Music as Communication
"If you sit still, you can pick out ANY candy that you’d like at the Sweet Factory” my mom bribed, as my family strolled through the doors of Grace Baptist Church for the annual Christmas concert. This given year I was a rambunctious seven-year old who wasn’t interested in sitting through overly-done operatic spectacles like what last year’s concert had entailed. By the time my family had settled in a pew located in the balcony of the congregation center, I was pleased to realize by looking at the program that I wouldn’t have to endure as much annoying choral vibrato, however, I still had another hurdle to clear: the two-hour long concert itself.
Soon I began to hear the sounds of the orchestra tuning. I thought to myself “why are they just playing the same note over and over again?” But these drawn-out notes, though the same, were in fact beautiful. This concert was beginning to show promise. Soon, the lights began dimming to make way for a single stage light on the full orchestra. The conductor, silhouetted from the lighting, gracefully raised her arms up to cue the entrance of the principal violinist, and the show had begun.
As the musician began to soothingly communicate the melodic message and emotion through her violin, I closed my eyes to allow my ears and mind to fully experience the masterpiece at hand. I recognized the melody – “Carol of the Bells.” With the soloist violin soon entered the harmony string parts. Then the woodwinds came in. Then the brass section. Meanwhile, I was quickly being drawn into the intricate, wonderful idea that was rapidly forming before me. One by one, the rest of the orchestra trickled into the musical picture, each contributing their own sounds and ideas to the overall message being communicated. By the end of this opening piece, I had been convinced that sitting through this concert wouldn’t be so much of a chore after all, and if anything, it would be a truly rewarding experience.
Today, I’m a nineteen-year-old sitting on the quad at the University of California, Davis recalling the memory of this concert. Looking back, I’ve grown to realize that I didn’t need a treat for listening to and enjoying the concert. Nor do I need a treat now to watch and listen to what’s around me in this current moment: the sound of students laughing and enjoying some down time away from class, the sound of bikes whizzing by, the sound of leaves crunching as both humans and animals maneuver through the terrain of the quad… Witnessing these moments are treats in themselves.
The above scenes all involve communication, and based on context, one can go about finding meaning in these communications. The students laughing… they’re happy for the time being. The whizzing of bikes portrays that the community of UC Davis is on the go. The leaves crunching lets me know that there’s a squirrel lurking by my backpack… perhaps he’s communicating to me that he wants some of my trail mix. And in response to him, I’ll continue to type and not give him any.
My seven-year old self became aware of something incredible the night of the Christmas concert – one’s ability to recognize context and make sense of communication based on these contexts. As I’ve grown to understand, communication refers to the means in which a message or idea is delivered, and to interpret something is to make sense of these communications. I share communications with the world around me daily, whether they take place in a face to face conversation, or in a musical passage, and the way I interpret these interactions is subject to my perception. This is why I love listening to musical passages: music is an open book that’s eager to communicate with one who wishes to read its message. Though a strictly instrumental score lacks tangible, language-based words that a book would contain, music speaks in a language all of its own.
While language communicates ideas in a way that’s direct, or tangible, music communicates in a way that’s less direct. The fine line between what’s directly observable and what’s not is a thin one, and music and language rest on opposite ends of this equilibrium. This being said, we use language, something that’s tangible, to communicate concepts that are intangible and otherwise hard to perceive. Connecting this idea to music, a melodic sequence of notes on its own is intangible, and will never carry a message that we can immediately make sense of. However, a grouping of words that one may construct in response to the context of a musical passage is tangible, and therefore he or she has a mean to go about understanding “in real terms” what the piece at hand is trying to communicate. Given music’s broadness, it’s very likely that those whom music speaks to will understand what’s being communicated in different lights.
There was one time I came across a piano piece while browsing YouTube and upon reading the title, “Erasing the Canvas,” I thought I was about to listen to music inspired by “moving on in life,” like one would do upon “erasing” certain memories. I went into listening to the piece with this bias, and the way in which the musical passages flowed together had me convinced that my interpretation was on the right track. However, the piece ended up being influenced by, according to the composer, the destruction of nature. Definitely not a “liberating” way of erasing the canvas, if not, quite the opposite: humans stripping and erasing nature’s canvas. This experience goes to show that different individuals can be on very different pages regarding how they perceive what they hear.
Though I was “incorrect” in the sense that the composer wrote “Erasing the Canvas” with different intentions than what I had interpreted, my interpretation may not seem so far-fetched given some context. My personal experience with “Erasing the Canvas” involves hearing and interpreting a beautiful piece, then thinking about and weeping over a boy (kind of pathetic, I know), and proceeding to learn the piece on piano to help ease the pain of “erasing” this boy from my life. So, despite the composer’s intended meaning behind the piece, the meaning that I associate the piece with will always be in regards to “moving on.” Both perspectives, though different, are valid. Given a reasonable context for which one goes about interpreting something he or she perceives, one’s opinion will never be wrong. I must not say, however, that all possible interpretations can be “correct.”
