Introduction: Music in (inter)action

Abstract

It's a simple idea, really: music has force. In The Mourning Bride, William Congreve famously wrote that music has “charms to soothe a savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” Just about anyone who's ever listened to music will agree with that. Upbeat songs energize us, and ballads bring us to tears. Music moves us in so many ways – to say nothing of the ways we use music to move people (see the U.S. Marine Corps use of heavy metal music to extract Manuel Noriega from Panama). It's simple, really.

Citation

Bryce Merrill, J. (2010), "Introduction: Music in (inter)action", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 35), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 175-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000035013