KATHMANDU: Human beings’ daily activities shape and manage their emotions, memories, or identity. Music is an important medium in this process. Listening to music is both a private and social act for people around the world. In this process, the listener’s private and social identity is also being constructed.

According to Tia DeNora, author of “Music in Everyday Life” and music scholar, music is an effective source of self-construction and self-regulation for humans. The power or meaning of music is determined not only by the melody and lyrics but also by how people apply it to their lives.

How do people use music in their lives? Why and how do they listen to music? How do they interact with music? How does music connect with human activities, experiences, and emotions? And how do they interpret their relationship with music?

On the occasion of World Music Day, we have attempted to find answers to these questions. For this, we have presented the verbatim responses of listeners from diverse backgrounds below.

Bhim Maya Tamang

Not having the opportunity to go to school during childhood, I could not recognize letters. Although I could not study, the songs played on the radio attracted me. I especially like folk songs played on the radio. I also prefer listening to calm songs. In those songs, it feels as if someone is pouring out the joys and sorrows of my own life. It feels like it is being spoken through the song.

For me, running a small retail shop in Thapathali, music is a companion to pass the time. When there is no one to talk to, losing myself in songs makes me forget being alone.

While cooking, washing clothes, or doing other household chores, I work while playing songs. Working while listening to songs, I don’t even realize when the work is finished.

Previously, one had to listen to whatever song was played on the radio. Nowadays, I can choose and listen to songs myself on my mobile phone. I don’t really know the artists, but I choose songs by looking at the photos of the singers. I listen to Bishnu Majhi’s songs a lot. In her songs, I find so many things I want to say or could not say. At such times, it feels like this song is speaking my mind.

For a person like me who does not know how to read books, songs have connected me to a whole different world. Precisely because it speaks even the language of uneducated people, I have been able to enjoy listening to music.

Swastika Majhi

I usually choose songs and music according to my mood. Songs that match my experiences or emotions are my priority.

When feeling sad or lonely, I feel like listening to emotional and touching songs. Listening to such songs brings a sense of peace and joy. Music provides emotional relief.

When excited or happy, I listen to Pop, Bollywood, or Rap. The lyrics and music of the songs feel like they leave a deep impact on my emotions. I believe music helps alter my mood and manage my emotions.

Songs talk about family, society, environment, the country’s problems, or various social issues. BTS songs play a lot on my playlist because they inspire me to focus on my own life and move forward positively without being affected by the negative reactions of others. Those songs help me understand my feelings, express them, and sometimes even come out of difficult situations.

I listen to music while working, traveling, or even while studying. Music helps me focus, and the things I study stay better in my mind. Music leaves a positive impact not just emotionally, but also mentally and physically. If there is no music in my life, I will be emotionally empty.

Umesh Acharya

My day starts with music. Being a devotee of Shiva, I listen to Shiva hymns a lot. Since I work as a security guard, during night duties, I spend my time listening to songs on YouTube from my mobile phone.

When I am happy, I listen to folk songs. I especially like folk songs presented through the Indreni program. Since those songs reflect village culture, lifestyle, and Nepali essence, they are delightful to listen to.

When I am a bit sad or touched by some life events, I listen to sentimental songs by singers like Narayan Gopal and Bhaktaraj Acharya. Then, I feel a kind of peace and satisfaction.

Music takes me away from stress, anxiety, or fatigue for a while. Even if for a moment, it lightens the burden of the mind.

Kumari Danuwar

I work in a cafe where I have to make tea and snacks. When busy with work, playing music makes it fun to work. Working while listening to lively and cheerful songs makes me forget the pressure of work.

When going to bed at home, peaceful and slow songs are my choice. That music relieves the day’s fatigue, and I sleep peacefully. If I don’t get to listen to music during my free time, my daily routine becomes dull.

Pandav Khadka

A person never gets tired of listening to songs, and neither do I. Listening to songs that match your mood makes you feel more connected to the song. Listening to folk songs during happy moments and modern songs when serious brings a distinct joy. Music enhances both joy and sorrow.

In sentimental songs, someone’s pain, experience, and struggle are narrated. At that time, it feels like I am not alone in distress; others have also experienced similar feelings. Music that matches my own feelings is like a friend to share my sorrow with.

