervals (Işıktaş and Turan, 2016).
In addition to this, there are some characteristics of harmony as well such as scale,
tonality, tonic, diatonic, chromatic, drone, consonance, dissonance etc. Different structural
features have been determined in mediating musical tension ranging from timbre, dynamics,
harmony, tonality, phrase structure, note density, and repetition. In addition to this, dynamics can
be described as designations for the relative loudness or quietness of music such as Pianissimo,
Piano, Mezzo-piano, Forte, Fortissimo, crescendo, decrescendo, sforzando are involved. Timbre
is a quality of sound that helps to distinguish between one instrument or voice from another and
also known as tone colour.
In addition to this, percussion family which is an instrument played by striking the
surface such as drums, chimes, xylophone and triangle. Keyboards are instruments which are
played by musicians by pressing keys which cause hammer to strike a taught string effectively
such as piano, synthesizers and harpsichord (Zhou, 2017). Finally, ensembles are also known as
musically performing groups such as mixed, vocal and instrumental effectively.
5

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that music affects fashion, daily life,
behaviour, language and attitude towards social development. Culture and music is flowing
together and it is very important for parents to be aware of modern day culture in order to create
better understanding with their children. It is analysed that music affects the morality of people
as it changes their thinking. There are different types of people who have various taste and
preferences about music as it has a significant impact on their personality, thinking and attitude.
There is also an establishment in complex relationship between music, culture and ideologies
that has some meanings, ideas or values that could be changing day by day.
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bell, T.L., 2016. Sound, society and the geography of popular music. Routledge.
Collins, P., 2017. Making a Joyful Noise: The Multiple Forms and Functions of Music in
Modern Revivalism. In Reading Religion in Text and Context (pp. 119-135). Routledge.
Ding, J., 2015. Change of Music in the Internet Age and Its Reasons Research.
Fisher, A.J., 2017. Music and religious identity in counter-Reformation Augsburg, 1580-1630.
Routledge.
Işıktaş, B. and Turan, N.S., 2016. The Deadlock of Nation-state: The Problem of Nationalisation
of Music During the Early Republican Era in Turkey. Rast Musicology Journal 4(1)
pp.1076-1092.
McAulay, K., 2016. Our ancient national airs: Scottish song collecting from the Enlightenment
to the Romantic era. Routledge.
Shih, Y., 2016. Tradition in Motion-The Status and Identity of Amateur Beiguan Opera and
Music Communities [Zidi] in Modern Taiwanese Society (Doctoral dissertation,
University of Sheffield).
Taylor, J.C. and Cobb, G.W., 2016. An Approach to Undergraduate Research-Developing an
Understanding of the Musical Process through the Editing of Early Music.
Varkøy, Ø., 2017. On the Hegemony of Technical Rationality and the Importance of
Distinctions. Philosophy of Music Education Review 25(1) pp.10-22.
Weber, W., 2017. Musical Culture and the Capital City: The Epoch of the beau monde in
London, 1700–1870. In Concert Life in Eighteenth-Century Britain (pp. 71-90).
Routledge.
Zhou, X., 2017. 31. Research on Modern Music Communication and Development based on
Multimedia and Communication Elements. Boletín Técnico, ISSN: 0376-723X 55(15).
7