Music Matters to Us

Music has a way of teaching us things we weren't learning in other ways.  The sustainability movement  has had trouble reaching some people.  Perhaps music could be a pathway to reaching some of them. 

The scope and urgency of our problems is hard to grasp, frankly.  It's hard to contemplate a billion hungry people, let alone understand how my eating a hamburger on the 4th of July contributes to their lack of food. 

So how could music help? I want to show you how combining a slide presentation on global sustainability problems with music affects the viewer’s experience:  http://tinyurl.com/69nytmf.  You’ve seen a thousand of these presentations, but please look at this one too.  Then come back to this post. 

(You really should watch the whole video to get the effect, but if you're not going to watch the whole thing then watch a moment at these points:   The beginning, 1:42 and 5:40.)

The first two times I watched this, tears welled up in my eyes.  I was less able to "turn off" the import of what I was seeing.  And when I thought I had really had enough, the second Beethoven starts up and I felt encouraged to watch a bit more -- thankfully finding the hopeful part of the message. 

Music matters because it makes far away situations relevant.  It can change us as we locate within ourselves the desires of others that are just like our own.  It changes the way we perceive the world around us, fueling our learning.  It changes the nexus of east and west to within our hearts from distant places on the globe.  It changes attitudes toward people who don't look like us. And it sets hope up as an ideal.

I'd love to know how you think music enhanced this video.  What has changed for you? 

p.s.  Another example of music helping to communicate a sustainability-related message is Ari Lesser's song advocating a bike/pedestrian lane on the Innerbelt Bridge.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GP3XJquJ_8  Thankfully, ODOT has designed a new bike/ped lane on the Lorain Carnegie bridge in response to all the people along with Ari who rallied to get safe access across the river for everyone.

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