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Music and Meaning
"Music," wrote nineteenth century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "is the universal language of mankind." This is a striking statement—and I fear the claims of poets are always best served cum grano salis to allow for gentle seasoning and healthy skepticism. Music is not language. Nor is music universal. It may be made by people everywhere, but the styles, contexts, interpretations and meanings can vary tremendously between cultures. Throughout this diversity, however, music remains an intensely communicative medium. It stirs our emotions, colors our stories, and even defines our identities. It isn't language, but still, it does speak to us in its way. How does music communicate? Why is music different from language? By examining one against the other, we might learn a little about each.
It's easy to demonstrate what separates the language and music. To start, music is not language, because children don't grow up learning music to tell their parents "I'm hungry" or to ask "Are we their yet?" Music is not language, because although one could write a score for The Tempest, no musical arrangement alone could reveal the story. A composer might write a piece inspired by Shakespeare's words, but no listener would ever hear it and think, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep." Fundamentally, music is not language because it lacks language's precise symbolism: its words. In English, for instance, if someone wants to talk about a dog, he can simply say the word "dog," and be done with it—even though there is no real connection between word and beast but for the symbolic association people have created. It's true in any language: dog, canis, chien, perro, hund, собака, كلب, कुत्ता, 狗, 犬; ten different languages, ten different words, none of them anything like the animal we call a dog, but all of them carrying exactly that meaning. There is no word, however—no note, chord, rhythm, or melody—that means dog in music. Music is not a language.
Music relies on different mechanisms to carry meaning. Instead of communicating by abstract symbolism, music evokes meaning through emotion and resemblance. The latter of these, meaning through resemblance, might also be called meaning by mimicry. So it is that although there is no specific musical symbol to denote "dog," a skillful composer could still use music to imitate a dog's barking, growling, scratching, and howling, and thereby convey meaning by reminding listeners of the things they associate with the animal. Antonio Vivaldi famously employed this method in The Four Seasons, imitating birdsongs, raindrops, and thunderstorms to indicate different times of year. Of course, meaning by mimicry is more complex than simply imitating the sounds a thing makes. Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago, as an example, reminds listeners by its sparse instrumentation that it was recorded in the isolation of a northern Wisconsin cabin during winter. Inventive composers can communicate myriad ideas by trying to find a way to employ pitch, rhythm, and instrumentation to evoke our thoughts on a particular subject.
Even more communicative than the meaning through resemblance is the emotionality in music. People constantly find emotion in the music they hear, naming tunes as happy, sad, triumphant, frightening, angry, solemn, exciting, or a whole host of other feelings. Central here are the musical elements of consonance and dissonance, and their relative prevalence in major and minor keys. Consonant harmonies are made up of notes that seem to fit together pleasantly, while dissonant chords consist of pitches that beat against each other in a way that is perceived to clash. Music played in a minor key is more likely to contain dissonance, and the discomforting sound of clashing notes leads such music to feel dark and depressing. On the other hand, music in a major key, which is generally more consonant, is perceived as brighter and more joyful. Emotion in music can also be influenced by the way sounds are organized rhythmically, or even simply by variations in tempo. Volume also plays a role.
Related to the question of what triggers emotion in music is the question of why certain musical techniques bring about certain emotions in the first place. Is it an innate response, are emotional reactions to certain kinds of music already programmed into the brain at birth? Or do we learn to connect certain music with a certain emotion by the cultural associations we experience growing up? These questions can only be solved by empirical research, and while a few studies have been done, much remains to be learned. It seems likely that music's emotionality springs from a combination of innate and learned abilities, but I would tentatively argue that what we learn is most important. Looking through history, any student of music theory will recall that concepts as fundamental as consonance and dissonance have changed dramatically over time, so much so that the perfect fourth was thought a perfect consonance in one period, but could be considered dissonant in another. This can only mean that these are learned labels. Likewise, the diversity in musical styles across the globe suggests that people in different cultures learn to interpret emotion in music in a variety of unique ways.
In any case, its clear that music has a unique way of triggering emotion, and when this emotionality is present alongside communication by resemblance, music proves itself extraordinarily expressive. Still, the meanings expressed in music always remain somewhat ambiguous, and no two people ever interpret an arrangement to mean quite the same thing. The exception, of course, is when music is accompanied by words that tell people what to think. The combination of language and music is often far more communicative than either one on its own, and so people print program notes for concerts, put soundtracks with films, sing the lyrics to pop songs, and perform that supreme combination of words and music, the opera. The result is always something intensely meaningful, and often quite memorable too.
Meaning in music doesn't stop with what just one song is trying to say. In a broader sense, musical styles and genres can themselves convey meaning, usually in providing a sense of group identity. Our language always helps to define us, but with music, we can seek to define ourselves. Herein lies the sophistication of classical music and smart jazz, the youthful rebelliousness of rock and roll, the race and gender of rap, the working class spirit of country. These are identities celebrated by musicians and listeners alike, groups of people who put themselves into their music, and let themselves be shaped by it in turn. There are few groups—whether sorted by class, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, or anything—without an accompanying style of music. Likewise, there are few musical styles that don't conjure the identity of one group or another.
