- ANDREEA BANDEAN -

INTRODUCTION

Coucou!

My name is Andreea Bandean and I was born in Montreal. My parents are both from Romania. They came here when my mother was pregnant with me, so I could say that I was made in Romania ( haha ). 19 years later, here I am studying languages at Dawson College. English is my third language, because I grew up in a French environment at school and a Romanian environment at home. I am currently learning Spanish and Italian, but I have to tell you that it is not as easy as it seems, because I always mix the two languages when I speak since they have a lot of similarities. I have a particular interest in learning languages, because of the culture behind all those languages. When I was a child, I used to be shy around people speaking only one language, because I thought they'll judge me for not perfectly knowing their language. I did not want people to know that I was from elsewhere, I did not want them to think that I was different -that I had a different culture, a different life. Today, it’s all these differences that make me the person I’m proud of. I think that knowing how to speak more than one language is like a kind of wealth; it's like a trophy. You can easily connect with all kinds of people and you can easily make yourself at home wherever you are.

For this project, I have many ideas in mind and maybe I will find a way to connect them all. Here are some of the subjects that interest me:

1. Language in music :

I think that music is part of language, because of its ability to communicate emotions, thoughts and meaning. However, nowadays, a lot of the songs we are listening to do not carry a lot of relevant messages and I was wondering why. There are some that do have interesting lyrics and these are the most powerful and fascinating.

2- Latin Languages :

I'm particularly interested in Latin languages, not that I speak four of the five most widely spoken Latin languages, but I would like to go further in my knowledge. Knowing how to speak a language is one thing, but knowing all the culture behind it is another. I was wondering how similar the cultures behind those Latin languages are and what makes them amazing.

3- Wordplay (also called play-on-words) :

I think it's absorbing how some people have facility to manipulate words, and I always found it funny how those words can affect our mood. I think that wordplays are most of the time funny or ironic, and that's why I feel attracted to them.

4- Proverbs (Paremiology) :

Whether for Instagram "captions" or important school work, proverbs have always been of great help to me. I think that no matter how short a proverb is, the message behind it is always strong. It is interesting how some words put together have such a huge impact on how we feel.

MORE ABOUT ME....

In my spare time I love taking pictures. Of anything. Anywhere. Not only, because of the memories, but also because of the feelings attached to them. I like all the emotions, whether it be happiness or sadness, because I think that that's what makes us feel alive. Every emotion makes us appreciate every moment of life.

I also like dancing. Everywhere. On any song. Since I have been a gymnast for almost 6 years, I always felt a connection with dance, mostly because it is an art centered on oneself ( not a team sport ).

Music is also a part of my life. I mostly listen to rap, because I like how words combined together can make music. I also like poetry and rhymes and I think that that's one of the reason why three of my four ideas are kind of linked to that theme . In rap songs, we find a lot of play-on-words and even proverbs sometimes. I could spend an entire day listening to music and trying to find a meaningful message behind every song.

Travelling is my favourite hobby. I did not get to chance to go everywhere I wanted to go to, but I know that it is coming. I've been to Romania almost 10 times, to Cuba twice, to Barbados and to Belgium once. I love discovering new people, new cultures and new lifestyles. This summer, I would like to go to France and Spain, and from now on, every year, I will be travelling around the world. My house is in Canada, but I feel like home everywhere.

Here is a quote that I really like

My Final Topic....

I decided to stick with the subject that interests me the most of the four: language in music.

Like most of us, I have been listening to music on a regular basis for a very long time. Whether in the car going to daycare, dozens of years ago, or on the bus going to college every day, music has always been there to accompany me. I feel like music is a current subject, which affects everyone, anywhere and in any sphere.

For this research, I want to find the benefits of music on language, for example how does music help with language development and how does music influence our way of thinking like language does. I am convinced that music is a way of communicating, because it is a form of individual and / or collective human expression that transmits thoughts and feelings. It is also a language that many artists use to get a message across, but it is not understood by all.

For a few years, an increasing number of researchers maintain that learning music can help learn other school subjects, including reading and writing. Work carried out with preschool and elementary school students revealed that activities of auditory discrimination, reading and musical compositions favour, among other things, the development of phonological awareness, word recognition and text comprehension skills. I would like to be able to determine the main conceptual links established between the processing of musical information and the processing of linguistic information.

