Music and/or language

People say that music is like a language. I strongly disagree. Music is not like a language. It is a language.

Better said, music encompasses many languages. Perhaps as many or more than verbal languages. We call musical languages “genres.”

Like speech, every musical language has a distinct grammar and vocabulary, and even degrees of formality. Consider the Hindustani classical music of North India. While our Western ears are accustomed to seven-note scales (do - re - mi - fa - sol - la - ti) based around “major” and “minor,” Hindustani music draws on dozens of different scale patterns, usually composed of five to seven notes before repeating at the octave.

To us westerners, many of the Hindustani scales sound identical. Our ears are not used to registering the small variations in tuning that distinguish the scales’ tonal content. But audiences in North India, having heard this music since childhood, are sensitive to these subtle differences in intonation. They can hear, and thus feel the emotional repercussions of, musical details that we are not trained to hear. By the same token, most people from North India likely have little reference for the common harmonic progressions and song forms that structure Western music. There is a language barrier.

I once heard a story, mostly likely apocryphal, about a Hindustani family who relocates to the United States and attends a choir concert at the local middle school to get acquainted with their community. They are fascinated by the utter complexity of 40 children singing simultaneously, each using a different Hindustani scale. Of course the American families just hear a bunch of children singing out-of-tune.]

Like speech, musical languages are affected by a certain regional identity––an accent. If you are from New York, you are likely to hear jazz music that sounds quite different from the jazz music heard by someone from New Orleans, say, or Los Angeles. Just as the voices of those people will sound different, even though they’re all speaking English.

In many places, multiple musical languages coexist. In New York, classical orchestras and jazz big bands will play on the same stages as rock bands and hip-hop artists.

Just like verbal languages, it stands to reason that most speakers will primarily speak one language. In New York, some players and listeners will be well-versed in hip-hop but have little experience with classical music or rock and roll. Of course, just like multilingual speakers, there are always those exceptional few who can switch easily between multiple musical languages.

It is important to emphasize that I am referring to the listeners just as much as to musicians when I discuss people who speak a musical language. Remember, language is not learned in private lessons or in a university. It is learned as a child, by listening and imitating those around you. (Next time you question your capacity to learn music, remember that even months-old babies can do it.)

It was long after learning to speak when you discovered what a verb is, and a noun, and how the subject of a sentence acts on the object. And likely you forgot some of that long ago, anyway. Does that mean you can’t speak English?

[Remember those epic bards from ancient Greece, like Homer, who would travel from town to town reciting their epic poetry from memory, even accompanying themselves on the lyre meanwhile? Weren’t they all “illiterate,” too?]

Never having learned to play music has very little to do with whether someone can understand it. One negative side-effect of music education being so competitive and goal-oriented is the misconception that one must understand the theory or technique of music to fully appreciate it. It is certainly nice to be musically literate, but it is by no means necessary to “get” music.

Back to the thing about languages. Under close inspection, the differences between musical languages and verbal languages break down so much that the two hardly appear different at all. Which makes sense, considering both music and language are processed in the same part of your brain.

This is especially true with tonal languages, like Thai, where one word can have different meanings depending on the pitch at which it’s spoken. Careful saying “excuse me” as you squeeze by someone in Thailand. Miss the inflection and you’re asking for permission to fart.

There are tonal and even rhythmic elements in English, too. Your voice rises at the end of a phrase to indicate a question. You pause to distinguish a vocative case. (“I don’t know John,” vs. “I don’t know, John.”)

I remember once arriving at a lesson with Sam Yahel, and he happened to be in the middle of transcribing –– a common practice in jazz that involves studying a piece of music by learning to play it by ear. Only Sam wasn’t transcribing a jazz solo. He was transcribing a speech by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. When I asked him about it, he told me, “Pick a tempo.” I chose a tempo at random, and he set the metronome to click at that tempo. Click, click, click, click. Meanwhile, he pressed play on the recording of MLK. The pacing and inflection of MLK’s speech rubbed up so beautifully against the click of the metronome that I felt the swell of tears behind my eyes. “See?” Sam said. “Perfect time.”

I mentioned above that language and music are processed in the same part of your brain. Not similar parts, not closely-related –– the exact same part. Which, I can say from personal experience, makes sense.

What do you think about while speaking? Probably the answer isn’t obvious. Are you thinking at all? Maybe you’re thinking quickly in the moment before you speak?

