Emotion and Meaning in Music

On my 18th birthday this year, I was given the opportunity to see one of my favorite emerging artists: Twenty One Pilots. I had only just heard their music for the first time in the previous few months and knew very little about the band. Nevertheless, I was very excited to go with my friend—and fellow Twenty One Pilots listener—Nick, but he had a familial matter to attend to at the last minute and had to cancel. With an extra ticket to the private concert, I asked around to see if anyone wanted to come along with me. The concert happened to be on an inopportune date and none of my other friends were in town at the time. Eventually, the day was drawing near and I was preparing to go by myself when my sister offered to go with me.

Me and my sister had always been close but had never shared similar musical interests. She was more into heavy rock and "emo" rock and I listened to more indie rock and hip hop. We had never been to a concert together—we hardly could even stand listening to music together because we would end up squabbling over it—but she was interested about this group and I didn't want to waste the ticket. We got ready and had to hurry to get downtown Indianapolis to avoid being late. The bickering had already begun and I figured that it was about to be a long night until we stepped inside the building and heard the music drifting down the hall.

Instantly, the vibrations of the drum created an iconic process. It felt like an earthquake and the excitement and frenzied crowd only increased the flow of adrenaline in my veins. I immediately forgot about the fact that I was with my sister—who I had not expressed myself in front of in this way before. The frame had changed and I was simply one of the ants trying to push forward to get a crumb of bread. I had dove into the crowd and became one with the people around me, jumping up and down, singing and dancing. I was completely focused on the music and the moment—in a flow state. The music and excitement served as indices and the interpretant was joy and comfort; I had only had an experience similar to this at church where I felt that way, so I associated those feelings with it. 

Every time he raised his hands and formed the Twenty One Pilots' symbol, we all did the same. We had all agreed that that is what he wanted us to do. We knew that the symbol represented this amazing artist and we felt like a singular body when we all held it up together in silence. When he began to sing his final song, the lyrics and the instrumentation was the sign and the object was the meaning behind the lyrics and instrumentation. The slow, rhythmic beats and the empowering lyrics gave me chills and me and my sister connected that night like never before. We left that venue in a completely different state of mind. It felt as though our whole relationship had been changed and made more personal.