SOURCE #1 : The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard

Bernstein, who was was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist, was one of the first authors to take an interest in the structure of language and music. He wanted to show that the deep structure of the first language, that is to say phonology, pronunciation, etc., can be adapted to music. However, the author considers that a distinction must be made with regard to the functions occupied by music and language from the point of view of surface structure: music essentially has an aesthetic function while language has a communication function. For Bernstein, music has both an artistic character and a metaphorical power, in the sense that it allows the creation of sentences that express what cannot be said in words.

Bernstein, Leonard. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard. Harvard University Press, 2002.

Source # 2 : The Musical Mind : The Cognitive Psychology of Music

After learning about previous reflections on the analogy between music and language,Sloboda , who was a music psychology teacher, presented other similarities between these two disciplines. According to him, music and language are, on one hand, universal and, on the other hand, specific to the human species. They are universal, because each human being has a potential in these two disciplines. If we disregard certain biological constraints, such as brain damage, all individuals could reach a level of functional competence both linguistically and musically. Language and music are also specific to humans, since no animal species have a verbal and written communication system that is as precise and sophisticated.

Even if it has been shown that certain animals are capable of developing certain communication skills because of the sign language taught by humans, these remain limited and at most resemble those of a two years child. Human beings have the possibility to perform an immeasurable number of sequences: the composer can compose melodies that have never been heard, in the same way that the writer can write sentences that do not have never been read.

In addition, language and music are essentially perceived as sequences of sounds and produced by vocal movements which create sounds. Since humans have mental faculties that allow them to perceive and produce sequences of notes or a series of words, Sloboda considers the audiovisual mode of communication to be the most natural way of conveying a message, both in terms of musical than linguistic. According to the author, learning to read and write, whether musical or scriptural, requires more rigorous instruction than that required by the audio-visual mode, because the learner must develop complex skills to master the graphic code. There would be a gap between the perceptual stage, that is to say the period during which the individual perceives and decodes the musical and linguistic information, and the productive stage, that is to say the moment when he tries to reproduce vocally or graphically what he perceived. It is only by a fine analysis of musical and linguistic information that the learner can understand how this information is organized and that he can then integrate it into his speech (musical compositions, sentences / texts, etc.).

Sloboda, J. A. “The Musical Mind : The Cognitive Psychology of Music”, Paris, Mardaga, 1985.

Source #3 : Music and Language

We cannot tell the natural relationship between music and language. They are two modes of expression, one, language, using the natural instrument that constitutes the phonatory organs - mouth, tongue, larynx, etc. , the other using artificial instruments, more or less complex, but always from the human industry: musical instruments. The differences don't stop there: language articulates signs, music organizes sounds; what relationship can there be between these two activities? It is only to note the difference between places: music has its privileged places, concert halls, operas, auditoriums, where it is produced for itself, while language is everywhere, on the street, on the subway, in homes, almost permanently. It is true that, in our time, we could also say that music is everywhere, and almost invasive: the fact remains that it has places of predilection; it is not the same for language, which itself is never the result of a presentation for itself (except for school, or humor shows) but is always there, always present and effective in the human community, even if from time to time time periods of silence interrupt its flow. Poets have asserted that language is not the only dimension of poetry. We must therefore consider that there is music inside language, which is also manifested by processes such as alliteration, the sound of which evokes what words are supposed to mean. Rhythm, sound, so many terms that undeniably belong to the musical vocabulary.

Botstein, Leon. “Music and Language.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 77, no. 3, 1993, pp. 367–372. JSTOR

