Music has a language

I have heard people say with an air of having said something profound, that "music has no language." I don't really buy it. At least not fully. Yes, it is true that one can enjoy the instruments in the background and the melody without understanding the language, and one can occasionally understand the mood of the song, but that is only part of the enjoyment. The words add a great deal of depth to the feel of the song, and if the language is alien enough, even the mood of the song is difficult to fathom.

I was watching a dance performance by a group of middle eastern men at some cultural show, with a person of middle eastern descent next to me. The men on stage were dancing in a line, holding hands, and the song had some rough, guttural sounds that sounded more like slogans than melody to my ear. I thought the song was something with patriotic fervour and a bit of anger in it. Then the person next to me, enjoying it thoroughly, turned to me and said - "they are really having fun aren't they? This song is about friendship"! I have had similar experiences with Chinese music - I simply cannot follow it, and therefore cannot enjoy it very much, but obviously a billion Chinese people can and probably do.

Closer to home, listening to Hindi songs (or marathi lately, but I will stick to hindi for this discussion) gives me great pleasure, because the words mean something. When the lyrics are good, the songs have far greater power to touch me. There is also the element of nostalgia - songs that I grew up listening to are far more beautiful purely for that reason. I think a person who speaks no hindi cannot get the same enjoyment out of those songs, for, lacking a context and the understanding of the words, the focus is more on the melody and instrumentation, both of which may seem archaic to the modern ear.

There is also a cultural aspect to music - specifically, what a 'good' voice should sound like. Several American friends that heard some Hindi songs from the 60s/70s, told me that they liked the melodies, but the voices were not so good! These were Kishore, Rafi, Lata, Asha, and their ilk! It is possible to simply dismiss the the American friends as being ignorant, but I think it is simply a cultural expectation of what a singing voice ought to sound like.

Another important aspect of singing, also a part of the language, is the pronounciation. I think this can make or break a song, even if the rest of the elements are in place. I had teachers in high school who were native Telugu speakers that massacred Hindi songs when they sang them, despite knowing the meaning of the words, ability to sing in tune, and their obvious enjoyment of the music. What was lacking was the right pronounciation.

Finally, a subtler aspect of singing is the style, which I believe is also influenced by language and culture. A specific example is Mr. S. P. Balasubrahmaniam. I admire him as a singer, and having grown up in AP and having a reasonable ear for Telugu music, I must say he is an outstanding playback singer for Telugu songs. His musical ability is unquestioned. However, whatever songs he has sung in Hindi movies seemed to me like parodies. I examined some of the later songs of his closely and found that he had been coached well enough on the pronounciation, so that was not it. What was different was his style of taking a 'taan'. It was distinctly 'Telugu' to my ear, though I cannot explain what that means. The Germans call it 'Sprachgeful' , a feel for the language (Spelling note: I cannot make the German umlaut symbol on the blog). I believe the singer must actually think and feel like a native speaker of whatever language the song is in. Until then, something is missing.