Looking back on our squirrel friend from earlier, different students with varying ways of thinking can formulate different interpretations of the squirrel’s intentions. Without much context, say, a student only sees a squirrel approaching, he or she can interpret anything as light-hearted as the squirrel wanting to be friendly, to something as dark as the squirrel begging to be killed and eaten. This range of interpretations is quite extreme, though technically all interpretations on this “spectrum” can be correct without any further given information regarding the squirrel’s whereabouts. Now let’s say the squirrel is rabid and has been seen attacking other students. If one witnesses this squirrel approaching, he or she is much more likely to interpret something along the lines of “this squirrel is coming to get me!” Though it’d be much nicer to convince oneself that the squirrel simply wants to play, the given context of this squirrel’s aggressive behavior conveys that the squirrel really does not have intentions of acting friendly, and anyone who interprets this is very likely not “correct” (and is probably in danger.)
In both scenarios, the student first perceives the situation at hand and proceeds to act upon his or her perception. Though not all possible interpretations are “correct,” reasonable perceptions based upon context all hold a sense of correctness. Given one wouldn’t formulate a genuine opinion without reason, all perceptions hold validity since they are subject to opinion. This being said, different individuals will hold different individual opinions of “what’s correct.” Though some of these opinions may be deemed “incorrect” by other individuals, all opinions are “correct” when speaking in terms of the collective communication of an idea. Looking back to music, the idea of individuals formulating unique interpretations of what a musical passage might be communicating has given me scope regarding how different individuals go about interpreting day to day life in addition to, on a narrower margin, how different individuals approach and perceive traditional literature.
Whenever one finishes reading a literary work, typically he or she feels a certain way, just how music sets a mood. Rhetorical devices provide context that hints at meaning within a piece of literature, just how changes in tempo or dynamics can exhibit an idea within a musical passage. What baffles me is that I had been interpreting the music that I had been coming across in settings like the Christmas Concert and in piano lessons since a young age, yet I hadn’t truly been able to digest the readings I had been doing in school, despite such a similar understanding process of 1) finding context and 2) perceiving the meaning being communicated. It’s when I finally made the connection between music and language that I started to comprehend the literature that I was encountering in school based on context in the form of textual evidence.
Context in any mean of communication, whether literature or music, gives us a way to make sense of what’s being communicated. Being able to use context results in the translation of intangible musical ideas into tangible language, in addition to the translation of abstract rhetoric into more digestible terms. Life is a balance between the tangible and intangible, and involves making sense of what isn’t immediately direct. What’s beautiful is that communication gives humans the ability to share tangible translations of what’s intangible - one’s individual way of perceiving and viewing the world.
The processes in which humans go about interpreting language and music alike sheds light on how we interpret the world that we live in. Given the same context, one can generate very different thoughts in comparison to what his or her peer might think. The fact that such different individuals can come together with their varied opinions and practice acceptance by working and communicating beside one another will always fascinate me.
Soon I began to hear the sounds of the orchestra tuning. I thought to myself “why are they just playing the same note over and over again?” But these drawn-out notes, though the same, were in fact beautiful. This concert was beginning to show promise. Soon, the lights began dimming to make way for a single stage light on the full orchestra. The conductor, silhouetted from the lighting, gracefully raised her arms up to cue the entrance of the principal violinist, and the show had begun.
As the musician began to soothingly communicate the melodic message and emotion through her violin, I closed my eyes to allow my ears and mind to fully experience the masterpiece at hand. I recognized the melody – “Carol of the Bells.” With the soloist violin soon entered the harmony string parts. Then the woodwinds came in. Then the brass section. Meanwhile, I was quickly being drawn into the intricate, wonderful idea that was rapidly forming before me. One by one, the rest of the orchestra trickled into the musical picture, each contributing their own sounds and ideas to the overall message being communicated. By the end of this opening piece, I had been convinced that sitting through this concert wouldn’t be so much of a chore after all, and if anything, it would be a truly rewarding experience.
Today, I’m a nineteen-year-old sitting on the quad at the University of California, Davis recalling the memory of this concert. Looking back, I’ve grown to realize that I didn’t need a treat for listening to and enjoying the concert. Nor do I need a treat now to watch and listen to what’s around me in this current moment: the sound of students laughing and enjoying some down time away from class, the sound of bikes whizzing by, the sound of leaves crunching as both humans and animals maneuver through the terrain of the quad… Witnessing these moments are treats in themselves.
The above scenes all involve communication, and based on context, one can go about finding meaning in these communications. The students laughing… they’re happy for the time being. The whizzing of bikes portrays that the community of UC Davis is on the go. The leaves crunching lets me know that there’s a squirrel lurking by my backpack… perhaps he’s communicating to me that he wants some of my trail mix. And in response to him, I’ll continue to type and not give him any.
My seven-year old self became aware of something incredible the night of the Christmas concert – one’s ability to recognize context and make sense of communication based on these contexts. As I’ve grown to understand, communication refers to the means in which a message or idea is delivered, and to interpret something is to make sense of these communications. I share communications with the world around me daily, whether they take place in a face to face conversation, or in a musical passage, and the way I interpret these interactions is subject to my perception. This is why I love listening to musical passages: music is an open book that’s eager to communicate with one who wishes to read its message. Though a strictly instrumental score lacks tangible, language-based words that a book would contain, music speaks in a language all of its own.
