Music in My Life: Being a Part of Musical Discourse

A discourse community is defined as “A group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. ” An easier way of wording the definition comes from Linguist John Swales and he defines such as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals". Swales also claims that in order to be considered a discourse community, you must follow six requirements: A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, has mechanisms of intercommunication among their members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, in addition to owning genres, it has acquired some specific lexis, and a has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. Without even realizing it, every single person in the world is in fact in a discourse community. Discourse communities range from what profession you are in, if you play for a sports team, or even something as simple as being a Post Malone fan, which brings me to the topic of this essay: music. One of my favorite quotes that really shows the meaning of music from a musician's perspective is by Benjamin Britten, he writes “It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony. " Music can mean a million different things to a million different people.

Music is not as simple as it may seem, as when creating or preforming a piece takes a lot of knowledge and background information. Music ranges from the simple things like terms used in a piece, or something more complicated such as looking at a piece and recognizing what key it is in. Music education is a challenge even for the people who are born naturally talented in playing an instrument or singing. It takes a constant train of thought to work in a unit and has a language that is required to understand one another. This language includes terms such that singers or musicians physically create such as a nasal sound or a flat note, it also includes terms that help explain the piece presented such as downbeat, chord, decrescendo, etc.

To me, music is emotional. Music is global. Music changes. Characteristics like these demonstrate how music affects everyone, despite not affecting everyone in the same way. Imagine this, you are in the car and a throwback song comes on. Suddenly, a contagious smile appears on your face and every word comes rushing back. Something as simple as one song can bring back so many different memories, thoughts or emotions. The key factor in music is emotion, also known as pathos. Doing just that, you can make someone feel anything you want them to feel and that is truly the power of music. Nothing is more powerful than the human emotions and having the ability to make someone feel any single emotion that a human is capable of feeling. I have turned to music as a coping mechanism and even as a way to celebrate. Music has been there for me in every highpoint of my life, and even more so every low point that I didn't think I’d see the light at the end of the tunnel. You gain a sense of comfort knowing that with music, anything you feel, someone else has expressed that same exact emotion. It almost gives you a reminder that you are not alone. Music is so powerful that musical therapy techniques have been proven to ease pain, anxiety, and even depression.

Something that made me look at music in a whole different perspective is when one of my friends brought to my attention that showing emotion during a performance is the only way to steal the crowd. Since then I have realized it has no meaning if you don’t feel every word coming out of your mouth from the bottom of your soul. There is nothing more beautiful than seeing the way music affects someone despite the fact that everyone values music differently. If you do it well enough, you can reach anyone. From the earliest time in my childhood I can remember, music has always been the center of my life. Even in those times where it became less frequent, one way or another I found my way back to it. It is the thing I am most passionate about, and something that I can give my whole being too without asking any questions. Whether it was singing to my CD player during a car ride, swinging on the swings singing with my sisters, or being at rehearsal for whatever show I was in at the moment. Music peaked for me when I was just in first grade playing a main role in the local high school's play. It showed me the beauty of creating friendships with people who share the same passion, it taught me how very long nights before a long day of school was worth the satisfaction you will feel for yourself, and most importantly, it enlightened me in what I want to hold onto in my life. Music became an even bigger part of my life when I learned I could use it as a healthy coping mechanism. I found it again when I myself struggled with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and an eating disorder. Music helped heal me and allowed me to forget my worries by using my talent to affect other people. From auditioning for special choir groups, to competing in competitions and receiving all ones, I have learned a lot of music and the complexity of it. It’s more than just pretty sounds and hitting keys on a piano. It’s knowing when you sound flat, how to do a half step in a matter of seconds, it’s knowing the pitch by a simple whistle. Music is knowing how to work together with a group or challenging yourself to perform alone. Music is knowing hundreds of terms, music is using your body to hit notes, music is giving your audience an emotional trip. Throughout the different disciplines involved and the complexity of techniques used, ethos is demonstrated.

Now you may be thinking that because currently I’m not enrolled in any musical classes at UTA that I am not a part of the musical discourse right now, but that is far from true. There are many subsets of this discourse so whether or not I actively participate in music right now, I am still involved in other categories. Those categories include listening to music, being a fan of a certain genre or artist, or even singing in my free time. Another thing people may say to argue I am not in a musical discourse community is that the voice is not an instrument. Singing is defined as the vocal production of musical tones. Dating back into history, the voice is believed to be the original musical instrument. In no human culture does one not use their voice, no matter how remote they may be. An instrument is defined as “any object that produces sound. ” Therefore, I am indeed involved in this discourse community. Whether you listen to music or actually perform in some manner, you are in a discourse community. Music is a discourse community because it qualifies in all six categories Swales states makes a discourse community. The common goal is to play good music or preform in the way it was intended to be performed by the composer. The mechanism of intercommunications is all the group chats you are in with people in your group or class and emails from your instructor. You receive feedback based on how well your performance was in the eyes of your audience and how you made them feel. The genre category has too many to name, ranging from jazz, rock, to country and rap. The lexis are the musical terms learned along with the abbreviations such as mf, ff, p, accelerando, etc. And lastly the level of experienced members has a director who has a lot of experience and knowledge. The section leaders have a special talent for music that stands out to the director, and everyone else who is involved has the necessary level of experience, especially if an audition was required for that group.