Music Literacy and Human Connection

When she was growing up, my roommate Joycelyn knew she wanted to be a pop star. She participated in a local talent show with singing and from 4th to 8th grade she was apart of three choirs; one for her school, The Seattle Center Choir and a Community Choir. Even as her family was pushing her towards more stem related fields, she wrote poems and songs when she was growing up. I’ve known Joycelyn for the last couple of years and it’s not hard to see that she loves music on a deeper level than I could ever imagine. At parties, she knows what music to play to suit the mood; she makes playlists that fit perfectly together even though the genres are different or the songs are about two conflicting ideas; something about music speaks to Joycelyn and she knows how to listen to what it is telling her.

As I told her about what this interview would be about and how literacy could take many different forms, her first instinct was to reach for music. I asked her why music mattered to her so much, why she considered this medium to be a turning point in her life and she replied;

“It’s because music in the past has allowed me to experience things that I never felt before. When I was little I knew what love felt like even before I had fallen in love and that was because of music….. Sometimes artists knew what I was feeling even before I knew how to express it myself.”

By the way Joycelyn interacts with this form of literacy, you can see how she uses it to both find more about people and about herself so much so, that if she finds that someone else’s music taste does not align with her own, she seeks to expand their knowledge base and show them the joy in the music that she listens to. She’ll send pieces of music to her loved ones and friends with messages that read “This made me think of you” or “This is how I feel about you”. There are times when words alone cannot properly express how Joycelyn is feeling so she reaches for music instead to make sense of how she is feeling in the moment.

It intrigues me when she seems to know what type of music people would love the closer she gets to them. Joycelyn explores their tastes and sees it as a reflection of their characters, their ideals and what their outlook on life could be. Personally, I had not thought that the music I had listened to would be the way to get to know me better nor did I think that music would be a way to personally relate with another human being. But digging a little deeper with what experience I had with music when attending concerts for bands or artists, Orchestras performances or even chilling and vibing out with friends after a long day, I can see where Joycelyn can see the similarities between musical literacy and human connection.