Source #4 : Aesthetics and Subjectivity

What absolutely distinguishes music and language: it is constructed according to the significant structure, a signifier referring to a signified which is not the thing itself, but the concept which is linked to it : thus, the signifier table does not signify a real table, but a general concept which can apply to all. However, in music, this structure is absolutely lacking: strictly speaking, music means nothing. A note is not a signifier, it does not refer to anything other than itself; isolated, it is only a sound, which in itself is not significant: it would be a complete nonsense to try to attribute to each note a meaning - the "fa" would express joy and the "si" sadness, for example. It may be said that, if each note means nothing, the set that constitutes the notes of a song, in their infinitely variable arrangement, is itself significant: it is nothing. It must therefore be said that music does not mean anything, because it does not say anything, that it is not a clue either ,in the sense that one could say that the trace of a bear paw is a clue signifying a recent passage of the animal , nor a symbol. This is why music takes on a character of mystery which does not belong at all to the language which, on the contrary, moves in clarity, that which intelligence is supposed to bring. Between the music and its transcription in the notes which allow the interpreter to make it present, no meaningful relationship exists. Why then do we feel so strongly the impression that this or that piece of music produces? It is undoubtedly because music introduces us into a sphere of metalinguistic meanings, where the essential is not the signifier-signified relation, but the evocation which becomes invocation. Whatever the theme, it is clear that music makes us feel, experience, before we even understand and think. And that is perhaps where the value of music resides: it is addressed in us to what is universal. If music speaks, it speaks the only universal language that is that of feeling, of experience, in a word of human existence.

Bowie, Andrew. “Music, Language and Literature.” Aesthetics and Subjectivity, vol 14, no. 8 2003, pp. 221–257. JSTOR

Source #5 : Music Perception

The language of someone is an obstacle to understanding the other. Each culture develops its own language, which is linked to its history, to the lifestyle of those who speak it and to their natural environment . Music escapes this curse; whatever its origin, it can be received by all, directly, without necessarily needing a translator. Music takes us to task, it transports us elsewhere, to another world which is not punctuated by the demands of language, but which speaks to us in a heavenly voice. It is certainly not by chance that the angels are represented, in the Christian imagination, playing the harp for the elect. The angels' choir is perhaps without words.

That's why music is essentially escape. As language forces us into the real world we live in, music opens us, more than any other art, the "ivory doors" that reveal the depth of things. It says nothing, because saying is too limited; it is content to be and to appear, creating the place of a universal meeting. In it all borders are abolished, whether ethnic, linguistic or even political, because in it it is man, and man alone, who expresses himself. We must undoubtedly be Italian to fully appreciate the sonnets of Petrarch, English for those of Shakespeare, but the pain of Beethoven is not expressed in German, not more than the joy of certain passages of Mozart. We feel them as ours, as soon as we hear them, we integrate them into our own existence without effort of any kind: we listen to them, from the inside. Also, if we have to admit that music constitutes a kind of language, we will also have to admit that it is the language of inner life, that which precisely cannot be translated adequately into concepts. We can then better grasp what definitively separates music from language: it is the antithesis of it, since precisely it touches on what language cannot achieve because of its intellectual character. It gives life, while language is inseparable from thought. However crude it may be, language always shows a thought, even basic. We can therefore see how approximate and even faulty the comparison of music and language. Not only is music not a fact of language, not only speaking of "musical language" is only a "way of speaking" without real foundation, but we must go further: music is an anti-language, and escapes from this fact all the imperfections and insufficiencies which one did not cease denouncing in the language.

McMullen, Erin & Saffran, Jenny. “Music Perception” An Interdisciplinary Journal, Spring 2004

At the beginning of my research, I was almost sure that music was a language, but it was during my research that I realized that this opinion is not unanimous. As many as there are people who say music is a language, as many as there are who say the opposite. So I decided to hold on to the idea that it is not a language, for many reasons, in principle because I find that the arguments which prove that it is a language are not strong enough. There are clearly links between these two “spheres”, but not to say that one can be the other and vice versa.

I still continued my research in parallel to find the most information. I think this is quite a controversial subject, because the opinions of the authors are almost never the same. But there are certain facts that cannot be denied. For example, when we say that the brain reacts differently depending on whether it hears someone speaking or if it hears music,etc.

Music, like language, are universal human traits. All cultures produce music and even without being an expert musician, everyone knows how to hum a melody.

Would music be born with the human species? Like language, would it be an innate and universal character? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine whether there are traits common to the different types of music in the world , musical universals , and to know how listeners perceive these musical "invariants". By comparing the processing of music with that of language, it is possible to examine whether there are neural circuits specifically involved in music. We will see that musical invariants, musical structures present in almost all cultures, exist, and we will deduce cognitive invariants which are specific to the brain of the listener who processes music.

