Cultural Relativism: The Universality of Music Mini-Saga

We’ve experienced multiple musical performances as part of an audience who spoke multiple languages and came from many cultural backgrounds.  Yet music was the common shared expressive and communicative tool among us all–as Thoreau put it, music serves as a “universal language.”  Reflect on the power of music to act in this way, and why that’s important to you and society as a whole.

Cultural relativism.

The comprehension of music.

Influenced by the understanding of words,

Or influenced by tone?

Language cannot be understood by all,

But tone is always recognized regardless of the diction it’s displayed within.

The universality of music eases my cultural shock

And bridges the gap of polarization throughout society.

This photo was taken while visiting Castello Sforzesco during our class walking tour of Milan, Italy. Although the man playing the piano in the photo was singing in Italian, I was able to recognize the song that he was singing which was "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. The tone of the song was very sad and when I was walking by I actually recognized the song he was singing based on the sad tone rather than the words he was speaking. This represents the idea that music serves as a universal language. Although there is cultural relativism in the world, the tone of music can be recognized by all regardless of the language one speaks. The realization of this actually eased my apprehension about speaking in Italian. I felt much more confident speaking to others in Italian after this experience because I realized that in order for someone to understand another it does not matter what language one speaks but rather the manner and tone in which words are spoken.

This photo was taken while I was attending the Beethoven Symphony no.7 and Mozart Symphony no.36 "Linz" at Malibran Theater in Venice, Italy. Both symphonies were only played using instruments and there was no singing during the performances. Throughout the symphonies, I noticed that the crowd was synchronous in their emotions during each piece. When the tempo would slow down people's faces and body language became very serious; however, when the tempo was fast people would seem much more attentive and energized. This made me realize that music truly is universal. Although language cannot be comprehended by all, music can be universally understood due to the emotion it influences one to feel. This realization led me to the question "Would the world be less polarized if we all spoke the same language?".