Ah… I can hear it now. The sweet songs of a gentle lyricist, wispering in my ear wonderful poetry. Combine that with the gracious harmonies and soaring melodies by, let’s say, Rachmaninoff, and you have sweet love to my ears. So beautiful!

Then, the neighbor kicks up the hardcore rock music; it’s death metal. It’s death to my ears as I scream in my own death metal song, “That’s not music!”

There is nothing more deafening and chilling of my mood than music that sounds terrible. To most anyone who owns a computer, any kind of CD or tape (oh yah, that’s going far back for some), this argument makes a lot of sense. Here’s the scenario; everyone has experienced this at some point or another: We hear someone play something that we are somewhat familiar with, and we hate it. We can’t stand it. We don’t understand how it could be classified as a genre; it sounds more like a pterodactyl giving birth. We hold our tongue and smile at the groovy guy/gal that is rocking out to this music; we politely dismiss ourselves before we commit “music rage.”

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As soon as I ask someone, “Do you think music is a universal language?”, most everyone I know would say “Yes! Of course!” They would only object to a few obvious songs or artists that don’t qualify, but generally say and concur with the original statement, “Yes, music is a universal language.”

And really, this makes a lot of sense; we surround ourselves with good music. We love listening to some Bach here, some Rascal Flatts there, some classic rock right now, and maybe some well-intentioned R&B later. Whenever we are in public, we hear in the shops and in the gas station that sweet tune that nearly everyone knows, and we listen to it (you know you do). You watch the gas attendant lip-syncing along with it, and someone is bobbing their head as they walk about their business.

You go home, and you can’t wait to put on the songs that remind you of “good.” Or, you can’t wait to see related music to what you heard.

Who can argue with that? Everyone likes a little bit of everything. That same bobbing head you see walking about can hear the same beauty in Mozart and Brahms! And of course everyone can agree that there are some things out there that every human unanimously can agree is just outright dreadful.

Does it strike you curious that if a music genre exists that it has an audience of some kind, that there is someone who would disagree with you of whether or not it is good music? Of course, you might say, “Josh, maybe some don’t have the ears to know what’s good for them or not.”

My point is this, though: How can you know for sure that you have the exact idea of what “good music” is? For that matter, can you even define what music is universal in its communication? Is music even a universal language?

Am I bursting bubbles yet?

Truth be told: I don’t want to burst bubbles. I don’t have enough tacks for that; but I do have the desire to push your bubbles, and pop them if they need to be popped.

Would it be right to say poetry is a universal language? If poetry was a universal language, then how come indigenous tribes in South Africa cannot understand Shakespeare sonnets? The distinction I am trying to make is, again, subtle (man, I have a lot of subtle suggestions): If you were to hand a work of Mozart to someone who lives in a fundamental Islamic nation, they would not have the first clue as to what it is communicating. In fact, it would be so jarring that it would probably be condemned.

A universal language, by the way, would be something that everyone could interpret and have the exact same interpretation. “Universal” leaves no exclusions by definition. Therefore, if one person misses meaning of a piece of music, then it automatically does not exist as universal. But the reality is every single person hears something different and no two people agree on the exact meaning of a piece of music.

Even when it comes to popular music.

Music is a universal phenomenon. It is a cultural phenomenon. The manipulation of chaotic sound into chunks of thoughtful and organized units is something that happens in every culture. Music is cultural (and distinct in every culture). For the same reasons you cannot get British jokes, or Spanish humor, you cannot understand (or even agree on) the meaning of death metal, Kurdish ethno-music, Russian folk music, and middle-eastern ethno-music.

Inevitably the question of aesthetic comes into play in this discussion. I do want to discuss this further in a later post (which will be forthcoming, I promise), but for now I am going to leave you with this thought: If music is a “universal language,” then every person on the planet (or if you want to go with every culture) must agree on its meaning and its medium. Because differences exist on interpretation, meaning, preference, and styles, music must lend itself to distinction and individuality. For this reason alone we should refrain from using the term universal when referring to the language of music.

What sounds good to you may not sound good to someone else, and if you find something unpleasant or outright gagging (and even if you can form a quorum of people who agree), it does not make said music any less a valid type of music.

To go any further with this conversation, I will have to open up a discussion on the topic of aesthetics. I will hopefully bring you something in a couple of days, so sit tight! As always, leave comments and ask for clarification if you need it.