Humans and Playing Music

Why do we play music? What is enjoyable about it? Well, these were things I wondered too. (When I saw the assignment)
'Music' itself is not a single phenomenon and therefore is hard to create a definition for. It can be defined as an object or an action, but both have one common denominator: The idea of "Music". The creation involved finding distinct pitches and calling them ‘notes’, then to be played in succession. Octaves, Transposing, Orchestration, and other musical findings and techniques were completely reliant on this ‘note’.
Rather than thinking of music of an object, it can also be much more abstract and open to interpretation. "Music is not a thing at all but an activity, something that people do. The apparent thing, "music", is a figment, an abstraction of the action, whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it at all closely." (Roy, Dowd pg. 9) I interpreted this as music can be more like a verb, than a noun and is unbound creatively.
              Music can almost always be linked to cultural and social changes in a certain area. With the development of "slave music" in the 18th and 19th century, to politically driven music during times of war or dissatisfaction, it allows people to convey their thoughts and feeling in a creative way. 

How this 'music', which started out as a complete abstract thought, came to be this social construct, embedded in many civilizations, is still not totally solved but some conclusions can be made.
Thank you.



Roy, William & Dowd, Timothy. (2010). What Is Sociological About Music?. Annual Review of Sociology. 36. 10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102618. 

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