Neuroscientists and linguists have seen that we think right at the moment of speech. You think exactly what you’re saying at the moment that you’re saying it, give or take a few nanoseconds while electrical signals from your brain fire down to your nerves. The connections that we develop between the language-oriented parts of our brain and the muscles necessary to physically express language-based information are so strong as to work in lock step.

And since music comes from that very same part of our brain, we can finally arrive at an answer to the age-old question: what are musicians thinking about while they play?

They’re thinking about exactly the same thing you think about while you’re speaking. Which is to say, they’re thinking exactly what they’re playing, at the moment that they play it. Not only what notes they are playing, but also the sound quality, the intonation, the volume -– everything. Having done the music thing for a while now, I can say that it feels as natural for me to think of my sound, inflection, and the physical sensation of playing the saxophone as it is for me to think in English, mentally hearing words in my own voice.

To emphasize this point, consider the phenomenon of musicians who sing while they play. Not necessarily singer-songwriters, but instrumental musicians who intuitively sing the notes they’re playing while they play them. (If you didn’t know about this phenomenon, now you do.) Keith Jarret used to sing his melodies so loudly while he played them that you often heard more of his voice than the piano. There is a wonderful video of Glen Gould rehearsing Bach at this cottage in Ontario, where he sings the notes with the same exact inflection and articulation as he plays them on the piano.

In this same vein, it is common to hear musicians use the word “say” where a non-musician might use “play,” as in, “Listen to what Mccoy says at the top of his first chorus on ‘Passion Dance.’”

Saying and playing come from the same place.

If music and language originate in the same part of the brain, it stands to reason then that many of the same principles for learning a language apply to learning music. I tend to make bold claims, so here’s another one: the principles are not only related –– they’re identical.

How does one play music well? Well, how does one speak well? Anybody can improvise speech, even a baby. Surely babies are not reading from a script of sounds and nonsense. They are improvising.

How to speak clearly and coherently is a different question. Consider how you learned to speak English. Most likely you copied people older than you, maybe even from the TV or radio. The same goes for learning to play music. We copy other musicians. We copy what notes they play the same way a child copies words. We copy the sound and inflection the same way a child copies an older person’s accent or delivery. As much as we like to imagine music notes on a page, at the end of the day it is an aural art form transmitted by an oral tradition.

Then what about written music? I always tell my students that a score is like a script, and the musician is the actor. It is not enough simply to recite the notes and rhythms printed on the page, just as it is not enough for an actor to simply read from a script in monotone. The art of learning to play written music is the art of interpretation. Just like acting.

Importantly, musical languages, like verbal languages, are constantly changing. Languages are forever being adapted by new users and tossed about irreverently by young speakers. For me, that is a large part of the joy of working with young people. Like new speakers to a language, they come at it with no preconceptions. All “correct” ways of playing music are up for debate. Occasionally in a lesson a student comes up with a musical idea so creative and idiosyncratic that it distracts me from what we’re working on, and I have to force myself to get the lesson back on track. It pains me to think that anyone would call such an idea a “mistake.”

What I’m Listening To

Ben van Gelder is one of my big influences on the alto saxophone. He is Dutch, though he studied in New York and lived here for about a decade. Now he is based in Amsterdam. I don’t know what is in the water over there but the Dutch jazz scene is pretty unhinged. There is a history of great Dutch players stretching back at least to late 50s with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pederson, bass player for Oscar Peterson and countless others; and Han Bennick, the superhuman drummer (still very active!) who played with Sonny Rollins in the late 50s, when Sonny was playing so much horn he would solo on a single tune for 45 minutes straight and Han would keep the fire right under his arse the whole time.

So here is Ben, both a pioneer and a product of that Dutch scene, playing side by side with the cream of the crop in New York, and on a Sonny Rollins tune no less. (Airegin, one of Sonny’s most commonly covered compositions, is a harmonic labyrinth. The name is Nigera backwards.) Listen to the provocative way guitarist Peter Bernstein accompanies Ben, and to all the space Ben leaves for him to fill in. Listen also for the off-kilter clatter and swing from drummer Craig Weinrib, and the ruthless quarter notes laid down by bassist Rick Rosato. Keep in mind, you can still see all these musicians, and many more of this caliber, play in New York on a regular basis. What a paradise.

(Close)

Zack Hann Saxophonist, composer, producer Info Recordings Videos Compositions Instruments Writing Commercial work Contact

Zack Hann
Saxophonist, composer, producer

Info
Recordings
Videos
Compositions
Instruments
Writing
Commercial work
Contact