o blasting some rhythmically driving “Rock and Roll” song. (Rock and Roll is a direct offspring of the blues) A friend of mine, who is a carpenter, explained to me this way; “You’re just out there workin’ and gettin’ all sweaty, and listnin’ to the music, and pretty soon you’re still workin’ but you don’t know it cause’ your mind is somewhere else.” Music can create a tight fraternity among groups of people. Music is often used in the military to organize and coordinate the movements of large groups of people. Short rhythmic melodies, called cadences, are sung by soldiers as they are marching in order to keep a common time and a constant beat. Music has even been used as a form of secret communication in small groups. B.B. King, a legendary blues singer, recalls stories passed down from his great-grandmother, who was a slave. “ They [the slaves] were also delivering messages in musical code. If the master was coming, you might sing a hidden warning to the other field hands...that was important to the women because the master could have anything he wanted.” (King and Ritz,p110) A societies music is what holds it together as a group. According to Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard socio-biologist; “Singing and dancing serve to draw groups together, direct the emotions of the people, and prepare them for joint action.” (p564) In many tribal cultures, ritualistic singing and dancing precedes many important events, such as; the hunt, war, marriage, birth, and death. Many of the social events in our culture are accompanied by music also, such as dances and graduation ceremonies. Even when shopping at your local grocery store you can hear the soothing sounds of music. To observe the uncanny socially adhesive property of music, attend a modern “rock” concert. The transformation of thousands of individual personalities into one unified mob, ...