First links between music and the brain

Music, like any sound, is processed by the brain which has certain properties of organization, learning, memorization and attention. Let's see some of these characteristics in relation to the way music is constructed.

The use of discrete pitch notes allows them to be categorized; it is a cognitive characteristic to group different events in the same category according to their similar properties. For example, the categorical perception of sounds participates in the recognition of a melody even if the notes are not sung correctly. It is also this capacity which helps with the recognition of the badly pronounced or emitted vowels in a noisy environment.
Also, there are two notes of different pitches (provided they are separated by a minimum difference in pitch), but two identical notes are associated separated by an octave (so they do not have the same frequency). These two aspects, the constraints of discriminative pitch perception and the phenomenon of octave equivalence, reflect characteristics of the auditory system.

An experience on musical universals

Source #6

The reactions of newborns or adults who have not been exposed to certain music make it possible to study innate capacities. Some works have focused on the memory and auditory perception of babies, considered as "universalists", that is to say capable of perceiving music from all cultures.

In one experiment, there is a 6 or 12 month old baby who sits on his mother's lap and has to listen to melodies without the mother hearing them. Then one of the musical characteristics of the melody is changed, for example the distance between the notes, the melodic outline or the pitch of the notes, and we look at which song the baby prefers to listen to. For example, a baby more often watches the speaker play a familiar melody and ignores the speaker playing music that it does not recognize. We also observe whether he distinguishes variations in the musical structure. Thus, it has been shown that babies memorize notes better when they are separated by unequal distances, and that they prefer consonance, sounds that are acoustic or that are "tuned", to dissonance. Also, babies pay more attention to the pitch of the notes, that is, the "outline" of the melody, than to the specific pitch of the different notes in the melody. This behavior also reflects a characteristic of the perception of adult listeners.

The cognitive importance of relative information is also observed for the temporal dimension of music. In other words, babies and adults focus their attention on the relative temporal organization of the notes, namely the rhythm, rather than on the durations of each note. Thus, we recognize a melody by its rhythm, even if it is sung differently - going from a high register and a fast tempo to a low register and a slow tempo for example.

In addition, we observe in music from different cultures generates a synchronization behavior: it creates a time reference frame that allows you to clap with your hands or your feet when you listen to a song. This characteristic can be described as a cognitive invariant.

Fox, Donna Brink. “Music and the Baby's Brain: Early Experiences.” Music Educators Journal, vol. 87, no. 2, 2000, pp. 23–50. JSTOR. 15 November 2015.

Several studies suggest that the musical invariants present in different cultures reflect the same perceptual and cognitive constraints. Learning the patterns that exist in musical structures is another way of studying how the brain processes music.

In cognitive psychology, we have highlighted a capacity which allows to acquire knowledge on complex information by simple exposure, in other words, without intention to learn. This type of learning is called implicit: being exposed to structured materials, the brain extracts regularities and becomes sensitive to structures without explicit knowledge. This is how children acquire knowledge of their mother tongue by being exposed to the streams of words from their environment. The child (before schooling and grammar lessons) cannot explain structures, patterns or rules of the language, but he understands them and can guess the end of a sentence, detect grammatical errors or structural irregularities.

Also, the cognitive capacity for implicit learning enables listeners to acquire knowledge about the musical system of their culture, especially in everyday life, by simple exposure to musical pieces (lullabies, music on the radio, etc.). And this, without explicit musical training. The listener is facing music as the child is facing his mother tongue: he processes structures and develops expectations, without being able to explain them. We speak of musical acculturation: the listener is an implicit expert in the perception of music from his culture.

The brain does not work the same way when it comes to recognizing a melody or understanding a simple oral sentence. To put it simply, on the left hemisphere : the language, on the right hemisphere: the music. In fact, when listening to a sung or spoken phrase, both hemispheres are called upon, but studies in brain imaging have shown that the auditory cortices specialize.

A musical phrase for the ear is a complex mixture of notes, vibrations of the air arriving at different speeds on the cochlea. Slow vibrations give rather low-pitched sounds and fast vibrations give high-pitched sounds. Frequency and rhythm are therefore two dimensions: spectral and temporal.

