Adam Rasmussen: Beauty in Music

All throughout my life I have listened to music. While my taste in music has changed over the years, I have always listened to music for the same purpose. I am calmed and soothed by music, I allow myself to get lost in the rhythm and move with the flow of the music. It clears my mind and I find that the constant inner voice subsides when I succumb to the music. I had never thought of music of having beauty, but rather a power over people. Van Der Leeuw argues that music has an inherent power and it comes from the rhythm and rhyme. Ive been to many concerts and raves and there are always people who give themselves up to the beat and become one with it. Their bodies become extensions of the music, it consumes everything inside of them and the expression of movement is like second nature. I think the beauty of music resides in its power to take a person out of the immediate context and put them in a different state of mind. It is beautiful because the “now” is irrelevant. The artist, the stage, the lights, even the audience falls away. When enveloped in the beauty and power of music, the desire to be “cool” or “hip” fades away. It doesn’t matter what other people think of your dancing, or what you are wearing or if youre the coolest person in the room. The only thing that matters is the music.