While language communicates ideas in a way that’s direct, or tangible, music communicates in a way that’s less direct. The fine line between what’s directly observable and what’s not is a thin one, and music and language rest on opposite ends of this equilibrium. This being said, we use language, something that’s tangible, to communicate concepts that are intangible and otherwise hard to perceive. Connecting this idea to music, a melodic sequence of notes on its own is intangible, and will never carry a message that we can immediately make sense of. However, a grouping of words that one may construct in response to the context of a musical passage is tangible, and therefore he or she has a mean to go about understanding “in real terms” what the piece at hand is trying to communicate. Given music’s broadness, it’s very likely that those whom music speaks to will understand what’s being communicated in different lights.
There was one time I came across a piano piece while browsing YouTube and upon reading the title, “Erasing the Canvas,” I thought I was about to listen to music inspired by “moving on in life,” like one would do upon “erasing” certain memories. I went into listening to the piece with this bias, and the way in which the musical passages flowed together had me convinced that my interpretation was on the right track. However, the piece ended up being influenced by, according to the composer, the destruction of nature. Definitely not a “liberating” way of erasing the canvas, if not, quite the opposite: humans stripping and erasing nature’s canvas. This experience goes to show that different individuals can be on very different pages regarding how they perceive what they hear.
Though I was “incorrect” in the sense that the composer wrote “Erasing the Canvas” with different intentions than what I had interpreted, my interpretation may not seem so far-fetched given some context. My personal experience with “Erasing the Canvas” involves hearing and interpreting a beautiful piece, then thinking about and weeping over a boy (kind of pathetic, I know), and proceeding to learn the piece on piano to help ease the pain of “erasing” this boy from my life. So, despite the composer’s intended meaning behind the piece, the meaning that I associate the piece with will always be in regards to “moving on.” Both perspectives, though different, are valid. Given a reasonable context for which one goes about interpreting something he or she perceives, one’s opinion will never be wrong. I must not say, however, that all possible interpretations can be “correct.”
Looking back on our squirrel friend from earlier, different students with varying ways of thinking can formulate different interpretations of the squirrel’s intentions. Without much context, say, a student only sees a squirrel approaching, he or she can interpret anything as light-hearted as the squirrel wanting to be friendly, to something as dark as the squirrel begging to be killed and eaten. This range of interpretations is quite extreme, though technically all interpretations on this “spectrum” can be correct without any further given information regarding the squirrel’s whereabouts. Now let’s say the squirrel is rabid and has been seen attacking other students. If one witnesses this squirrel approaching, he or she is much more likely to interpret something along the lines of “this squirrel is coming to get me!” Though it’d be much nicer to convince oneself that the squirrel simply wants to play, the given context of this squirrel’s aggressive behavior conveys that the squirrel really does not have intentions of acting friendly, and anyone who interprets this is very likely not “correct” (and is probably in danger.)
In both scenarios, the student first perceives the situation at hand and proceeds to act upon his or her perception. Though not all possible interpretations are “correct,” reasonable perceptions based upon context all hold a sense of correctness. Given one wouldn’t formulate a genuine opinion without reason, all perceptions hold validity since they are subject to opinion. This being said, different individuals will hold different individual opinions of “what’s correct.” Though some of these opinions may be deemed “incorrect” by other individuals, all opinions are “correct” when speaking in terms of the collective communication of an idea. Looking back to music, the idea of individuals formulating unique interpretations of what a musical passage might be communicating has given me scope regarding how different individuals go about interpreting day to day life in addition to, on a narrower margin, how different individuals approach and perceive traditional literature.
Whenever one finishes reading a literary work, typically he or she feels a certain way, just how music sets a mood. Rhetorical devices provide context that hints at meaning within a piece of literature, just how changes in tempo or dynamics can exhibit an idea within a musical passage. What baffles me is that I had been interpreting the music that I had been coming across in settings like the Christmas Concert and in piano lessons since a young age, yet I hadn’t truly been able to digest the readings I had been doing in school, despite such a similar understanding process of 1) finding context and 2) perceiving the meaning being communicated. It’s when I finally made the connection between music and language that I started to comprehend the literature that I was encountering in school based on context in the form of textual evidence.
Context in any mean of communication, whether literature or music, gives us a way to make sense of what’s being communicated. Being able to use context results in the translation of intangible musical ideas into tangible language, in addition to the translation of abstract rhetoric into more digestible terms. Life is a balance between the tangible and intangible, and involves making sense of what isn’t immediately direct. What’s beautiful is that communication gives humans the ability to share tangible translations of what’s intangible - one’s individual way of perceiving and viewing the world.
The processes in which humans go about interpreting language and music alike sheds light on how we interpret the world that we live in. Given the same context, one can generate very different thoughts in comparison to what his or her peer might think. The fact that such different individuals can come together with their varied opinions and practice acceptance by working and communicating beside one another will always fascinate me.