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How Music Can Help Us Find Our Identity Essay

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Ones identity is something greatly important to a person. An identity makes us who we are, combining our nationality, ethnicity, race, class, religion, and gender, a complex mixture that involves many factors. This is whom we are, what we are made of. One tool to show identity or more than just show, the means by which identity is created, is music. We constantly hear musical metaphors such as “find your voice” or “march to the rhythm of your own drum” simple putting music can help us find our identity. Music can construct, represent and portray ones identity, showing others and our self who we are and what makes our identity.

Coming from a western society, musical identity can often become very clouded. Music is usually produced for a global audience in western culture and intended to top the charts, meaning it can be difficult to find one identity in this music. Saying this doesn’t mean that music wont play a role in ones identity in western culture, on contrary music makes its way into many parts of who we are. From personal experience music has influenced who I spend time with, as a community is created with people who share musical preferences with myself. Another example comes from the University of Glasgow, they preformed a number of studies on music and identity, finding that the music you relate to from your teenage years is music that stays with you throughout your life, making it a part of your identity. Residing in a western culture, we are familiar with the

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