Music and Language

Ah, music... okay, and ah, language. Two separate words that can be the same thing. Music IS a language, after all, and many languages have a musical quality or rhythm to them, especially to foreign ears. It's a little odd that I haven't really blogged about this yet, since it's both a heavy theme in UnSung and a huge part of my creative growth. Perhaps it's more the latter. Either way, observations about music are one of those topics both with a sound base in reason (pun intended) and a whole slew of subjective opinions. I'm sure there have been more eloquent opinions, but I enjoy wandering outside of the bubbles of research to give honest impressions.

A little about me first so you get a little insight into the bigger observations. A little blood for the offering. Listening to music is not actually something I do a lot of these days either. My iTunes library is super small compared to most people these days, but I guarantee I have at least 50 songs on there that not a single one of my friends will have anyway. I don't go looking for weird or obscure music on purpose and it's actually very accessible artists-- it just tends to be a song towards the end of an album that went overlooked or underappreciated that I latched onto right away. I whistle constantly, a habit I picked up from my dad who also sings in the shower. I hum and sing songs that I've never heard, just whatever occurs to me. I play piccolo and flute and a passable alto sax and I have a violin waiting to be learned (a project I'm eyeing for after I've finished UnSung). I'm obsessed with music but not in a 'who is your favorite band' kind of way. I don't immediately assume I will like everything an artist does over one song. I love a lot of Kanye's work, but I don't snatch everything up immediately because he's rather eclectic so it might not hit me like the previous album. Like with most of my tastes, music is an impulse and I'm not a fact magnet. Sometimes I'll listen to a song for years before I bother to find out what it's really called or who does it. I can usually get that info from anyone within two seconds when I sing a line from it. Or an internet search, but it's a great way to strike up a conversation about music with friends, so win-win.

That being said, what do I have to say about music and language? The music theme is going to be subjective in places, but I want to steer clear of the theoretical or creative ways I'm using it for my unpublished book. Perhaps I'll touch more on that aspect after publishing but for now, just some observations-- some while speaking to non-native speakers of English. Which leads me into where English, my native tongue fits.

One thing I hear a lot about the English language-- it is the language of writers. Do not take this as a claim of superiority or that it should be a universal language. English, first off, is a language that borrows words from other languages it didn't initially have in order to enrich the understanding of communication. The verb and tense structure is both thorough and difficult, a constant subject of debate. Also, because of how immense and diverse English is, it is also one of the most difficult languages to gain mastery of and also why English spelling bees enthrall people all over the globe.

Throwing in an anecdote here, but we had a foreign exchange student from Iceland in our high school and he saw the enormous current version of the English dictionary and marveled over how thick it was. He opened it to a page and asked her a random word and she had no clue what it meant. He laughed and told her it was stupid that we have so many words that everyone doesn't know. 

Professions tend to carry a great deal of specialized words not in common use-- doctors and scientists use a ton of Latin words and lawyers have quite the list and like doctors, often specialize to focus on refining one area of law rather than carrying the whole massive glacier. English is one of those languages rife with slang and area dialects and there are such massive style differences between American, Australian and British English that it can amount to a lost-in-translation moment. 

I know that Chinese has separate divisions as well (Traditional, Mandarin and Cantonese, off the top of my head) and African dialects are extremely vast, but China also carries most of the world population and Africa is the largest mass of land in the world. English doesn't get the win there, but it's the fact that it can so easily borrow and integrate it into spoken AND written form that makes it so appealing to non-native speakers. I know Japanese borrows quite a bit of foreign words and developed the katakana system to integrate it into writing. They use our words for car (kuruma), remote control (rimoutou) and kiss (kisu), among others. Again, English isn't the only one that does it, but Japanese structure is also a more difficult grammatical structure for many non-natives and the specialized writing system borrowed from China makes reading it a whole other learning curve. Japanese added hiragana to simplify the complex kanji. If the Icelander thought we were 'stupid', I've learned that most Japanese people only bother to learn a few hundred of the kanji (100 are the staple of primary school) and that even scholars rarely learn all of the characters. I'd love to show you my Japanese translation dictionary to press home just how complex this system is, both in terms of the different ways you actually pronounce each character depending on context (the characters around it and whether it is used in a family name).

I've dabbled in Latin, Romance, Germanic and Asian language but I'd be stuck talking to 3 and 4 years old in most cases since my interest went into structure, rhythm and cadence, picking up a few keywords or phrases only (first things first-- try to learn the phrase 'I don't understand' or 'speak slowly' in every language you might want to try with a native speaker). Again, creature of impulse here; true master of not-a-damn-thing and curious about everything. I cannot remember for the life of me which comedian said it because I absorb stand-up comedy with no reference, but I also laughed at the idea that Russians secretly use a backwards H because fuck you. I know Chris D'Elia did a sketch on Russians, but I don't know if it went there (definitely a lot of 'fuck you'), but there are a lot of comedians that do alternate takes on the same basic theme and the attitude was similar. One thing is certain-- I've never met a subtle Russian and when they're quiet, it speaks volumes.