The strongest sort of musical identity is probably regionalism. Artists occasionally try to evoke this regionalism through resemblance—the Canadian folk-rock group Great Lake Swimmers, for instance, seem able to make their songs bob up and down in the frothy cold waves of the northern lakes. Most often, though, this regionalism is simply a connection learned by association, linking music to the place it came from. Everybody knows that bluegrass is the sound of Appalachia, that motown is from Detroit, that jazz sprung out of New Orleans. We know where to place the jigs of Ireland, the chansons of France, the gamelan orchestras of Indonesia, and the guzheng and ehru of China. The way music varies by region is very akin to language, with minor local deviations that are no more a barrier to comprehension than regional accents, and divides between continents that can produce vast gaps of musical understanding from one people to another. Like language, music certainly communicates a sense of place.
There can be no doubt now of music's communicative abilities. From its symbolic association with place and identity to its emotionality and the ability to mimic animals and thunderstorms, meaning can be embedded into music's every twist. Music is not language—Longfellow's statement is wrong, if taken literally. Still, similarities between language and music abound, so the poetic comparison Longfellow made remains an incredible valuable perspective. Not every musical piece, of course, is meant to be communicative. Some songs are simply written to be catchy, and many composers write music that strives towards what they may see as a higher goal: artistic originality, complexity, and inventiveness. Often with language, it's the opposite: we say what we mean without once thinking how to do it creatively. I'm thinking now about a world where we try to make our songs as meaningful as our words, and our words as artful as our music. How harmonious might life be then?
I know that many of my readers are far more musical than I, and so I look forward eagerly to the thoughts you bring below.
6 Replies to "Music and Meaning":
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Eric wrote:28 December 2008 — 9:04 pm
I find this article interesting, but I am not sure about anything being innate in music. I believe everything is learned in observing how others react to certain kinds of music as well as what the other senses are experiencing when listening to music. In fact, I do not necessarily believe anything to be innate, except for the fear of falling, I heard. I heard that when babies feel like they are falling, they jerk back up because they are afraid of falling, but I also believe that this is learned when the baby is born, the baby “fell” out of the woman.
Anyway, this reminds me of the discussion of language with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie whether it was the language that made English men ironic, or the ironic of the people that made the language ironic. This discussion can also be translated to music as you were discussing regionalism.
There is also a quote I heard from Stravinsky: “Good composers borrow. Great composers steal.” I was wondering how you felt about anyone trying to be original in music. Is that even possible? Or is it just like Steven Fry said: “Imagine a piano keyboard, eh, 88 keys, only 88 and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new tunes, new harmonies are being composed by hundreds of different keyboards every day in Dorset alone.”?
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Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote:28 December 2008 — 10:27 pm
Music can be original because it is created by humans, and everyone is different. No song can be written from the exact same background/context/mood by two different people. Even the act of stealing/borrowing from other artists is original – the combination of previously un-combined things is an original work of art in itself (see: Girl Talk).
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Josh wrote:28 December 2008 — 11:45 pm
Pardon this long reply.
I agree with Mr. “Roosevelt” (Alex’s latest identity, it seems) that the only limit to originality in music is human imagination. Think of the diversity just in the number of possible sounds we can make! And then think of all the possible combinations thereof. However, as Mr. Stephen Fry continued in that sketch, we have a tendency to ignore this infinite potential in our language, and simply repeat the same words and phrases every day. This seems true in music too. The potential for originality is limitless, but the top 40 hits all sound nearly the same, and the reason they’re top 40 hits is because they get played over and over and over and over and over again. We can be original, but we hate to stray from what’s comfortable.
I wonder, Alex/FDR, (and Eric too, if you like), what do you think about the pursuit of originality or artfulness in music as opposed to the pursuit of making music say something, be expressive, and communicate? Are they separate goals? Is either more ambitious, more rewarding? When you yourself write songs/presidential speeches, does either consideration, art or meaning, enter your process? Or are you just writing to have fun?
As regards innate vs. learned behavior, there is certainly a school of thought that insists all behavior is learned, and none innate. However, there are other schools of thought that insist with equal resolve that much behavior is genetic. The reason that two schools can hold such different ideas is because neither side really has enough evidence to disprove the other. For the sake of argument, though, what would you say about behaviors that are universal to humankind? We often concentrate on differences. It’s obvious to see the variety between societies in things like language, music, dress, etc. Such things can only be transmitted by learning. But what about something like, oh, smiling? In every human society, without exception, people smile to express happiness. Is it really likely that, in the light of so much diversity in so many other aspects of life, every human culture somehow manages to teach exactly the same facial expressions to denote the same emotions? Or are basic facial expressions with us from birth, part of the human genome, embedded in our species? The latter seems to me more likely.
