Chapter I:
Introduction
Rationale:
People hear it every day. They appreciate its wonderful melody and sometimes, they also hum with its tune. A person goes about their life with this one little thing that could change his/her day: music. Music may be as simple as a lullaby or as intricate as Mozart’s piece, but it is still what it is—something that gives a person a positive feeling towards the world and oneself.
Music never fails to captivate people, both the young and the old. People associate almost everything with music. Because of its universality, it immediately creates a strong bond between people from different races, cultures and traditions. It gave different levels of emotions much to the awe of the listener. People spent loads of cash just to make music, but why do we really need to go to the extra mile just for this? What is really with music that makes us do so much just to get a taste of it?
Music evolves as much as the people making it do. This is the basic reason why people never grow tired of it. Second, there is a variety of music genre to choose from in the industry, making it a lot easier for people to decide what genre they think will suit them. This makes music an effective tool for communication (Ulrich, 1957). This in turn promotes understanding among the people.
Music is widely used among people from all walks of life across the globe. Until now, it is still an enigma for psychologists on why people differ in their preference in music knowing that they come from the same race, age, gender and status quo. As cited in Shafer (2008), LeBlanc said that music has become one of those areas wherein psychological findings were insufficient and lacking because of its subjectivity. Although music revealed insights about aesthetics; social behavior and emotional processes still cannot be investigated in an objective manner.
Upon hearing the latest hits from the radio, one never ceases to relate his/ her life to the tune and lyrics of that particular song. That in itself is the music preference of the person. According to Grant (2005), individuals are subjected to a lot of radio stations and music videos that could influence their music preferences. She also concluded that every person has his own choice of music genre and choice of song. Other people are more open to embrace different music genres and appreciate each of it because of the people from his/her environment (Abenoja, Gases, 2010). In a research conducted by Dollinger (1993), the type of music has its own appeal to its listeners. So it is common for people to jump from one music preference to another, as long as it suits their personal preference.
High school students are exposed to the media and the environment every day. It is given that they know a handful of songs wherein they could select the best thing that suits their ears since they listen to the radio for more or less ten hours a week according to a study by Buta (2001). What they see in the media plays a big role in shaping the music preference of high school students.
Aside from listening to the radio, students spend their time mostly in school. It is the best place for them to meet and interact with different kinds of people. The theory which supports this is the Social Impact theory, which says that there is a greater chance that a person will react to a social influence when the group influencing is close to the person according to Latane & Changing Minds (Abenoja, Gases, 2010).
Given the liberty to choose the one’s own music genre may entail variety of the music preferences among people. Although the same in one’s age, gender, degree of intellect and status in life, music preference still differ. The question is, up to what extent?
The researchers formulated this study mainly because this aims to know, and hopefully help predict the music preference of the group chosen. . In order to know what kind of music preference do students from the different types of high schools in Cebu, this study provides an in depth discussion on the essence of music preference. The type of school, age, gender, and socio-economic status are considered, and put into the limelight as the primary factors that affect the music preference. The personal preference of the students is also taken into view.
Statement of the Problem:
This study aims to know the music preference of three different high schools in Cebu City, namely, Mabolo National High School, St. Theresa’s College and UP High School Cebu. These three fall under the categories public high school, private high school, and special science high school.
Objectives
Based on our main problem, we formulated different sub-problems that could support and deeply understand our study.
This study aims to:
- Gain the student profile of the students in Mabolo Night High School, St. Theresa’s College and UP High School Cebu in terms of age, gender, year level and the socio-economic status
- Identify the music preference of the students in Mabolo Night High School, St. Theresa’s College and UP High School Cebu.
- Evaluate the influence of the types of school (public, private and special science) on the high school student’s music preference.
The research study would be of great help in the fields of Music Psychology and Musicology. The results of the study serve as a guide to composers and singers, or the music industry in general.
Knowing the music preference of the new generation may also help psychologists in giving consultations and counseling to parents and teenagers to improve their relationship. Since music is a good communication tool, it can be effective in relaying messages to the listener.
This study can help listeners know and understand what the teenagers’ music preference is. High school students are the main focus of this study, there should be awareness on what type of music should they listen to. It also allows them to discover more music genres that are not trendy in the type of environment that they have.
This study also proves that the type of school does not affect the music preference of their students. This study is important since it crushes out the idea of discrimination among students from the public and private high schools. The students listen to more or less the same kind of genre regardless of the school that they are in.
Lastly, this study can help further researchers on their pursuit to know anything and everything about music and music preference. Researchers could tap in information about the factors on why students choose that kind of music preference, on how they came to know about a certain music genre, and the like.
No comments:
Post a Comment