Music and its socio-cultural impact

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to supplement the graphic design project, for the purposes of which I created a visual identity targeted fir a snowboarding brand and its snowboard designs. Various songs inspired the illustrations used for the proposed designs. Based on personal experience of how music can be a source of inspiration for creating art, I present to the reader an overview of how society perceived music in various ways throughout human history, and how different aspects of this phenomenon might influence other forms of art as well as politics and other social preoccupations. In addition to a technical definition of music and a brief presentation of its history, I try to demonstrate the significance of music in our civilization in terms of its overall influence. Among the different terms and issues brought up, the paper discusses folk music as a significant cultural heritage of not infrequently no longer existing communities. Music is discussed in a broader context of creating systems of ideologies and values, as well as its interactions and co-existence within other artistic domains, such as film, literature, or fashion. Furthermore, the idea is presented that music may and has been used as a manipulation tool aimed at increasing revenues, obtaining economic gains and boosting industries that originally might have almost nothing to do with music. The use of music in medicine, i.e. the type of therapy acting as an alternative or a supporting form of treatment in the fields of psychiatry or obstetrics, among others, has also been widely discussed. The conclusion outlines how music has been made use of by power-driven politicians and representatives of the Catholic Church since ancient times. Moreover, I also discuss periods and events in Polish history when music was a tool of rebellion, as in the post-war Communist era, to fight and abolish the government.