More in depth on the brain and music...

How music and language are formed

Speech processing is mainly located in the left hemisphere, but certain global aspects of spoken language, such as intonation, accent and tone pattern, are more often disrupted by injury to the right hemisphere.

There are many cases of people with disorders in the left hemisphere who have lost their ability to speak, but have retained their musical functions and vice versa. Such cases suggest that music and speech, although they may have some neural circuits in common, cannot use completely overlapping neural structures.

Local language features, such as distinguishing one speech sound from another, appear to be lateralized in the left hemisphere. In accordance with its functions related to language, the left hemisphere is involved in naming aspects of music, such as naming a song, instrument, etc.

Music training seems to have the effect of shifting some of the processing of music from the right (imagistic) to the left (logical) hemisphere, as musicians learn to talk and can and also think about music using linguistic terms. Children have less lateralization of musical operations than adults, whether or not they are musicians.

RESEARCHES, EXPERIMENTS & STUDIES

Source #7

1. According to Bill Thompson, who is a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, music and language could correspond to the same circuits in the brain. The close connection between music and language, says Professor Thompson, is that both involve emotional communication through changes in pitch.

If in music, the importance of the pitch of sounds is obvious, it is also involved in the communication of emotions by speech, using changes in intonation during speech. This aspect is known as the "prose discourse".

"We all know people who find it hard to perceive the voices of others. These people just don't realize when someone is ironic, they don't realize when they are irritated. It just goes beyond their power of understanding, "says Bill Thompson.

To study the connection between music and language, Thompson and his colleagues studied several diagnosed people who have trouble distinguishing changes in pitch and, therefore, cannot reproduce a song. The researchers wanted to know if it was difficult for people born with this handicap to distinguish emotional nuances from oral communication.

The researchers formed a group of 12 people and another control group, also made up of 12 people, and performed a series of tests to assess their sensitivity to emotional prosody of speech. Participants listened to 96 sentences and had to identify whether the tone of voice expressed happiness, tenderness, fear, irritation, sadness or any emotion. Research results have shown that in the case of participants with asperger syndrome, for example, it was less likely to correctly identify the emotions expressed by the tone of voice, compared to participants in the control group.

This does not mean, however, that people who distinguish sounds well would have higher emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence involves much more than the ability to decipher the sense of tone of voice, and people with mild disabilities can develop strategies to compensate for their inability to perceive differences in pitch. For example, according to Professor Thompson, they seem to use other non-auditory cues to decipher the meaning of verbal communication, and may even have greater sensitivity in the perception of other aspects, such as a better ability to decipher the body language.

Thompson, William F.. "Music, Thought, and Feeling : Understanding the Psychology of Music ." Oxford University Press, 2014, pp.386-392

2. Many claim that music is a common language because all human cultures (or almost) have made music. However, beyond this basic premise, how can we really attest that it is a universal means of communication? Researchers have tried to see if we all understand musical language.

A Harvard study of 750 internet users from 60 countries showed that despite the language differences in the songs heard, they were able to say the purpose of the melody. In another experiment, the scientists asked American and Indian internet users to listen to extracts and to specify the number of singers and instruments, the tempo, the excitement, the valence, etc. In short, in both groups, the musical understanding was the same despite the great cultural differences.

3. Some studies have even observed that the part of the brain linked to language also processes music. Thus, by studying the cerebral blood flow of musicians and non-musicians in verbal and musical situations, they realized that among the accustomed to the instruments, it was located in the same place. As for the uninitiated, after only half an hour of musical practice, it approaches that of instrumentalists. In fact, other research using magnetic resonance imaging has shown that musicians have a better ability to perceive syllables drowned in background noise. The habit of discerning noisy locations in their daily lives allowed them to better understand the meanings of words.This batch of studies, including the one of Harvard, has made many media say that, there it is, music is the universal language. However, music experts have repressed this hasty conclusion.

Various ways of understanding music

We have to agree on the concept of language. As a specialist who demystifies the clichés of classical music reminds us, languages do everything to clarify the world. However, music is abstract and very personal. She gives the example that in her work, she was often asked to sing the song "Hallelujah" by the bedside of a patient. It is a beautiful melody which for the patient and his family is a moment of meditation and sadness. However, it happened to her that one of her friends asked her the same song for her marriage because she considers this hymn as a hymn to joy. An interpretation that goes completely against that of bereaved families.

