Gabriel Pacheco

Jazz and the Language of Music

Many people have described music as the universal language, one that has the power to transcend cultural barriers and relay messages purely through sonic means. Why is it that music is able to put forth what often cannot be said by words? Simply put, both music and spoken language rely on the same sets of principles in order to achieve their goals. Music carries forth pure emotion, and is not bogged down by things like phonetics. A person who does not speak English in any sort of sense can hear an American folk song and probably point to the emotion in which the tune carries. Similarly, somebody who doesn’t speak any Spanish can hear a Spanish folk song and understand the emotion it's trying to convey.