Music and Rituals

Music is very dependent from ritual to ritual. For example, music at a birthday party would not be the same music used for a wedding, and so on the music used at a graduation would be different as well. In my life I have, of course, experienced birthday parties, weddings, and graduation and the music is differs for each event.

 At my birthday parties, I do not necessarily have all current music(mostly because I don't know the words or I don't like it), but I also include older music that I have started listening to. For my birthday parties, I have music from the current days and from early 2000s, 80s, and 90s. I'll put artist such as, Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Journey, Michael Jackson, and others. However, music at birthday parties can also depend on the person's age. For a baby birthday party, you would play more baby songs like lullaby's, patty cake, and well-known kid show theme songs. As they get older they will form their own likes and dislikes of music styles, and normally those are what gets played at birthday parties. 

Music for weddings are completely different from any birthday party. Weddings songs are, typically, more slow, about love, and meant for slow dancing. With my experience with weddings is a little chaotic. With my aunt's wedding, I was involved of making a playlist of songs for the reception, but my aunt was extremely picky when it came to the music. She wanted mostly all the music to set a 50s scene for her wedding. Her music was made by people that I had never heard of, and for me I did not like the songs. Her favorite song that she had on the playlist was "I Only Have Eyes For You". I distinctly remember this because all she told me for about 6 months was, "Maggie, I have to have 'I Only Have Eyes for You' on the playlist of songs even if it's the only song we have on there." 

Another ritual that has been very important in my life was my high school graduation. There was a ton of planning, stress, and sports leading up to the time I officially graduated. At the graduation, the music that was played the whole time was the typical walking-down-the-aisle music. It is much different from the music in the previous events. I can remember almost everyone in my class complaining about how they were falling asleep and how it was so annoying that it would not stop (and I won't lie, I was one of them:)). At the end of the day, we all will remember graduating, throwing our caps in the air, and the terrible graduation music.