Persuasive Essay

Classical Music and Teenagers

A sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before, something that reminds you of honey turned into sound. Or the perfect day captured forever in sound. What could that heavenly sound be? Music. Music takes wonderful experiences and turns them into wonderful, magical, amazing pieces of musical joy. The problem today is that too many teenagers, and adults, take a biased look at classical music and say it’s boring. While sometimes it can be boring, it can also be very amazing and enthralling. Classical music is a music that we tend to think of as music that an orchestra would play. While it is something an orchestra would play, it is found in all of the music today. Today, as with many years ago, music continues to find a place in the hearts of people everywhere. Teenagers should find a place in their hearts, and a time in their lives, to listen to more classical music.

Classical music has a calming effect on people. Some pieces, the ones that are very slow, calm you down and reduce stress levels. As Musical Therapists have found when you listen to slow-tempo classical music you heart rate synchronizes with the music and stress leaves. In a project done by Florida Atlantic University College of Nursing, they found that stress levels were decreased by listening to classical music. Pain was also reduced because the participants focused on the music rather than on the pain. It’s as simple as that and all they had to do was to relax to some classical music. Joanne Loewy, a PhD and a director of music therapy said “Music has power.” This power is real; I’ve felt it in my life. As well as reducing stress levels classical music has power in testing, studying, and memorizing.

Have you ever noticed that as you memorize a poem or study for a test while listening to classical music that you remember what you have memorized or studied better? That is what happens when you study while listening to music. If you study while listening to music you tend to retain more of what you have studied. A study was done by a group of people in which two people communicated with each other while listening to punk, classical or no music. The results of the study are as such; those that did not listen to music took a longer amount of time to finish the project and had many comments that were not related to project. Those who listened to punk got more done than the no music people did, but still had their little comments. Those who listened to classical music did better than the other groups and had little or no comments. Other studies have shown that when classical music is being played during a test students tend to score higher. I know that in my life as I study to music I remember more than if I don’t study to music. When I study to music it sticks and I still remember it years later. Music doesn’t just help you in studying and memorizing it can also be found anywhere.

Music can be found anywhere you look just as long as you look. When you listen to music you find that the root of any piece of modern music is classical music. When you listen to your music whether it is rock, pop, rap or anything else, listen to the beat, the instruments in the background and see whether or not a classical rhythm or style is in what the instruments are playing. In rap music, though I would hardly consider rap music, the beat is the most evident classical tie. Most pop music today has instrumental in the background. There is a song on the radio that starts out with a cello playing a very entrancing prelude, this stems from classical music. Just listen and hear the music within the music. While I’m not saying that modern is bad have you ever wondered where it came from? Classical, of course. Some ingenious person took a tune, and added words. Someone had to start somewhere and that person started with classical music. Music all stems from that one branch, the classical branch, but in the evolution of music it has developed word to the music which we call lyrics.

In the world today the lyrics of songs have gone downhill. Without fail a song will mention alcohol, smoking or other things our society thinks they need, it is very rare to find a song that does NOT mention that. Classical music does not have lyrics and can therefore NOT induce you to try those things. Classical music only lets you see what you imagine with your brain, your imagination. The music is there to allow you to do that. It was created to capture the beauty of a spring morning, the sadness of the passing of a loved one, the joy of living, the pain of tragedy. It captures events that cannot be captured in words. It captures the feeling of an event, the beauty, the pain, the joy, the sadness, and leaves it to you to decide what to interpret it as. Classical music does not tell you what it is about, yet you feel in your very being the feeling it was meant to convey. You understand the composer as you use your imagination to create a world that was never there before. You use you to define the masterpiece of emotion.What you see is what you decide to see. What you want to feel and see and hear. Not what the singer wants you to feel, hear and see. As I play music on my cello, as I listen to others play on their instruments I feel the emotion they, and I, put into the music. Music has made me cry because the pure emotion held in one note, in one collection of notes. Classical music is such an influence in my life and can be in yours if only you let it.

Classical music is a stress reliever such as you may never meet in all your life, it can help you in everything, from stress to tests, to assignments to just having fun. Classical music is always found, everywhere around you, all you have to do is look for it and it will be there. Music conveys feeling that I cannot put into words, love, joy, pain, sadness, and so many other feelings. As I listen to classical music I wonder how anyone can put this on a shelf and let it be without ever giving it a chance. Many teenagers’ lives could be changed if only they would listen to Classical music. Classical music has changed my life, altered me in a way that can never be reversed. You too, can have a change of life; let classical music do to you what it has done to me. Please let it change your life for the better.