As age advances and there are no friends to meet and talk to, music is the reliable friend that helps pass the difficult time. Music does not let even a lonely person feel alone. There may be alternatives to many things in life, but an alternative to the experience that music provides is not easily found.

Ranju Bista

On my device, you will find songs in Nepali, Hindi, Urdu, English, Iranian, and Korean languages. Apart from that, I have a special interest in film soundtracks. I usually listen to music while washing dishes, playing songs that I can sing along to.

By profession, I am a researcher and also a student of international relations. Since I have to read, write, and think a lot, concentration is necessary for my work. Therefore, nowadays, except during dishwashing time, my encounters with music are mostly accidental. When the alarm rings in the morning, when listening to the hymns played by my elder sister, when the sister selling spinach in the morning walks by rhythmically saying “Spinach has arrived, spinach,” or when the topic of songs and music arises during conversations—music arrives in my daily routine in such small moments.

Many years ago, a musician explained how a raga focuses on emotion. Since then, the understanding that music has extraordinary power grew even stronger.

During a period of peak depression, I probably didn’t speak even a hundred words a day. I was surrounded by confusion over what to say and what not to say. Songs or other mediums of art are means to express oneself individually or collectively. During that time, I took refuge in the music of one culture to understand and explain the state of my mind. For devotion and spiritual experience, I was drawn toward the music of another culture.

I understand music as a medium to give the energy within myself to the world and to absorb the world’s energy into myself. Sometimes it makes dialogues possible that words cannot achieve. I believe a human without music does not remain a human in the complete sense, because it is not just sound. It contains a wonderful blend of human emotion, memory, relationship, and expression.

Sharmila Thapa

Whether we laugh, dance, or cry, music is with us somewhere in any situation. Music is the medium that connects humans to every moment of life. Things we cannot say directly are expressed through songs. We connect with music through that very thing. We find our emotions, pain, love, hope, or struggle within it.

I run a tea cafe in Pepsicola. In the process of coming to Kathmandu from Sarlahi and struggling alone, I became frustrated many times in life. During those dark days, music never left my side.

Whether I felt like laughing or crying, I took the support of music. Just like in my personal life, music is supporting me in my business too.

Conversations with many customers who come to the cafe get extended because of music. Emotional bonds are formed. Speaking commercially, music also works to set the mood for both the service provider and the service consumer.

Suraj Subedi

I like to listen to songs with strong lyrics. While cooking or washing dishes, I play random songs on Spotify. At that time, I listen without skipping any songs. While using a mobile phone or laptop, however, I decide which song to listen to. While walking, I do skip songs.

Being in the writing profession, working on the same text for a long time can become tedious. Fatigue is also felt without realizing it. At such times, if I get to listen to songs for a while, it feels like I return to my natural state. The work of writing is also largely a lonely job. At such times, songs and music become like a friend. It feels like someone understands the emotion one is experiencing. It feels as if the song has come to say what one wanted to hear.

Since I started working on ‘Subtext with Suraj’, I have begun to listen to the lyrics of songs with even more attention. Previously, music was an inseparable part of my daily routine for me. Sometimes waking up early in the morning, sometimes playing someone’s jukebox at bedtime, I had a habit of listening and falling asleep while listening.

It was like a friend who always stays together. If it were not there, one aspect of my daily routine would always be dull.

Songs and music are also a medium for me to reach literature. Since I am in the creative field, listening to songs created by the labor and creativity of singers, lyricists, composers, arrangers, and all other musicians feels like getting close to their creative process. If songs and music were not in my daily routine, that closeness would be missed.

Mohit Munal

I do everything from making advertisements and jingles to music arrangement. In the course of work, I listen to music of different genres. I like all genres from folk duets and modern to heavy metal and rock. I like rock-pop a little more. Rather than just listening to music, I live in music.

If there is no music, I will probably be completely empty emotionally. I will also become blunt creatively. Because for me, music is an emotion in which we can immerse ourselves and enjoy, forget our pain, relieve fatigue, and reduce loneliness.

Apart from the office, I also teach the piano to my son at home. At that time, music has worked to connect me and my family members.