MUSIC IS
UNIVERSAL
The importance of music
The Music as essential part of society
■ Music is the combination of melodies, rhythms, and harmony that create
various types of sounds depending on how they have been organized.
■ It is something that connects people, regardless of boundaries, languages
and culture, even if it has different harmonies and rhythms to music from
our own culture.
■ All music is made for a purpose, for instance, it can be used to send a
baby to sleep, to express love, joy or sadness or simply to dance or sing
alone. Without it, weddings would lose their essence, just as a football
match would not be the same without the supporter singing to
encourage their team.
As well, we are able to recognize and
identify when we hear music instead of
only sounds. This can be explained with
the example of a woman from Central
Africa that stars singing to the
surrounding forest. Her song looks like
sounds of a farmer uses to call the cows
from the high mountains. Although we
recognise it as music, just as we
recognise sitar music from India or taiko
drums from Japan as music.
Form and Function in
Human Song
750 people from 60 different
countries were played short pieces
of different types of music and then
they were asked to decide the
function of the music that they had
heard. Despite the different
small-scale societies in which people
have limited contact with other
groups, its function could be
identified by the participants,
demonstrating that we can also
agree what it’s for.
Instruments
Along with having music, all human societies also have
musical instruments. Almost every human culture has
a version of a flute, drum and guitar, although there
are almost infinitive ways they are made and played.
■ The earliest flute that has ever been found dates
back to between 35,000 and 43,000 years ago
and were generally made of bone or ivory.
■ And even when there are no instrument around,
humans find ways to make music, like the African
woman, who line up in the water and hit and
splash it with their hands to make a sound.
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In conclusion, when we
hear Indian Sitiar,
Japanese taiko drums or
the African women, we
understand that its music
and why it’s being played,
even though we know
nothing about the culture
it’s from or the language
the musicians speak.
Music truly is a universal
language, the only one that
can be understood by
humans in all societies.
