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Home Questions and Answers Music without words is meaningless. Do you agree?
10

Music without words is meaningless. Do you agree?

- Bhattarai Aman

Posted by Bhattarai Aman on Mar 21, 2011 in Questions and Answers | 10 comments

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Let us all stand up for the national anthem. The numerous people,
creating a large crowd in the huge football stadium, stand up. The players of both the teams line up
in the centre of the eld in a rigid stance. The anthem begins. The camera focuses on all the team
members of the country whose anthem is being played, tears streaming down the cheeks of a few
players in great love, respect and patriotism for their beloved country. The anthem surely made
them emotional and triggered the love for their nation. But waitnobody is singing the national
anthem, it is only an instrumental. If music without words is meaningless, then how come those
players were so touched by it? How did they receive the message and the sensation of patriotism
through only the sounds coming from a number of instruments? A better question; how did they
even RECOGNIZE that it is their countrys national anthem and not their opposing teams? The
answer to all these questions is that music without words is not meaningless, and it would be quite a
sweeping statement to say so. Yes, music can be meaningless without words if it created that way,
just a mixture of random notes and intervals without any harmony, but why would anyone waste
their time creating something like that? Even if words are added to such a piece of music, it would
not be eective.

Music can also be meaningless with words (if you are a musician, please dont try recreating the
following example); imagine a gangsta rap song, with the rapper rapping over a soft and mellow 3
by 4 piano ballad. The lyrics alone will have meaning, and the music alone will have its meaning too,
but mixing them together will cause a terrible confusion and resulting in the listener to think Does
the artist want me to listen to a story of one of his amazing gang ghts and feel the intensity of the
situation, or he wants me to stand up and perform a slow couple dance with my beau?. Music is a
lot like chemistry; you create a wrong mixture and it will either result in a disastrous solution or will
neutralize the eect. So saying that words give meaning to music is quite absurd, but yes it is to be
admitted that words sometimes do enhance the meaning of music and support it, excluding the
above mentioned example though

Music itself is believed to be another language. It is spoken through instruments and voice by using
notes, written and read on a sta paper using musical notation, with intervals, rests, time
signatures, tempo, scales and chords as its grammar, and its accents aswellaccents. When
voices and instruments change the pitch of the notes in a harmonious and melodic fashion, they
create their own words, with the feeling and message the musician wants to convey to the listener.
The length of these musical words and words of any language, lets say English, are often not the
same; the word anger takes less than a second to speak, almost a second to write and a
millisecond to understand, but when translated this word in music, it can take several pages of sta
paper and minutes of playing time. Music contains its own meaning. It does not depend on the
existence of words but sadly, not all understand this language. Words are needed to support the
music and convey the message faster and more eectively to the listener. Sometimes, even the
musician himself does not master this language well enough to understand it, and thus he has to
create a piece of music known as a song which he and the listener comprehend to. It is like
watching a foreign movie with English dubbing so it can be easily be understood. The dubbing will
never be the same as the real dialogues and the feelings which reside in the original wont be
present in the dubbed version. Music is the foreign language here, and words are the dubbing. Most
of music enthusiasts are so used to listening to the dubbed version of music that they begin to nd
the music in its pure sense as peculiar and strange. The dubbed version of the movie in the foreign
language is so popular that the producer has now begun to create movies in English, but to make
sure that the feeling of originality is not lost he has decided to use the same foreign actors who
trying their best to speak a language they are not supposed to speak, only because the audience
wants it. Luckily there are artists which have preserved music in its original form. Beethovan and
Bach are in the list, but lets take a look at current artists.

Yanni; A self taught pianist and music composer

Online University from Greece. His music consists of pure
instruments, sometimes voices, but no words, and
aiu.edu/University yet the meaning of the music is conveyed to the
listener. As an example, one of his songs,
Bachelor in Business Reections of Passion, triggers the emotion of love
Administration Earn your Degree and passion so quickly, and the rhythm of the song
Online. makes one dance with his/her partner, alone if they
are single. Another one known as Nostalgia will take
one down the memory lane and awaken nostalgic
feelings to a place, a person or an object; a song
named perfectly with respect to its feeling. There
are several other melodies which comprise of no
words but still they inject their contained feeling
into the listener. Even though this particular
professional musician was mentioned here to support the statement that there are musicians who
create songs without words and they are still understood and appreciated, one does not always have
to be a pure musician to create music with meaning and without words and understand such form of
music.

