blog posted by
David James
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November 4th, 2006 @ 8:02 pm GMT |
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Communication: Mans Primordial Need
by David James
Organic life in the Earth's biosphere requires organisms to relate to other organisms. Human beings are particularly dependent on establishing enduring relationships with other human beings, and thus on their highly developed ability to communicate with them. The ability to communicate also exists in animals, many of which use some kind of language for communicating within their own species and genera.
When we think of language we tend to have in mind communication based on the emission of sounds, specifically vocal sounds. The word language etymologically refers to the tongue (la langue in French, lingua in Latin). But sounds used to communicate may also be produced by other parts of the body, and there are languages of gestures (for example the sign language used by some tribes and by deaf people).
Everything stated so far can be applied to music, or rather to the purposeful use culture-wholes make of sound. I say "sound" rather than "music" because the term music should be used only to refer to communication at the level of a culture's collective psychism. Even then the word music does not usually mean what it does for at least relatively educated musicians and music lover. The music of primitive societies is not music in our sense of the term; it is tone-magic. In order to understand what tone-magic means, we have to try to develop an empathetic kind of psychic resonance to the consciousness of primitive human beings and their instinctual responses to sound as a power of communication and creation.
The views and opinions in this blog post are those of its author.
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