Why Do People Listen To Music? Why Does It Matter?

By live365BlogRadio for

SDC Radio Networks

Music is something we love dearly. For some people it’s among the most important thing in their lives.

As a lifelong musician, live concert fan, and radio enthusiast, my daily world revolves around music. I bet I speak for many of our music broadcasters.

But why do we love music? What is it about a collection of sounds put together in the right pitch, sequence, and tempo that hits our heart and soul?

For me personally, music is an abstraction that pulls together undefined nuances of a moment and gives it the concreteness that allows me to understand it more fully. It brings me a step closer to reality and paints a canvass for describing an instant for which written and spoken language do not do justice. Music explains, inspires, creates, and destroys our feelings, thoughts, and conjectures. You know, I actually think you could place any verb in the place of those I just mentioned.

But enough of the abstract philosophy.

Simply put, music enhances our lives as a purely emotional form of audio entertainment.

So where does this fit in with creating a playlist?

It starts with the intention of your playlist and your music. What are you trying accomplish? Where are you trying to take people with your song choices? Are you trying to bring them somewhere new with words and sounds they haven’t heard before? Or is your station a place for people to revisit nostalgic tunes of their childhood? Maybe it’s something else…

Whatever your intentions, sharing music with your audience is powerful and special, and for that, I thank you.

Just my two cents, and maybe something to keep in mind when building your playlists.