What does everyone here think about the relationship between music and language? Are there universal laws underlying both musical and lingual cognition? Is it useful to apply, via analogy, the principles of language to music?

Leonard Bernstein gave a series of six lectures on this subject in which he sought a universal musical grammar underlying the various musical paradigms throughout time and place. The series is entitled "The Unanswered Question"...has anyone here read/watched this series?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Gabe

This could be very subjective, but it seems to me that there is some kind of a linguistic/musical relationship. The "harshness" (as in English, German, or Russian) or "softness" (as in Spanish, French, or Portuguese) of a language seems to have an effect on the way melodies are created and evolve in that particular language, at least in my listening. The "softer" languages seem to lend themselves to richer, lusher melodies. The "harsher" languages seem to result in more angular, and at times (to my ears, anyway) less beautiful melodies. That's a generalization, of course, and there are always exceptions on both sides of the discussion.

I've always thought of music as communicating in two ways: through our associations that have accumulated over time with certain combinations of sounds, and through more physical properties of sound that have direct effects on the brain. I'm not sure it's right to separate the two though. something along the lines of a socially imposed language, and a natural or innate one. im sure evolution has started to merge the two though.



i know its not exactly answering the question, but it has to do with music as a language. whatever

[quote=Reverend Rock] The "harshness" (as in English, German, or Russian) or "softness" (as in Spanish, French, or Portuguese) QUOTE]

It's all subjective.

I find Spanish to be a harsher and angrier language to listen to than German.

Music is a language.

i think there's a definite connection between both aspects especially when it's done properly. although personally, i find myself more drawn to instrumental music. i think it kind of relates to what the rev was getting at in terms of natural linguistic melodies. i suppose it also depends on what you're listening to, generally speaking rock music has some of the lamest and most clichéd lyrics ever, and i find it detracts from the music a lot of times.

but then you have to wonder if you'd like the music more if you didn't understand the meaning behind the words. one of my absolute favorite albums (the jazz samba encore!) is in portugese (i think) i don't understand a word coming out of maria toledo's mouth throughout the entire disc but her voice fits SO well with stan getz's sax that it truly doesn't matter to me.

Perhaps a better thing to say is that music is a form of communication, and like speech, there are different languages through which this is done.

I think there are some analogous relationships between music and language. A piece of music is usually made up of 'phrases'. You could say that notes are like letters or words and these letters and words fill the phrases. The phrases collectively comunicate the greater musical idea.

Of course, there's only so far you can take this...