“In the beginning was the voice. Voice is sounding breath, the audible sign of life.” Those beautiful words were written by Otto Jespersen, an early 20th century Danish linguist, in the book Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin. Jespersen was on to something with that statement, voice as “the audible sign of life.” It reminds me of another popular quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Music is the universal language of mankind.”
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On Timeline we’ve been discovering all the ways in which music has changed world and focusing quite a bit on how musicality has shaped us as a species. We’ve already talked about how music and language are connected, and we’ve discussed the physical, cognitive and emotional benefits making music has on our bodies and our minds. In this episode, let’s explore music as “the universal language” of humanity.
Ancient Hindus called singing “The first art.” They marked playing instruments as the second and dancing the third. That phrase though, “Singing: The First Art” is the title of a popular textbook on Bel Canto, or “beautiful-singing” style, written by Dan H. Marek. The first lesson in that textbook on operatic technique uses a popular quote in Italian, Chi sa ben respirare e sillibare sapra ben cantare, those who know how to breathe and pronounce well, know how to sing well.
There’s not a culture on this planet that doesn’t sing. Let me put that statement into perspective. Not every culture wears clothes, especially our Western idea of clothing. Not every culture has developed writing or mathematics. There are even cultures that don’t kiss! However, every culture uses their voice in song.
In 2018, Harvard University conducted a study that seems to lend credence to Longfellow’s words. 750 online participants from 60 different countries were played short, 14-second clips of songs from cultures around the world. The participants were able to identify whether a song was a lullaby, a dancing song or a healing song regardless of where the music came from or their familiarity with the culture. You can take the same quiz yourself at the website of The Harvard Gazette.
The findings of this study run counter to what most ethnomusicologists, psychologists and other experts would have predicted. It has been assumed that the understanding and appreciation of music is a learned trait, tied to our cultural identity. But this study begins to paint another picture; the possibility of an innate human ability to understand music and song. Samuel Mehr is one of the researchers behind the Harvard study. Mehr states that, “This kind of basic, cross-cultural fact-finding about human behavior is the first step in developing a new science of music.”
We’ve always believed that music has the power to cross boundaries and bring people together. It seems that science is starting to catch up as well.
Find out when and how music changed us and the world and follow the Timeline.
