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Sport 32: Summer 2004
Music Is the Universal Language
Music Is the Universal Language
For a time, when another one of the musicians informs you of this yet one more time, you nod respectfully. Say it, brother. You feel rebuked and inadequate on behalf of language, for all that it fails to accomplish, for all the chasms it fails to bridge.
After a while how glibly this is spoken—spoken, mind you; language can even describe its own shortcomings—and its carelessness are beginning to make you wriggle a little in your seat. Music isn't composed of a cobweb of different languages? Music doesn't have dialects? Music works like a Babel fish? Someone whose ear was trained in classical music, or drums and bass, would hear the other for the first time, and the translation would be instantaneous?
Finally you venture, ‘But you could just as easily say, Language is the universal music.’
They consider this. ‘Yeah,’ they say slowly, thoughtfully, ‘yeah, you probably could.’