Let your love of music bring us together

I read Newsweek on the toilet. As a parent of a three month old and a 21 month old it's darn near the only chance I get to read these days. Hey—I'll take it!

The article that resonated with me the most out of the 9/12/08 issue was "Sing, Brain, Sing" by Daniel Levitin. Nearly every sentence in the article is fascinating, but a couple of points really struck me.

One of them is a reference to how the music appreciation gene might have been passed on:

So the story is that those of our ancestors who synchronized automatically, who moved in response to sound, were perhaps more successful at their cooperative undertakings and were able to pass on the trait.

This of course is a speculation of how the love of music was propagated within the species. But I couldn't help but think of all the times I've shared music with family, friends and strangers, and how it promoted an unspoken bond between us. Music really does bring us together. It can allow us to resonate at the same frequency. It gets us into the same zone.

This got me thinking. I might be able to use music as a tool. They* say to dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Perhaps the same is true with music. If I make a point of listening to the same music as the people I admire, will I become more like them? I'm going to scan interviews for mentions of music and give it a try. What do I have to lose?

Another point that struck me is:

Music is not a news report intended to represent objective facts. What it is better able to do than language is represent emotional states.

Do emotional states bring us together and allow us to work cooperatively more than any other factor? Next time I have some friends over to help paint the house I'll put on "I Can't Drive 55" and see what happens. If that just irritates my "small haired" friends, I'll give Bonnie Raitt a try. I'm guessing that the blues aren't as conducive to the job at hand, but it's possible I will be proven wrong.

*You know—THEM