Music is everywhere in nature. It can appear as birds singing their songs, animals making noises when searching for insects or food, or even the peacefulness of streams as they flow rapidly, crashing into small rocks or boulders. I'd even consider the winds and how they move the leaf's music, and the crisp crunch of them on the ground in autumn. Music is also often used in nature to communicate a sense of partnership or socially such as with birds, whales, dolphins, etc. In the minds of animals, music tends to bring them together as a community, which I think is a reflection of how humans often incorporate music into our lives as well. Not only do we traditionally bring music into our lives to connect and celebrate, but we also use it to relax, ground ourselves, and destress from the daily challenges we may face. In doing so, throughout centuries we have found many ways to bring nature to music by making traditional instruments with specific materials for authenticity and uniqueness in sounds such as maracas, conches, and ancient Greek pipes.
Other ways we can find nature in music today are through visuals, aesthetics, and natural sounds, like the waves crashing on the beach in songs and music videos. One that immediately comes to mind is a Spanish song that my family and I have been repeatedly playing, Karol G's "Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido." Nature is incorporated into this video to set the tone for their environment, which appears to be a karaoke bar by the beach, living carefree and escaping from any worries (at least that is what feeling sparks up for me when thinking about the beach). Nature is something most people can relate to and can trigger emotions and specific feelings, whether it's the calming effects of hearing the waves at the beach, the warm feeling of a white Christmas, or even the sadness of the rain as it mimics tears falling on the side of a car window.
A song and memory which I will forever cherish for bringing me a sense of strong community within nature and playing a role in inspiring my journey to be more mindful and grateful for nature, is one called Jellyfish that I learned with my eighth-grade class while on a school trip at Camp Brebeuf. This trip was three days and two nights long, and although it wasn't a driving factor of my relationship with nature, it was an affirmation of my love for it, and it opened my eyes to see how a simple campfire and singing silly songs around it can form stronger connections and even start new ones with people you never would have expected to get along with. The Jellyfish song was the last song out of many we sang on our last night there, and after having the past days filled with team building and group activities like rock climbing, manhunt, scavenger hunts, mindfulness group walks, etc., this song made me realize how close I had become with others that I had barely spoken to in the past years. At this point in my life, at 14, I had always had a feeling that nature and music brought people together through a different bond than they would in an environment such as school, work, or sports. I had seen examples of such through movies, history books, and my own experiences, but this had been the first time I was emotionally mature enough to understand that it was happening in the moment, and that feeling of being grateful and present as I was looking around and doing all the silly follow-along movements with my classmates to the song, is a magical one that I'll never forget.
Music is everywhere in nature. It can appear as birds singing their songs, animals making noises when searching for insects or food, or even the peacefulness of streams as they flow rapidly, crashing into small rocks or boulders. I'd even consider the winds and how they move the leaf's music, and the crisp crunch of them on the ground in autumn. Music is also often used in nature to communicate a sense of partnership or socially such as with birds, whales, dolphins, etc. In the minds of animals, music tends to bring them together as a community, which I think is a reflection of how humans often incorporate music into our lives as well. Not only do we traditionally bring music into our lives to connect and celebrate, but we also use it to relax, ground ourselves, and destress from the daily challenges we may face. In doing so, throughout centuries we have found many ways to bring nature to music by making traditional instruments with specific materials for authenticity and uniqueness in sounds such as maracas, conches, and ancient Greek pipes.
Other ways we can find nature in music today are through visuals, aesthetics, and natural sounds, like the waves crashing on the beach in songs and music videos. One that immediately comes to mind is a Spanish song that my family and I have been repeatedly playing, Karol G's "Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido." Nature is incorporated into this video to set the tone for their environment, which appears to be a karaoke bar by the beach, living carefree and escaping from any worries (at least that is what feeling sparks up for me when thinking about the beach). Nature is something most people can relate to and can trigger emotions and specific feelings, whether it's the calming effects of hearing the waves at the beach, the warm feeling of a white Christmas, or even the sadness of the rain as it mimics tears falling on the side of a car window.
A song and memory which I will forever cherish for bringing me a sense of strong community within nature and playing a role in inspiring my journey to be more mindful and grateful for nature, is one called Jellyfish that I learned with my eighth-grade class while on a school trip at Camp Brebeuf. This trip was three days and two nights long, and although it wasn't a driving factor of my relationship with nature, it was an affirmation of my love for it, and it opened my eyes to see how a simple campfire and singing silly songs around it can form stronger connections and even start new ones with people you never would have expected to get along with. The Jellyfish song was the last song out of many we sang on our last night there, and after having the past days filled with team building and group activities like rock climbing, manhunt, scavenger hunts, mindfulness group walks, etc., this song made me realize how close I had become with others that I had barely spoken to in the past years. At this point in my life, at 14, I had always had a feeling that nature and music brought people together through a different bond than they would in an environment such as school, work, or sports. I had seen examples of such through movies, history books, and my own experiences, but this had been the first time I was emotionally mature enough to understand that it was happening in the moment, and that feeling of being grateful and present as I was looking around and doing all the silly follow-along movements with my classmates to the song, is a magical one that I'll never forget.