Outline

Thesis statement : Even if music has many similarities with language, it is not considered a language, even less an universal language, because music does not affect the same part of the brain as language and they just don't have the same function(s).

PARAGRAPH A

Main idea 1 = Music has many similarities with language.

A1 Both language and music are specific to humans, since no animal species has a verbal and written communication system that is as precise and sophisticated.

A2 Language and music are essentially perceived as sequences of sounds and produced by vocal movements which creates sounds.

A3 Just like language, music is codified. A composer, for example, has technical and aesthetic means to produce precise emotions (such as sadnes, fear, etc). There are rules that help organize and articulate the sounds between them. These rules are in a way comparable to the syntax that organizes words in order to construct meaningful sentences.

PARAGRAPH B

Main idea 2 = Music does not affect the same part of the brain as language

B1 The brain does not work the same way when it comes to recognizing a melody or understanding a simple oral sentence. To put it simply, on the left hemisphere : the language, on the right hemisphere : the music.

B2 & B3 There are many cases of people with disorders in the left hemisphere who have lost their ability to speak but have retained their musical functions and vice versa. Such cases suggest that music and speech, although they may have certain neural circuits in common, cannot use completely overlapping neural structures.

PARAGRAPH C

Main idea 3 = Music is not a language because it does not perform the same function as language

C1 Music goes beyond words, it goes beyond the simple communication function of verbal language. Music does not designate, it evokes: it appeals to the subjectivity of the composer, the performer and the listener.

C2 As language forces us into the real world in which we live, music opens us, more than any other art, the "doors" that reveal the depth of things. Music gives life, while language is inseparable from thought. Music has no meaning but rather an emotional tone, it is more expression than meaning. It corresponds to the subjectivity of communication while language to objectivity

C3 The link between signifier (the word which designates an object) and signified (the object designated by this word) is, among other things, what allows this transmission of meaning. Everyone knows what the word "tree" means and everyone can represent something via this term. While language tends to be objective, music is not. A note is not a signifier, it does not refer to anything other than itself; isolated, it is only a sound which is not significant in itself: it would be complete nonsense to try to attribute a meaning to each note - the "fa" would express joy and sadness "si ", for example.

C4 Music would be a good tool for learning a language, but the opposite might not necessarily be true.

Music, an universal language?

There is a legend that says that men all spoke the same language in the past. They had decided to build a city and a tower as high as possible, drawing closer to God. However, God annoyed by this gesture, dispersed them around the world and gave them different languages. This story would explain why we all grew up in different cultures and languages. Since then, it seems that we are all looking for a universal language, as if to reproduce the spirit of Babel. Many believe that it would lie in music.

Is music really a universal language capable of being understood by all people, regardless of their cultural background?

Source #8

Can we intuitively understand the meaning or the function of a song written in another era, in a completely different context? If I suspected that yes, now I know that music, and especially its understanding, is the result of a cultural convention. We do not design, and we do not listen to music in the same way according to the culture in which we grew up. Indian music, for example, does not have the same relationship to harmony and uses different scales from Western music, so much so, for example, that listening to music from a culture totally different from your own can cause discomfort. As the appreciation of music is, in part, based on its predictability, it is normal to find destabilizing music when it is unpredictable. This is the case for so-called serial, or atonal music, which is based on different codes.

In short, it is more likely that we like what we are used to hearing. But does this mean that it is impossible for us to understand music written in a context that is not familiar to us? This is a question asked by a research team (The Music Lab) in ethnomusicology ( which is a human science that studies the relationship between music and society), attached to Harvard University. The idea was to determine whether music was indeed a universal language capable of transmitting emotions understood by all, regardless of their cultural origin. (This experience is similar to another that I already mentioned above.)

To do this, the team built a database for which they spent several years digging through archives and discotheques to find recordings that are not accessible online, in order to avoid presenting previously known extracts by the public. After a long classification work using 60 variables (for example the ethnic origin of the performers, the duration, the presence of instruments or costumes, etc.), they finally selected around 120 songs, coming from 30 regions of the world. People were asked to listen to the songs, with no other indication than to determine the function of the song. For example if it is used for dancing, putting a baby to sleep, expressing love, etc. They could also try to see if they are able to recognize the emotions conveyed by the melodies.

