Music: A secondary language?
 

A couple weeks ago, my band teacher brought up an interesting thought. He said to us, "What makes you guys different from the rest of the students here at this school is you speak a universal language used by the whole world." Some exchanged confused glances while others waited for him to continue. He said, "Music is the language spoken by all. You can go anywhere and communicate with anyone through music." So why isn't music counting as a foreign language I ask myself? It's more used than English and Spanish. What do guys think about this whole issue? I mean, realistically, shouldn't music be offered as a foreign language or not?

Math is the language spoken buy all.

Not according to my last quiz...:unsure: :( :D ;)

I think we'd all agree that the universal language is BODY LANGUAGE

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Sign Language is a language that is used for all nationalities.

Well according to my teachers...

Science
Math
Music

Are all universal languages

Well in science the only thing I know of is the periodic tables and the chemical names

Math is pretty self explantory

And well music there is really only one way to communicate it and that's through notes and stuff

Interestingly enough all students in my school are required to take music..so it won't set me apart

So how do you ask for a cuppa in music?

Music may be a lethod of communication, but it's an implicit one; the meaning of your request is totally subject to interpretation. If you compose a symphony about wanting a cuppa, it may be interpreted as wanting to go down the shops and buy some cheese, like the Judas Priest album told you to do.

AFAIK the only methods that transcend the language barrier are maths and science and sign language.

If any of you have read Contact by Carl Sagan you'll see that math is universal within our solar system. :D

Your suggesting is utterly ridicolous however the teacher had a slightly interesting question. The problem is that not everyone does communicate by music, it is banned in some places, and in others is restricted to percussion and voice. You wouldn't want to hit tambourines in a lesson would you?

I beleive Music is a language.

KS, who are you? :confused: I know you've been here before. I can tell by the pessimistic ring in your...post...I'm keeping my eye on you... :confused:

However universal music may be, it still is not exactly a specific method of communicating needs, desires, etc. to others because of the interpretation factor. Language is universal also, but everyone interprets it differently. For instance, the English word hairy is understood by English speakers to mean "something that has an abundance of hair." However, to non-English speakers, it could mean "something you cook with." In this same way, music is not understood by all in the same way. A note is interpreted different ways by different people. Thus, it could not be effectively taught as a foreign language.

How the hell is music a language?

Pessimistic is subjective buddy. Isn't everyone on the inter-web pessimist?

Plus NWO sums it up well. Infact, I'm not sure if he was being witty or not.

*swoosh sound travels over nWoCHRISnWo's head*

forget it man :rolleyes: