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| Brueghel's Peasant Dance |
The way in which we remember and enjoy music has changed over the last couple of centuries...even more so over the last 20-30 years. Our music comes with us everywhere on our iPods, phones, laptops, home sound systems, etc. We create our own life's playlist. We associate times, places, people, events, weather, smells, and even emotions with a particular tune because we have so much easy-access to music.
Forever in our minds, particular songs can remind us of a time, ranging from the haunting to pure bliss. Some of these tunes may be ruined forever, scarring us with the memory of a place where we don't wish our minds to go. Some perhaps make us smile and think of a person or a location in which we yearn to relive over and over again. And then there are even songs that simply remind us of basic things like a commute, a routine, or maybe a job.
Humans before us didn't have this experience. I don't think music has lost any of its sacredness, but songs were relegated for very specific, and for most people rare moments. Access to a wide range of music was also not in the norm. Thus, a person's perception of music and how they associated it with tangents was likely totally different. I don't feel regretful for them. It's humbling; they probably appreciated the small range of tunes they had, and enjoyed them just as much as I do with my favorite songs. But I realize now how much the dynamics has changed, and this highlights the fact that we are wading into new water in how we perceive music.
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