If Life Were a Musical: A Realistic Approach

Musicals are everywhere.   They span from the belting notes of the Broadway stage, to the cheery voices of Disney, to the reliable (or at least impending) episode of every sitcom for no reason other then to boost ratings.  In the case of the later, it is usually completely random.  Maybe the main character is in an extended dream sequence, sometimes it’s caused by a school musical that the series never makes reference to ever again, and sometimes it’s even due to hallucinations due to an 104 degree fever or a brain tumor. Seriously.  Regardless of the reasoning, the episode is almost always entirely unrealistic.  The general consensus is that people breaking into a chorus line is ridiculous and makes for great entertainment because it’s not something we see every day.  But is it really that strange?   Now bear with me; what if a musical life was really how we lived today?

From what I remember from my human evolution course, human speech started 100,000ish years ago (Disclaimer: This might be a made up number).  Now, it isn’t definite when music was “invented” but for arguments sake let’s say it was at least a few thousand years after speech began in the human race.  Instead of breaking the two into black and white categories, what if the human race had evolved the two into a grey area?  Allow me to take you back in time; one day, Mr. Cavemister kills a leopard.  He was so excited he let out a loud cry of victory.  I know.  I was there.  All his cave chums were quite the impressed bunch and started to let out their own variety of notes when mere action couldn’t adequately express their joy.  Over thousands of years the same tactic was used to express sadness, anger, and excitement.  Basically any uber-emotion you can think of.  Words were added to make meaning clear.  This progressed along with speech and eventually we come to what would be present day.

Imagine a baby growing up today.  This baby hears his mom and dad bombarding him with “MamaDadaMamaDadaMama” in a desperate ploy to get him to say his first word.  The parents go about their day, chatting in front of the baby.  Suddenly Mom gets a phone call, it’s some good news.  Mom breaks out into song.  Baby learns that this is the normal way to express and communicate.  Baby grows up and interacts with other people.  These people reinforce what baby was taught by his parents.  Growing up we hear how to correctly use inflection, tone, and expression.  Baby learns how to use notes and tunes in the same manner.  It becomes natural to the human race. 

Of course there would be a few things different from the movies.  There would sadly be a scarcity of big show stopping numbers.  I, for one, have never seen a group of people speak for long periods of time using the same words unless it was rehearsed.  A street full of people breaking into the same tune is still, in fact, pretty ridiculous.  And dance? No, probably not.  Musical instruments? As for the solos everyone would be belting out, musical instruments would be unnecessary.  I imagine people singing their solos completely a capella.

Some things that would be the same:

Musicals in the media: Why not? We watch speeches.  We still like dancers and actors.  Just the best of the best would choose it as a career.

Singers and the radio: We read poetry right? Same concept.  The only difference might be that in elementary school kids would learn to read music as well as read books.

Playing instruments: They are still hard to play, you don’t need to read music to make up a tune, but you do need to learn to play an instrument to be productive with it.

How people would respond to everyday conversation:  If you’re used to people singing, you’re not going to call attention to them.  Unless someone is having a vocalized temper tantrum, then maybe…

Think about that for a second.  This is what popped into my head, a man in the middle of a crowded office, wearing a suit, just wailing at the top of his lungs.  He’s singing a hardcore rock number about how he just lost a promotion, playing air guitar, no music, kicking chairs and jumping around in his cubical.

This is the world I want to live in.