Using Music to Strengthen and Shape Your Business's Narrative

Have you ever thought about the effect music can have on your emotions? 

Think about the feeling you get when your favorite song comes on or the nostalgia that comes flooding in when you hear a song you haven't thought of since childhood. A marriage between music and a narrative can be a powerful combination to tell a story.

When businesses attempt to reach their audience with storytelling, they often find that incorporating music is an effective way to grab the customer's attention. The use of music draws on a customer's emotions and memories and can create a magical connection that builds a sense of comfort and familiarity between you and your audience. 

I recently talked with Jeff Leisawitz, an internationally in-demand life coach, author, filmmaker, and award-winning musician, producer, and member of the Go Narrative crew who has decades of experience in the music industry. Heralding from Seattle, Washington, Jeff has been in the music scene for a long time and knows a thing or two about the effect music can have on others. We sat down to discuss the importance of music and how this medium can be used to express a story powerfully. 

Why is music important?

Regardless of your musical preference and background, most people can agree that they genuinely enjoy music of some variety. Music mentally transports listeners by causing memories to arise and evoking various emotions based on the selected music's style, tone, and mood.

As a business, storytelling is a great tool to help you connect with and strengthen the trust between you and your customers by humanizing your brand and letting them get to know you. With music, you can emphasize your company's narrative and more effectively sell your message with something familiar and emotion-evoking to your audience.

Jeff is an expert at this and has successfully used this concept throughout his career.  

"​​Music is an interesting medium," said Jeff. "It's a different kind of communication than words or images because music works on an emotional level. Music carries a certain energy and communicates a certain mood or emotion. That's why music is so important in everything and really all visual media."

Everything from commercials on TV, to a company's jingle, to movies incorporate music to further drive home whatever narrative a company is trying to share. Music's power for viewers is special and creates a more memorable and impactful story.

Music has a special magic to it – but why?

Now that we know music has a particular effect that can be beneficial to use in business, the question is why? Why does music have a magic element that makes it so unique?

 According to Jeff, music is really energy. 

"The soundwave is energy, so we pick up on that, whereas we look at something or we intellectualize something when we read it or try to hear it," he explained. "In terms of words, the music itself is just that connection in almost an ethereal or ephemeral way."

While the structure of a story lives and exists in the brain's neocortex because that's where structure exists, the effect is felt in the limbic brain as our brain simulates experiences through storytelling. We remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, and – most importantly – 70% of what we experience. 

Storytelling presses buttons and triggers various emotions to create an impactful experience. You can use it strategically to stand out and connect with an audience – and using music can add to this memorable experience.

Combining music and storytelling to create experiences

Music has the power to transport us through our memories and take our imaginations on an adventure. It's a hack that allows us to quickly tap into people's emotions and inject feelings into their brains just by hearing a particular song or sound. Combined with visual or written storytelling, you can create something unique that leaves a lasting impression and entices your audience to take action.

"When music creates an experience, we remember the experience," Jeff said. "Let's take a classic movie from our generation, like The Breakfast Club. Don't You (Forget About Me)? I dare anyone who grew up in the '80s to hear that song and not remember that time. The song connects, in this case, to a film, or the radio, or your cassette tape, or record, and then immediately transports us back."

Speaking of Jeff's example, the hit 1985 film uses music to draw in listeners and maintain a theme throughout the movie. The film's use of the song Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds has become associated with The Breakfast Club over time due to how the music was used to lead the story and evoke feelings of motivation and growth.

"We just make these connections – you saw the movie, you heard the song on the radio, you felt the power of youth and the connection to the stories in that film, and now, simply the mention of it triggers you back into that," said Jeff. "What a powerful thing that we can do using music – using story in these kinds of videos and these kinds of communications."

Emotions are the driving force of a customer. Decisions are made based on your heart, and they are justified based on what your head tells you. Therefore, catering to one's emotions through story and music are helpful hacks to guide your audience in their decision-making process. 

Shaping stories with the rhythm of language 

One idea that Jeff brought up, which I found incredibly interesting, is the fact that language has a rhythm all its own. 

Using the rhythms of language, Jeff created Docutronica, a nonlinear story that takes clips of interviews that have been cut down to the raw message and pairs them rhythmically to music. He describes that in doing so, the narrative goes deep into the heart and mind of the listener because the emotion of the speaker drives it. 

"When we listen to music, let's say without lyrics, it's more of an emotional connection," Jeff explained. "So, what we're doing here is we're melding these two sides – the intellect and the heart – that balance where we get the key phrases of the messaging of the story, and we are amplifying that with emotion."

Ultimately, every business can benefit from connecting further with its audience. By finding ways to build a bridge between your business and your audience, you can reach them on a deeper, more personal level. In doing so, they are more likely to invest in your business. Music communicates your company's narrative and carries an energy that causes the audience to tie certain emotions to your business. 

Are you ready to use music to evoke emotion and tell a story to your audience? If so, book a complimentary consultation with Go Narrative. This no-strings-attached consultation will give you a chance to learn more about our storytelling tools and frameworks which you can use to improve your business's narrative.