The idea that music is a “universal language” has been repeated so often that it’s now cliché. But the fact is there’s a deep vein of truth to it. And that truth runs even deeper than most people think. In fact, the reason that music might be so universally adored may be because it was our very earliest form of communication. This idea, called the “proto-music theory” was first described by Charles Darwin himself, and makes the unbelievable claim that music is actually older and more closely related to our animal instincts than human speech. Music might literally be our original language, so let’s take a deeper look.
How Music Became Our Universal Language
Which Came First?
Just like the proverbial chicken and egg, Darwin’s idea gave us a bit of a philosophical and anthropological quandary. He claimed that “before acquiring the power of expressing their mutual love in articulate language, [men and women] endeavored to charm each other with musical notes and rhythm.” As evidence for this, Darwin looked to some of the instinctive ways we respond to music. He pointed out we don’t need to be trained to respond to music with dance and emotion; it just happens, unlike language, which takes years of learning to master. He argued our semantic languages evolved out of this early musical system as our brains evolved and developed.
Of course, as with some of Darwin’s other theories, not everyone has accepted it as gospel truth. For example, in 1997, evolutionary biologist Steven Pinker argued that just because something (in this case music) is instinctive doesn’t mean is came first. In his book, How the Mind Works, he said, “As far as biological cause and effect are concerned, music is useless. Compared with language… music could vanish from our species and the rest of our lifestyle would be virtually unchanged.” Pinker believed that music is just a byproduct of the pathways our brains evolved to process speech.
The Original Language
Whether or not you believe music pre-dates language, what can’t be argued is how much music functions like a language.
In an experiment performed in 2008, Dr. Charles Limb, head and neck surgeon at Johns Hopkins, asked jazz musicians to perform improvised music inside an fMRI machine. He found that musicians’ brains showed activity in the areas that are used for spoken language and syntax. What’s more, they found no activity in the parts of the brain responsible for determining semantic meaning.
Even Dr. Limb was surprised by these findings; “If the brain evolved for the purpose of speech, it’s odd that it evolved to a capacity beyond speech… So a brain that evolved to handle musical communication – there has to be a relationship between the two. I have reason to suspect that the auditory brain may have been designed to hear music and speech is a happy byproduct.”
Semantics vs Syntactics
Semantics refers to the meaning of words, while syntactics is all about sentence structure. Scientists find the fact that the brain responds to music in a syntactic way is very interesting. This is because there are other examples of syntactic, but not semantic languages. The most apparent of these would be “motherese,” the sing-song “language” moms everywhere use to communicate with their infants. This “kind-of” language uses a lot of musical features to communicate emotions. With exaggerated melodies and rhythmic repetition, moms communicate feelings of happiness and sadness to their infants, and understand their children’s feelings by their responses For some, this reinforces the idea that music came before language, and music-making is a natural extension of “motherese’s” ability to communicate raw emotion to a larger group.
Group Think
The idea that music has always played an important role in social groups been pushed by many scholars and neuroscientists. Oliver Sacks represents both categories. Dr. Sacks wrote about the way musical rhythm can literally and figuratively “move” people, and how it may have played a “crucial cultural and economic function in human evolution, bringing people together, producing a sense of collectivist and community.” Music helped both our distant and recent ancestors share their feelings and synch up their hearts and minds without relying on the confusing and specific meanings of words.
Crossing Cultures
Musical genres tend to vary a lot from culture to culture, shaped by the land and the people. But the emotions that drive each unique style are the same. Those similarities are so strong we can identify up to 6 distinct emotions by facial expression alone – no matter the culture of the person expressing them. These include happiness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise. This ability suggests our emotions are deeply rooted in our development as a species. Taking this even one step further, even blind children who have never seen a facial expression make the same expressions when they feel the corresponding emotion.
So we know that basic emotions are the same for every human, everywhere. But the similarities we share don’t end with the motivations for our music.
Studies have also shown that music can create the same physiological responses across cultures. In a recent experiment from McGill University, researchers asked 40 Pygmy and 40 Canadian participants to listen to 19 short musical extracts, 11 of which were Western, and 8 were Pygmy. All the participants were familiar with music; the Canadians were all musicians, and the Pygmies all sang regularly. After listening to the music, the researchers would measure each person’s heart rate, breathing, an other physiological variables. Everyone responded to all the music, regardless of its style or origin, in essentially the same way. Calming music calmed everyone, exciting music stimulated everyone.
Closing Thoughts
We’ll probably never know if music came before language, or why it connects us all so easily and so strongly. But regardless of our perpetual ignorance, there is no denying that music is a true universal language!
Want to learn to take part in the universal language? It’s never too late (or too early) to start! Check out all The Music Studio‘s lessons and programs and sign up today!
