Books vs. Music

As young children, we are all introduced to the world of music and he world of literacy. No matter how young you were, nearly every child can recall their mother singing them to sleep with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or their father reading them stories of princesses and kingdoms on a rainy Sunday afternoon. As we grow, we fall in love with new hobbies and find out about our abilities. Whether it be sports, painting or dancing. When we reach the struggle of teenage years, we all seem to pick our favourite and roll with it. But what if you had to choose? Would you give up the soulful voice and bass for fluent writing and extreme use of diction? Perhaps you would toss aside the worn-out spine and pages for a your iPod. The influence of music and books can affect everything about us or nothing at all.

Just as our closest friends can play at our emotional heart strings, so can music. The artists of today have one goal, to connect with their audience, similar to that of authors. However, singers and musicians are reaching out to the girl crying in her bedroom over her ex-boyfriend. Perhaps they may try to get the adrenalin flowing through a teenage boy’s veins while at his first time at a club through the use of music. The difference between the emotion of listening to the music and reading a book is that while reading, you are upset over someone else’s pain, or feeling excited for them. Whereas with music, you feel connected, like the song was written for you and everything you feel is wrapped up into a 3 minutes of tempo and vocals. This is why people are so influenced by music.

Nevertheless, one should never underestimate the power of a book. With the right novel in hand, you can be easily inspired. I believe that there is truly no better way to let your imagination wander than picking up a book and losing yourself in it for hours. Our imagination is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal that we sometimes seem to forget about as teenagers. Sometimes we can connect so well with a character that it’s hard to come back to reality. Sometimes the tears we leave on the pages help us realize a little something about ourselves. Sometimes reading is for pure pleasure after a long day of graphing parabolas and studying the axon terminal. When your mind is set free with no stress, worries, or anger, you can imagine endless possibilities. I think that expanding your vocabulary and opening up your mind to a new world is good for your overall well-being. Books give us our imagination, our imagination forms our dreams, and our dreams become the goals we live to achieve.

However, both books and music have one major thing in common. Both provide an escape. While on a long car ride or being left home alone for the night, both music and books can let us be free from ourselves. This doesn’t just apply to teenagers who are stressed over exams and want a break. Literacy and music can do amazing things. It’s why a music therapist will play a love song on guitar to a patient with Alzheimer’s, it can help him escape the mind he is trapped in and connect to a memory of him and his wife on their first date. It’s why a nurse will read a five year old girl dying with leukemia the story of Cinderella to show her that dreams do come true and that miracles happen once in a while. The influence of music and books has an effect on all of us and sometimes works little wonders when we least expect it.

In the end, neither is greater than the other. Both are powerful, both have influenced everyone’s life at one point or another. Perhaps reading this, you may find yourself thinking you like neither music nor books, but I beg you to think again the next time you walk past an old book store or turn on the radio. The influences these two things have over us is strong, but why try and control it? Free yourself in music, and get lost in the pages of a book.