Yes, it’s starting to look – and sound – a lot like Christmas. To me, what sums up Christmas more than anything is festive music, however early it starts. Carols and classics like Fairytales of New York are on the radio, while in the shops, as someone quipped to me the other day, “Mariah Carey’s out of the box already”. Music we only hear for a few weeks each year, and music which I think lifts the spirits at a dark and cold time. Whether the wonder of O Holy Night or the calm of O Little Town Of Bethlehem, Christmas carols tell such joyful news of light and hope and new beginnings: news we all need. Christmas songs like Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer simply sparkle with fun, a sprinkling of stardust.
“The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of…thought”. Those were the words of the famous conductor Thomas Beecham. Do you agree with him? Is thought a tyranny? I would guess that it is for most people at one time or another – overthinking the past, present or future, or all at once. Shutting those thoughts down and clearing your mind is not easy, and I know some people struggle all the more in silence. Music can balance thinking, or gradually alter your mood, or become a restful place to be, in the moment. The more ways there are now to stream music, the more people depend on sound to relax them, to wake them up, to cheer them.
What could be better proof of Thomas Beecham’s words? Given the choice, so many people prefer music to silence or background sounds, so many people want music as the soundtrack to their days.
I do wonder whether music stays as special and as positive or helpful when it becomes so constant? Might it just become another background to our lives? Might it become less of a “release”? Or on the other hand, could it gradually change the way we think altogether, so that thought becomes less of a tyranny in the first place?
I remember hearing that immunologists listened to music while developing the Covid vaccines. Apparently the music styles they chose depended a lot on their mood and progress. I wonder what song or piece of music heralded the final breakthrough?!
Music opens up another layer to life. It opens our minds to a different perspective, a different sound world. Think of it as moving from 2D to 3D. It lifts us out of the everyday. If I was to sum up music’s impact in three words, they would be “larger than life”. No wonder it’s probably the artform best known to boost wellbeing.
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