Music? When and Why?

I live in Asheville, a progressive town of about 100,000 people in the mountains of Western North Carolina. There are many free public performances in a lovely downtown square. Recently, our great symphony appeared. Standing in the wings, I witnessed something that initially shocked me and I want to explore it with you.

In the middle of the first set–with a stageful of highly-trained east coast classical musicians sitting with instruments in their laps–a well-rehearsed rap ensemble by the name of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo came up on stage and performed three songs for 15-minutes.

The audience went bonkers!

Admittedly, rap music is not my deal. I love jazz and classical music has been a large focus of my pro-producing career, so I have a musical bias. That night, truth be told, I was fuming that the assembled players of the Asheville Symphony were sitting there silently, as this rap act, obviously pre-arranged, took center stage.

However, I couldn't miss how most of the audience immediately jumped up and started to groove with the rapper's infectious beats and contagious vocals. Certainly none of this was going on during Puccini or Strauss, and even the more current orchestral arrangements of Stevie Wonder or Queen failed to get people up on their feet. The audience was polite. But their response gathered no momentum like the rap interlude. At the end of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo's songs, there was a passionate standing ovation of 10,000 people. This was impressive!

While not the set-up for a conversation about the merits of classical vs. rap, this blog is really about which music? When and why? This all sounds like an academic exercise but I think it is of value to explore what kind of music, or to be more precise, what are the elements that serve in 2026 and years to come? These are important considerations for all of us soundworkers if we want to be effective as community musical/sound influencers.

The Horizon

This blog readership is primarily musical professionals interested in the social impact of rhythm and vibration on the human nervous system. In order to assess how music serves our culture, we must understand the social forces currently at play.

I think it's fair to say that as we move into '26, our sense of life on this planet has been deeply shaken by current political forces. Responding to climate change is a little different for me now after Bill Gates has said that he no longer fears global warming as a planetary threat to human habitation. However, the quickening advent of AI is getting my attention. Why? Because unemployment causes job insecurity, which quickly turns into food and home insecurity. 

We know that vast sections of the planet have swung into reactionary nationalistic policies. Despots and dictators seize the moment, democracy seems to be in fading phase, and pained social fabric issues are not far off. In America, Wall Street profits are projected in carbon, crypto, and for-profit prisons. The massive shift of wealth continues and 2026 is the year of US mid-term elections. Many of the gov't budgetary cutbacks will not even come into play until after Nov '26.

So my considerations, about this classical/rap event I witnessed, are not about classical music as an anachronism. Rather, how rhythm is fun and how standing up and moving your body in a crowd of people is a remembering of how we used to express our tribal longings; the impulse to seek safety and be a part of something bigger than our solitary selves is growing to the moment. In America, the army is now in our cities and they are being shot at. We're living in an unraveling of life as we knew it. Anxiety is at the highest level in our country than ever, starting with kindergarteners, let alone high school and college students afraid of being shot! 

Photo credit: Stanislav Ostranitsa, Moscow, Russia

So what happens with this rap music? IT MOVES PEOPLE! Rhythm is not cerebral. It is not mental. It is embodied…

The Embodied Realm of Therapeutic Sound

Bringing this conversation into the realm of soundwork, I want to employ a few excerpts from my new book, Sound & Breath, about the role that rhythmic music plays in down-regulating the human nervous system:

The sympthetic nervous system (fight or flight) – once originally about danger – is now often co-opted by chronic stress. We know that rhythm is fun. Any positive emotion—fun included—is definitely not a triggering threat for the sympathetic NS, but rather an invitation for the rest and restore function of the parasympthetic nervous system to take over.

This is a good thing! Let's delve into why rhythm is a great tool for downregulating an overwhelmed sympathetic nervous system?

Rhythm requires our neurological attention. This creates a transference of focus away from fear (and sympathetic dominance). In other words, we are using rhythm as a distraction from what is a common general anxiety disorder.

Rhythm entrains. Entrainment is a well-researched phenomena where external periodic rhythmic pulses cause internal body pulses to speed up or slow down. Rhythm becomes a great tool for slowing down a quickened SNS response.

Rhythm is predictable. As one of the primary benefits of rhythmic exercises, predictability is foremost. In downregulation techniques, we want predictability. There is nothing predictable in chase and conquest; it is chaotic and surprising.

Rhythm and the Nervous System

Suffice it to say, the nervous system is rarely talked about and incredibly important to human well-being. The reason I'm writing about what rhythm does, is to answer the question of why music is important in these times?

Music distracts, entrains, and binds us. The big bass frequencies in rap music vibrate the vestibular system (atop the cochlea) which stimulates the big muscles in our legs. Of course people are going to jump up and move to rap music. It's neurological. Rap is mostly slowish, big bassey, and coordinated. Psychoacoustically, these are all elements that send a message to relax and chill! Remember, chase/fear/fight or flight are all about chaos and surprise. There is very little surprise in most rap music. So, in times of stress, when the sympathetic nervous system wants to break out into a long-evolved, but sometimes displaced reaction of fight or flight, the music of rap sends a different message. While the lyrics do what they do (which is sometimes counter to the psychoacoustics of the music), the music is mostly predictable. And in times of stress, predictability is good for down-regulating; predictability sends the message to the nervous system that it can lay back and rest.

What Does Your Community Need?

Beyond my psychoacoustic analysis of a recent night in Asheville, my examination is much bigger than this. It's about what is the state that you want to bring to your community, that your community needs in times of confusion, lack of predictability, or even chaos? Singing/drumming/playing to the nervous system is smart soundwork. There are many ways to use sound and music for social cohesion.

It's important to be thinking about these things now. 

Joshua Leeds' new book, Sound & Breath for Autonomic Balance: Stress and Anxiety Relief in Turbulent Times, will be available on Amazon in February 2026.