Let’s look at this in terms of music. Take consonance and dissonance. It’s true that not everyone finds the same meanings in consonance and dissonance, and it’s also true that there is disagreement about where the boundary between the two lies. It’s also true, however, that everyone who can hear at all can tell the difference between a strongly consonant chord and strongly dissonant one, even if they don’t know what to call the difference. Our ears are obviously genetic. The mental ability to process what our ears take in and comprehend pitch and rhythm and so forth seems genetic. And, as I’m not aware of any group of humans that doesn’t find emotion in music, perhaps the reason we find music emotional is that, as humans, that’s what we’re genetically programmed to do. Might it go still further than that? Are there certain musical features that all people associate with the same emotions? I don’t know. I doubt it, frankly. I’ve never seen a real study on this, though, so I’m only positing. My guess is that even if everyone finds music emotional, the emotions people find are specific to different cultures, subcultures, even unique individuals. They’re something we learn. But I can’t say that for sure, because there hasn’t been enough hard research to know.
Eric, or any other reader, you’re certainly welcome to continue this discussion further.
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Eric wrote:29 December 2008 — 10:46 am
I think you may be right about innate smiles, but could not that also be learned from parents. The ability to move our muscles is innate I believe. Let me try this way. The body could be put out like a computer. The operating system is our brain and its connected to all the hardware on the computer. The operating system has the ability (innate ability) to control all the hardware, but what makes it personal is what software is put onto the computer as well as whatever the user decides to do with the computer (learned behavior). When we are born we have instincts (I am changing my position, because I thought on it) and abilities which make us basically an animal with only lower brain functions. Because our bodies have the ability of higher brain functions, that is why we learn them. You say smiles are universal, but I believe that is using the innate ability of moving our muscles to create a smile that is learned. Some people even smile when they are sad, not because they are happy, but because they do not want to show unhappiness.
As for the pursuit of artfulness or originality in music, I think they can be the same goals or different goals. For example, I could write a song that is totally original, but I might only be experimenting with sounds and not trying to get any meaning from it. As I work with these new sounds, I can start writing a sound with meaning. Or I could even go the opposite way and write a parody of all the top 40 hits on the radio that sound like it, it can be original because it does not sound like any other song, and it has meaning as well.
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Millard Fillmore wrote:29 December 2008 — 12:05 pm
As the 13th President of the United States, I would like to agree with my future colleague. Music can be infinitely original, there will never be a point where it becomes impossible to create something new.
I consider originality/artfulness and meaning to be closely related. I think you can have one without the other, yes, but the greatest works of music are those that combine both. Beauty without meaning is still beauty, but with meaning it can change lives. When I write songs (yes, I write songs), I strive for the perfect mixture of meaning and art.
Without this combination, I think the two ideas are equally ambitious/effective. I could write a very direct, meaningful song, telling exactly how I feel about General Winfield Scott (the bastard), with lyrics like “Oh, he’s a bastard, I wish he were dead/See, the party picked him over me/So now I’m upset/I’m upset because I won’t be President again.”
While something like this may rank high in the area of “meaning” in that the audience knows exactly what I’m saying, and I’m getting my message across very clearly, it may not be as effective as it could be if the level of “art” isn’t there. If the music were very droll, say with a single harpsichord note sounding every 2 minutes, while I speak/ramble the words off quickly, the message wouldn’t get very far. But with the addition of originality and art, the message can be so much more effective.
Well, as they say, the nourishment is palatable!
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Josh wrote:29 December 2008 — 2:40 pm
I’m happy that this article has led to so much discussion.
Both of your perspectives on the relation between art, originality, and meaning in music are fascinating. Mr. Fillmore’s comment reminds me of what a classical rhetorician would say. Take Quintilion: “A speaker wins but trifling praise if he does no more than speak with correctness and lucidity; in fact his speech seems rather to be free from blemish than to have any positive merit…On the other hand, by the employment of skillful ornament the orator commends himself at the same time, and whereas his other accomplishments appeal to the considered judgment of the learned, this gift appeals to the enthusiastic approval of the world at large, and the speaker who possesses it fights not merely with effective, but with flashing weapons.” (emphasis added).
Returning to the innate/learned behavior divide, I think Eric is definitely right that we can learn to smile when we are not happy. However, there has actually been a good deal of research into the nature of smiles of genuine happiness versus smiles that are simply posed. The conclusion is that they aren’t the same, because true smiles, identified by Duchenne de Boulogne, involve not only the mouth, but also a change in the eyes…and people seem unable to fake the eye component of what’s been named a “Duchenne smile.”
Also, if smiles are learned, then why do people who are born blind still show happiness on their face as readily as those who can see? Where did they learn that expression?
So, it seems there is a difference between knowing by nature to smile when you are happy, and knowing through learning to smile in a social context. A few basic expressions that seem innate and universal…not only are the expressions innate, but our ability to recognize them and associate them with a certain emotion seems that way too. There are combinations, variations, and amplifications of these expressions, however, that are learned differently in various cultures.
That’s why the question of how much of our musical appreciation is learned versus innate still seems wide open to me. If it is genetic that we express emotion in our face, might it also be genetic that we can express certain emotions through music? I’m definitely not saying yes. But I also think that it’s too soon to definitely say no.
ADDENDUM: What a coincidence, the BBC has just posted this article today: Smiles and scowls ‘in our genes’. Is MI5 watching this blog?