Music As Anoydyne (Cont.)

 

It's interesting how music is used as anodyne after major horrific events. I recall after 9/11 there was music one could or could not play as being appropriate or inappropriate. (Certain classical pieces seem to be more elegiac. Barber's Adagio For Strings is often used, apparently considered the saddest music ever written.) And yet the irony is that music of any kind is anathema to fundamentalism. We like to think music has healing power but that might be our cultural arrogance.

There is also the effect of the event on the meaning of the music. Music with words (or anything that has text, like a film) garners more salience after memory encoding. Words can be meaningless until things happen in one's life. In the days and weeks after the attacks, I'd be listening to the radio and there would be interesting serendipity: You'd be listening to a report about Islamic holy wars, change the dial to rock station, and hear Lennon's Instant Karma followed by Tom Petty's Won't Back Down. 

You can't remove meaning from random events as they occur. They are distinctly personal experiences that seem to be made just for you.

11/4/2015