Music has a huge impact globally. It’s written and sung in different languages, it can be very important to certain cultures, and can be a very powerful tool to bring people together despite differences.

To me music is very important. As a kid, my dad often cleaned the house and put on bachata music in the background. He also loved to sing and dance to it a whole lot and I remember trying to sing the words as well.  Despite not being too good with it, I still enjoyed singing and soon enough started to join my dad with dancing. This was my first introduction to music and still, my dad and I bond with music heavily. 

I have also made many friends with music and it is a great way to start conversations. It has gotten me through hard times and lately I can’t concentrate well without music in the background. As we all know, there is a great variety of music and people have different tastes, so I wanted to know what people around WMS listen to and their opinions on music. 

I created a survey for WMS students and teachers that asked about their musical interests. A question I asked was “What is your favorite music genre/genres?” and according to the poll the 3 most listened to music genres are Hip Hop/Rap, Pop, and Rock. I wasn’t really surprised by Hip Hop/Rap because I hear other students listening to it all the time. I also wasn’t really surprised by Pop being there because of the responses I received to another question “Who is your favorite solo music artist?” For example, people said they like Taylor Swift, Pink, Beyonce, Bruno Mars, and many more. 

However, I was very surprised that Rock was the 3rd most popular genre around the school, and the reason being that I never really heard people listen to Rock and Rock is often put in a negative light due to it being too “edgy” and “intense”.

Another question I asked in my survey was “what got you into music?” and according to the statistics, most of the answers that I got were family. To be honest, I’m not really surprised that family is the top one because I too was introduced to music by my family. However, there was one that surprised me a bit. Someone said that they got into music by a TV show called The Masked Singer. 

One great aspect that I love about music is how powerful it can be and it seems that I’m not the only one who thinks this is true. 7th grade language arts teacher and basketball coach, Mr Guidetti, said, “Music is a language of emotion, it helps connect people of all gender, race and ethnicity together.” He also said, “Music impacted my life very positively, it helped influence much of my poetry and is very inspirational.” 

Mrs Early, an 8th grade history teacher said, “Music is a language to me because sometimes you can get a message or a feeling with a song even if there are no words.”

Music also helps with a variety of troubles. Music helps me greatly when I’m going through hard times. According to another article “The Importance of music: When and Why We Listen to Music” , the importance of listening to music and how music is just so enjoyable to us humans is discussed. The articles give some reasons about why we listen to music. Music can help with anxiety, anger, loneliness, sleep troubles, and more! 

Music is also extremely great with changing people’s emotions. This is actually the main reason why I love music so much. For example, imagine you need to clean your room. Let’s face it, it’s not so great, but a solution that I found is that music can help me get more determined and work faster. 

It amazes me that music can be that powerful! 8th grader, Kobe Henry, said, “I can find music to be more concentrating for me because if you’re doing work after school it can make you more determined, but it just depends on what music you listen to.” 

Another 8th grader, Abigail Bober, said, “Music means a lot to me because it helps me get through moods.”  

Everyone has different schedules and situations so music can be helpful for some and not so helpful for others. An 8th grader says that the best time to listen to music for them is when they are working. Another 8th grader, Nick Reyes, said that he likes to listen to music whenever he can. Anthony Perez said, “The best time to listen to music for me is whenever I feel like escaping reality.” But it seems that the majority of the people I interviewed all agree that music is very helpful for concentrating. 

According to the survey, sad music seems to be a fairly debated genre. The question I asked is “Do you find sad music comforting?” and some said yes while others said no. The people who said yes all have the same reasoning, being that it’s relatable and it helps get your tears out. While the people who say no also all have the same reasoning, it just makes you even more upset. For me, it helps a lot. Sad music is very cathartic to me and it’s a lifesaver at times when I need to let it all out. 

With so much music out there in the world peoples tastes and opinions will be very different. It’s so interesting to know different people’s opinions, but it also matters to be respectful when listening to these opinions. Music is so beautiful, it’s been there for many people like myself in times of need, is such a great way to bond and make friends with others, and is just in general, a part of almost everyone’s lives. I cherish music and learned that WMS does as well.