The results were conclusive: whatever the context or the origin of the songs, we are able to recognize the emotional intention of a melody without necessarily understanding the words. Music is therefore a universal language for this purpose, and understanding these results could have an effect on our understanding of communication in general. As it becomes easier to communicate quickly with all kinds of people around the world who have been brought up in different cultural contexts, music could serve as the basis for a common discussion and, perhaps, avoid some misunderstandings. But one thing is certain, a little better understanding of how to communicate and how our brain processes music is already in itself a good thing.

Jenkins, P. " The Music Betwwen Us: Is Music a Universal Language?" Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, vol. 50, no. 3, Nov. 2012, pp.488

Here is a little overview of the research

Another research about the brain, music and language...

Source #9

As I already said before, the human brain does not mobilize its hemispheres in an equivalent way when it comes to recognizing a melody or understanding a sentence orally. A research team led by the researcher Benjamin Morillon at the Institute of Systems Neurosciences, in collaboration with researchers from the Montreal Neurological Hospital Institute of McGill University, used an innovative approach to understand how language and music are decoded within each cerebral hemisphere in humans.

The researchers recorded 10 sentences each sung by a soprano on 10 new melodic tunes composed for the occasion. These 100 recordings, in which melody and speech are dissociated, were then distorted by reducing the amount of information present in each dimension of the sound. 49 participants were asked to listen to these distorted paired recordings, and to determine whether they were identical in melody or in text. The experiment was conducted in French and English, in order to observe the reproducible results in the different languages.

The research team found that, regardless of the language, when temporal information was distorted participants were able to recognize the melody, but had difficulty identifying the content of the text. But, when the spectral information (frequency) was distorted, they were able to recognize the text but had trouble recognizing the melody.

The observation by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the participants' neural activity showed that, in the left auditory cortex, the activity varied according to the sentence presented but remained relatively stable from one melody to another , while in the right auditory cortex, the activity varied according to the melody presented but remained relatively stable from one sentence to another.

Also, when the temporal information was degraded, only the neural activity of the left auditory cortex was affected, while the degradation of spectral information only affected the activity of the right auditory cortex.

"These results indicate that in each cerebral hemisphere, neural activity is dependent on the type of sound information," says Benjamin Morillon. If the temporal information is secondary to recognize a melody, it is on the contrary essential for the good recognition of the language. Conversely, if spectral information is secondary to recognize language, it is essential to recognize a melody. "

The neurons of the left auditory cortex would therefore be mainly receptive to language thanks to their better ability to process temporal information, while those of the right auditory cortex would be receptive to music thanks to their better ability to process spectral information.

Albouy, Philippe, Morillon Benjamin, and Zatorre Robert J. "Distinct Sensitivity to Spectortemporal Modulation Supports Brain Asymmetry for Speech and Melody." American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2020. Vol. 367, pp. 1043-1047.

Music & Philosophy

Source #10

Music is also very close to philosophy. “Music, considered as an expression of the world, is therefore at the highest point a universal language which is to the generality of concepts roughly what concepts are themselves to particular things.” There is in music a vocation for the universal which is not found, according to Schopenhauer, in any other human activity if not perhaps philosophy, because it says immediately and without words what philosophy struggles to express conceptually in language. "Hence it has always been called music the language of feeling and passion, as words are the language of reason." That is to say that music is not a language strictly speaking, that there is in this characterization only a metaphor which betrays its essence. The fact remains that if we do not consider music simply as a set of pleasant sounds, but as a means of manifesting a meaning, if we do not consider philosophy as a set of words, but as discourse aiming also to make sense of, then their kinship may seem obvious: they are perhaps two ways of accessing the same reality, which is that of sensitivity and subjectivity.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. "The World As Will and Representation." New York, Dover, 1969. pp. 332-335.

This is an interesting video that may clarify some aspects of my blog

List of all my sources:

1. Albouy, Philippe, Morillon Benjamin, and Zatorre Robert J. "Distinct Sensitivity to Spectortemporal Modulation Supports Brain Asymmetry for Speech and Melody." American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2020.

