Music The Universal Language ?
By Aaron Lightstone
We often hear the cliche that music is a universal language. What is meant by this?
I think that many people take this to mean that somehow a given piece of music has the power to speak or communicate with everyone. I think this is misleading and false. I have not yet found a single piece of music or style that is universally appealing. Just because I love Bach, Gershwin, Hip Hop, The Beatles, and Mohamed Abdel-Wahab does not mean you will.
The truth behind the cliche is that every known culture on Earth has music. Every local style, form, or genre of music was created as a response to the needs of the people in a particular time and place. I have a life long fascination with music of different cultures that started when I was thirteen and first heard the recordings of Black Americans in the rural, American, South from the 1930s-1950s. To a suburban, Jewish Canadian kid in the 1980's this music was from a completely different world, but it moved me and spoke to my soul. Since those early experiences I have since spent countless hours listening to and/or learning how to play different music styles from disparate corners of the globe. (I once even played a Thai sueng at very traditional wedding in rural Thailand, but that is an other story)
So in short, I use these experiences with musical styles from every corner of the globe to meet the individual goals & needs of each participant. When we immerse ourselves in music that has been co-cooperatively created in response to our individual needs we can achieve a sense of harmony from within and with others.
There is a Zimbabwean proverb that says; "If you can walk, then you can dance. If you can talk then you can sing". This reflects a belief that exists in many traditional cultures that EVERY person has the innate ability to play and understand music. A long tradition in the Western world of the professionalization of music makes it easy to forget this fact and to fall into the false idea that only master musicians have any business playing music. I approach each session with the idea that all people regardless of age, illness, ability or disability have innate musicality. I know from experience that even a terminally ill person who is totally disabled by their illness and very close to death still retains the ability to have an emotional response to music. Each participant in a music therapy situation receives the chance to express their self through a variety of carefully thought out music experiences. There are no specific expectations or correct way to play music during music therapy sessions: There are no wrong notes!
There is a Zimbabwean proverb that says; "If you can walk, then you can dance. If you can talk then you can sing". This reflects a belief that exists in many traditional cultures that EVERY person has the innate ability to play and understand music. A long tradition in the Western world of the professionalization of music makes it easy to forget this fact and to fall into the false idea that only master musicians have any business playing music. I approach each session with the idea that all people regardless of age, illness, ability or disability have innate musicality. I know from experience that even a terminally ill person who is totally disabled by their illness and very close to death still retains the ability to have an emotional response to music. Each participant in a music therapy situation receives the chance to express their self through a variety of carefully thought out music experiences. There are no specific expectations or correct way to play music during music therapy sessions: There are no wrong notes!
