Why Music Anthony Palmer Summary

“Mom! Where’s my black necktie?!” I searched frantically around my room for the black tie I wore to every June Chorus Awards Festival and Concert at Beaver River Central School. In my drawers, in the closet, under my bed, even in the dangerous depths of my laundry hamper I searched for it with no luck. Getting more frustrated and impatient by the minute my mom finally came upstairs out of breath with my necktie in hand. I was running late for my call at seven o’clock in the chorus room. As I walked in and took my place on the risers in the bass section I immediately felt at ease. My chorus teacher made it one her responsibility to teach us numerous lessons not only in music but in life as well. As we walked out on the risers in the auditorium

These factors, unique to each of us, make us connect to music in our own ways. Concurrently, we are also all connected by our cultures and by the world as a collective human species. Music often times brings us together but can simultaneously touch us all in diverse ways. In Anthony Palmer’s article “Why Music?” this concept of the direct effects music has in our lives and how it simultaneously impacts those around us. Palmer mentions, that “While we are all of the same species and of the same need to answer the basic questions and express our uniqueness as human beings, we live in different times and places and have different experiences” (Palmer, 2002). Music has the ability to bring people together for a single, extrinsic purpose. Furthermore, the power that music can create as an outcome of this extrinsic purpose, it is the individual meaning that music brings to us each that truly color and create a meaningful experience for us. All humans look for musical meaning in their lives and I find it intriguing that even though we all looking for the same thing, we are looking for very different things. As Bennett Reimer states, “All humans are, at the same time, like all other humans, like some other humans, and like no other humans” (Reimer, Palmer, Regelski, & Bowman, 2002). There is no doubt that music is valued by humans. It has a deep connection with us all on some