although music is as intrinsic to human life as the air we breathe, we must never fall for the line that it is a universal language. Music is neither universal, nor a language.
The use of the word ‘universal’ suggests that all music speaks equally to all people. Clearly, it does not. While music might be everywhere, no one appreciates all of it and often enough the barrier to appreciation is cultural. American country music, Italian baroque arias, Indian ragas, hip hop, twelve-tone string quartets: everyone can name a form of music that leaves them unmoved and possibly drives them mad – assuming, that is, they can agree on what constitutes music in the first place. In most of the indigenous languages of Africa, although there are words for performing, for singing and dancing, for drumming and playing other instruments, there is no equivalent word for music.
Were music a language, it could be translated into other languages. But that is not how music works. Music might be good at generating emotion, but it can tell you nothing precise: a shopping list, a set of directions, a love letter are all beyond it. Music communicates nothing; itis something.
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I think music is the art of agony. Music is, after all, derived from screaming; it is not derived from laughing.
—Percy Grainger (1882–1961), Australian composer
Music is a precursor to language. It is not that it predates language in the historical sense (though it probably does), but that a version of music comes out of the mouths of b
