Music is NOT a universal language Dr Liz Stafford sets out the argument for retiring a misleading phrase This article could have been titled ‘Is music a universal language?’, except for one factor; I am absolutely certain that it isn’t! This statement has been bandied about for years, with even Ofsted trotting it out in their recent Music Subject Report, but it is really just a meaningless platitude. And in fact it’s not just a platitude, but a culturally insensitive one at that! To prove it, let’s break this phrase down into its component parts: music, universal and language, with the help of some musicians and teachers who chatted with me about this on social media.
Music We all think we know what we mean by music, right? But when using the phrase ‘music is a universal language’ we need to consider the following. What music? Whose music? All music? Whenever I see or hear this phrase being used, it is never attached to a world music tradition, it is always used to describe Western music, either pop or classical. As Katherine Firth (Threads @katherinefirth) pointed out to me: “Western Classical music is founded upon theoretical assumptions about happy/sad/turbulent/complete which do not map at all onto other