Yes, I did say music so I'll get to that. Mentioned above, I love to sing, nonsense or otherwise. English is the biggest pain in the ass when it comes to singing. It is a language with consonant clashing so often it requires you to use alternate words or ditch a beloved phrase or idea altogether because it just doesn't work musically. It is VERY limited and challenging in music. There are three languages in particular that are absolutely darling to sing in-- Italian, French and Japanese. These are vowel heavy languages and all of them can use rolling r's which is both amazing to hear and fun to do. I could not roll r's to save my life until I was taught in French to do a 'dry gargle'. That's all I needed to learn how to place my tongue correctly for even the Latin 'rr'. (It was actually my Dominican friend Fermín that was impressed that a white girl could do a Latin roll, but I sheepishly told him I 'cheated' and tapped into my French). If you've never sang in any of those languages, they have all branched into modern music and you can even find some pretty kick ass covers of English songs to give it a whirl. Do this (if you love singing, even alone).

Chinese is a language that sounds VERY melodic to most non-natives (a statement that some find offensive, but when can you not offend someone with a truthful observation?). In fact, when I dabbled in the structural study of Chinese, I believe 'ha' had 14 different meanings depending on emphasis and slight intonation, ranging from meanings like 'horse' to 'teeth'. Many native Chinese speakers don't really hear it or think about it since, like many native speakers, you absorb language by the chain of context and even sound becomes easy to dismiss unless it is very dissonant to what is the norm. For a non-native to 'form' a native translation of their mother tongue, we try to learn each word in isolation so that we can develop our unique voice over time. Sure, in the beginning we stick with the stock phrases including asking where things are, basic household objects, how much something is, food and drink etc. But as we delve into interest in a culture, we begin to wonder how we are different and the same in thought processes, if culture makes certain ideas difficult to communicate. Colloquialisms, slang and swearing are also fun ventures in friendly company (i.e. not most strangers or acquaintances).

If anything we already have a universal language and you know what I'm going to say: music. However, I have also run into my share of supremely logical people who don't like music. Yes, I know it's a shock to some people and even comes with extreme doubts: is that person a serial killer or boring/dull or just hasn't found anything yet. Hey, that sounds exactly like the sort of thing people come up with when you find out someone doesn't want sex and equally bullshit. The first guy that ever told me he didn't like music was a Japanese penpal. Even then, I knew what it was like to be an 'other' in human society, but I still hedged at the unknown. He was a smart, hard-working guy and even though I did find it difficult to avoid talking about music, it was doable. In fact, as time passes, I actually need not a damned specific thing in common with anyone I'm friends with. If we both like video games, it's okay if we don't share a single one in common. It's a terrific challenge when you have to struggle for common ground, but still share things that are important to sustain the connection: a sense of humor, a favorite pastime, a love of wine or animals or tacos. It's not the same for everyone (although a sense of humor does tend to be something I look for in everyone-- doesn't have to match mine but an absence of one means they're not going to get me very much).

With music, if people do like it, it doesn't need words to 'enhance' it. However, music can be used to enhance the power of words and that sort of music is sometimes a repetitive beat with occasional swells and techniques to infuse emotion into the words being said. Some karaoke instrumentals are absolutely dull without the words, but the combination is so much more. Musicians usually understand that certain songs really shine if they utilize their range, voice and style to its advantage. I find that there are some songs I just don't give credit to when I sing it. My voice has gotten deeper in range and power so I can really dig on some Toni Braxton or Annie Lennox in ways I couldn't before, while my favorite Japanese pop songs by Hamasaki Ayumi are almost painful to sing now. Like in my last post (What Draws You to Story Telling?), like with stories we love, sometimes we are drawn to songs that we can participate in or understand more intimately. We are often draw to certain tempos, tones, notes, ventures and experiments in music that we can't always explain. We don't just connect to the artist sometimes-- sometimes we find similarities in the fanbase. Or not. Fanbases can be a nightmare, sometimes the artist's personal life is the last thing you want to know, so you take from it what you will.

A very layered run of subjects and one I would need to write books about if I needed something to write about (I don't) and wanted to smack around some non-fiction (I'm poking at a how-to-draw book before I ever think about that). I hope I didn't mangle that. When I reread these before posting, I try to catch the parts I might have muddled when I'm racing through and attempting to clarify. If I didn't choose such vast and wandering topics, I could be more sure I'm not making a mess of it, but I find that a lot of my novels are rainbow spaghetti in planning too, at least until I sort them by color and straighten them out.

Short posts are not so heavily edited and scoured though, so it's possible to lose sight. It's difficult to otherwise explain my love of language and music with no mastery of either (okay, I've at least got my piccolo, flute, and English games strong...).

As usual, I'm open to responding if you have thoughts to add. I love hearing from anyone on their takes with subjects I bring up. Again, I'm limited to my experiences, conversations, and approach, so there's always room for J-E-L-L-O. (You may be disgusted to learn my favorite flavor is lime.)