Music is a form of art that uses sound organised in time. Music is also a form of entertainment that puts sounds together in a way that people like, find interesting or dance to. Most music includes people singing with their voices or playing musical instruments, such as the piano, guitar, or drums. Music is an arrangement of sounds having melody, rhythm, and usually harmony classical music, the art of producing pleasing or expressive combinations of tones especially with melody, rhythm, and usually harmony.
While majority of Nigerians listen to music for entertainment, music can also stimulate the mind. There are many things in music, to which one can listen and pay attention to. Music can raise someone’s mood, get them excited, or make them calm and relaxed. Music allows us to feel nearly or possibly all emotions that we experience in our lives.
Music exerts a powerful influence on human beings. It can boost memory, build task endurance, lighten your mood, reduce anxiety and depression, stave off fatigue, improve your response to pain, and help you work out more effectively.
Music is often functional because it is something that can promote human well-being by facilitating human contact, human meaning, and human imagination of possibilities, tying it to our social instincts. Cognitive systems also underlie musical performance and sensibilities.
Music has been scientifically proven to have a powerful effect on the brain. Recent research shows that music can help in many aspects of the brain, including pain reduction, stress relief, memory, and brain injuries.
According to northshore.org, research has also shown that blood flows more easily when music is played. It can also reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure, decrease cortisol (stress hormone) levels and increase serotonin and endorphin levels in the blood. It elevates mood. Music can boost the brain’s production of the hormone dopamine.
Nigerians need to understand the positive effects of music to their body system aside using it for entertainment alone. Appreciate the efforts of Nigerian music makers like Wizkid, Davido, Burnaboy, Tems, Omah Lay, Tiwa Savage, ClassiQ, Olamide, 2face, Timi Dakolo, Nonso Amadi, Chike, among many others, in combining vocals and sounds, so as to positively contribute to their well-being.
Deborah Pindar Gideon,
Department of Mass Communication,
University of Maiduguri