2. Bernstein, Leonard. “The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard.” Harvard University Press, 2002.

3. Botstein, Leon. “Music and Language.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 77, no. 3, 1993, pp. 367–372.

4. Bowie, Andrew. “Aesthetics and Subjectivity.” Music, Language and Literature , vol 14, no. 8, 2003.

5. Fox, Donna Brink. “Music and the Baby's Brain: Early Experiences.” Music Educators Journal, vol. 87, no. 2, 2000.

6. Jenkins, P. " The Music Betwwen Us: Is Music a Universal Language?" Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, vol. 50, no. 3, Nov. 2012.

7. McMullen, Erin and Saffran, Jenny. “Music Perception.” An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2004.

8. Sawyer, Chris. "Et Si Musique Et Langues Étaient Liées? ", OISE , vol. 3, no. 22, 2016.

9. Sloboda, J. A. “The Musical Mind : The Cognitive Psychology of Music”, Paris, Mardaga, 1985.

10. Schopenhauer, Arthur. "The World As Will and Representation." New York, Dover, 1969.

11. Thompson, William F.. "Music, Thought, and Feeling : Understanding the Psychology of Music ." Oxford University Press, 2014.

12. Weinberger, Norman M. “Music and the Brain.” Scientific American, vol. 291, no. 5, 2004.

The Process

1. The Subject

At first, I had no idea what I wanted to talk about. It was difficult to choose from all my options, because I had a lot of ideas in mind and they seem just as interesting as each other, but luckily I made the right choice! I decided to choose a subject that surrounds me daily: music and language. These are two subjects that really fascinate me, because everyone (or almost) listens to music and everyone has a certain language with which they can communicate. I have always suspected links between these two areas and I found that it was the right opportunity to unravel it all. At the beginning, I was convinced that music was a language especially because of its ability to make people feel and transmit emotions. But the more I read, the more I realized that it probably wasn't. I did my research without relying on my own ideas, because I wanted to discover the thoughts and points of view of others and then build my own critical judgment. It was not always easy, because I sometimes disapproved of what it was written, but I had to take into consideration all opinions in order to develop a better knowledge of the subject.

2. The Blog

I had to adapt to the blog, because I don't really have experience with this kind of thing, but I finally figured out how it worked and I managed to add content.There were days when I had no motivation, so it was more difficult for me to be productive. But I always ended up catching up. I loved my experience with the blog, because as soon as I found relevant information, I could write it immediately and I explicitly saw the progress of my research. I also like the fact that we can personalize it as we wanted, because we see a little more the personality of each one instead of just reading white sheets.

3. The Sources

Surprisingly, I didn't have too much trouble finding sources, but what was most difficult was really all of the reading and selecting the information I needed.However, each of my readings was interesting and I really felt like I had learned a lot. I could talk about my subject for hours, because I read so much and took a lot of notes. I didn’t feel like I was reading for nothing, i.e. I was always learning different things.

4. The Research Paper

The research paper really came naturally, because I already knew so much about my subject, I just had to divide it adequately. The outline we did before also helped me a lot, because my ideas were already structured and I knew which way to go.What was a bit of a challenge for me was not to write too much and stay focused on my thesis statement, because I felt that sometimes I was overflowing and I was talking about something else. Otherwise, I think that overall I have focused on the main ideas and I have demonstrated my understanding of the readings I have done, so I felt relieved when I finished writing it.

5. Challenges

In general, the biggest challenge for me was not to procrastinate. Sometimes I had no motivation and I did everything except studying, but it eventually caught up with me and I felt so overwhelmed.What I would have done differently, I would say is my organization. Sometimes I took too much for granted the fact that we had a lot of time before handing over something, but then I found myself overwhelmed because everything ended up accumulating.

Final Thoughts...

Generally speaking, I really enjoyed the project. Focusing on a topic during the whole smester really allowed me to learn a lot and retain a lot of information. I liked the experience with the blog, even if at first I was not very familiar, I quickly got used to it and it quickly became a habit of writing on it regularly. Regarding my subject, at no time did I regret my choice. It was really a fascinating subject that I will not soon forget!

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