Inhis 1973 reggae anthem “Trenchtown Rock,” Bob Marley sang, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” 

Marley’s lyrics elegantly capture the profound impact music is capable of having in our daily lives. Its tantalizing combination of words and melodies can stimulate our emotions in a way that can alter our moods and affect our behavior. This led me to ask the question: If music is capable of making us “feel no pain,” as Marley claims, what would life be like without it? Painful, scary, inhumane? To find out, I spent an entire week without listening to any music.

First, let me explain the guidelines I set out for myself. 

When I decided to take on this challenge, I had no idea how difficult it would be to actually avoid music. Because music is integrated into so many facets of our society, this required much more action than simply not opening my iTunes library on my laptop and keeping my iPod turned off. So to maximize the integrity of this experiment, I followed a strict avoidance policy to guarantee I was able to evade music as best I could. This meant intentionally avoiding places that I normally go where music was most prevalent and ultimately unavoidable, such as restaurants, bars and the grocery store. Even watching TV and YouTube videos was off-limits.

When I went to bed Sunday night, I was in good spirits and even somewhat excited by the challenge I had ahead of me. However, the novelty quickly wore off when I had to walk to class in silence at 9 a.m. the next morning while my Beats Headphones sat abandoned in their case. Immediately, I felt the impact of not being able to listen to music as I arrived to my class feeling grumpy and still half asleep. Without the aid of my iPod, I spent the entire class dozing in and out of consciousness, leaving myself unable to take away much of anything from my professor’s lecture. 

According to Nikki Llewellyn, Ph.D. student in developmental psychology, living without music has proved to affect an individual’s mental psyche. 

“Music can affect your brain waves electroactivity, and if you’re listening to music that gives you energy, you (internalize) that biologically,” Llewellyn said. “However, if you weren’t listening to any music, then you would be missing that.”

This lack of energy followed me all week, and even with the supplementation of coffee, it was a feeling that I was never able to shake. Another issue that underlined my week without music was a feeling of loneliness that I was previously unaccustomed to. Whether this occurred from spending more alone time in my room than usual or as a result of the literal absence of music itself, I began to miss having old friends like the Dave Matthews Band and Coldplay around to keep me company.

When I asked Stevee Bellas, sophomore in FAA, what she thought a world without music would be like, she said, “I would call a world without music uninspired and even kind of lonely.”

Bellas was spot on, and as the week dragged on, lonely was becoming an understatement. It became more and more tempting to open my iTunes library and have a quick listen, but I am proud to say I stuck to my guns and never caved in.  

When the week finally came to an end, I was relieved to be reunited with my old friends. Through this process I gained a better understanding for how music plays a role in our moods and emotions. 

Andrei Strizek, graduate student in FAA, better explained the power of music and how it is able to provoke emotions in his daily life. 

“There have been times where I have cried over a piece of music because it was sad, and then there have been times when I’ve cried over music because it gave me a feeling of joy I can’t find anywhere else,” he said. 

After spending an entire week without music and living to tell the tale, I wholeheartedly agree with Strizek. In the absence of pain that music creates, I can now listen and feel unadulterated joy. 

Jed is a sophomore in Media. He can be reached at [email protected].