On a hot summer day when the children are playing in their yard and hear an alluring music fading
in. They stop and listen. In a few seconds they run inside, empty their piggy banks, and run back
outside to the ice-cream man who is humming the music coming from the speakers of his
ice-cream wagon as he presents the children with their treats. It was the distinguishable, upbeat
and exciting music from which the children realized that the ice-cream wagon is approaching. In the
same way, when a cell phone rings, it is instantly realized that someone is calling and the phone
needs to be answered. How unusual it would be if all cell phones do not play a specic tone as the
ring but instead a voice from its speaker yelling, I am your phone! Someone is calling! Attend the
call! Recognized cell phone models and service providers have their own signature ring tones, and
one can easily gure out which brand and which cell phone connection an individual is using when
his/her cell phone rings. More pieces of music that all computer users are familiar with is the
welcoming melody one hears when the renowned operating system Windows XP is booted, the short
and annoying jingle when there is an error message on the screen, and the tune that is played when
it is turned o. Words are completely absent and even unnecessary for this purpose. That is the
most fascinating thing about music; it is not limited to any specic language, like stated before that
music itself is a language everyone understands.partially

Therefore, the conclusion is that music is not meaningless without words. Yes, words support music,
and words make the understanding of the message conveyed more eective, but music will not be
left incomplete if words are missing from it. In fact, words without music wont have much eect. Do
not confuse words with voices, as there is a dierence between voices changing their pitches in
rhythm and voices changing their pitches in rhythm and carrying words from a language with them.
Neither would be meaningless with or without any of them. If music was meaningless without words,
cell phones ringtones, movie intros and alarm or reminder tones would have never been understood,
and if words were meaningless without music then you will denitely need some singing skills to
understand this essay.

Grade achieved: A

Extracted from: http://theessayblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/music-without-words-

is-meaningless/

Recommend Share 17 people recommend this.

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2. Morals cannot be taught. Do you agree?- Essay by Lye Su-Lin
3. Total equality between the sexes is not only impossible, it is undesirable. To what extent do you
agree?
4. Reading is a lost art. Discuss
5. Reading is a lost art. Discuss Exam essay by Christopher Lim

Community Answers

1.
1

3-21-11
Pratik says:

I an deeply overwhelmed for what I just read through. I oer my dearest graditude to the
person who {wrote/modied/published} this essay.

Hence, by thanking you I hopefully pray for more inspirational essays and a better future for
this blog.

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+27

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2.
12

3-21-11
Bhattarai Aman says:

Dear Pratik,
Thank you for your comment. We will be uploading lots of inspirational essays and help you all
get good score in CIE.
Regards,
Aman
 Reply
-9

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3.
3-23-11
Mohit Rauniyar says:

Awesome!! Was an extraordinary essay !!

Reply
-75

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4.
1

3-24-11
Utkrist says:

Well crafted.

Reply
+19

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5.
3-25-11
Shaheer Shahid says:

Thank you everyone for your kind words everyone! I never thought my essays were so good to
be posted here!

Thanks to the writer of this blog post at alevelhelp.com to publish it here! =)

If you like this essay, please check out the rest of my essays at
http://theessayblog.wordpress.com/.

Thanks again!

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-18

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6.
12

3-25-11
Bhattarai Aman says:

Mr Shahid,
I am the one who copied the essay (without your permission..lol) and pasted into the blog. I
 had gone through this essay during my CIE and it helped me a lot. I wanted everyone to be
beneted thats why I kept it here. Your blog is really wonderful. I, on behalf of this website
team, would like you request to upload your essays here also so that whole international
students can get some ideas.
Regards,
Aman Bhattarai
(Co-Founder, A LEVEL HELP DESK)

Reply
-62

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7.
4

3-25-11
Nimesh says:

Hello,
The essay is fantastic but I would like to ask you something about essay writing. I have, so far,
been taught that the essay should be kind of formal and allYou have used slightly dierent
style of writing than I normally write. If I use this kind of writing, which I adore the most, then
my teacher will circle the whole paperI guessSo, I want to know what the CIE really looks
forward to in an essay.

Plz confer some tips,

Nimesh
A-Level student,
RBS

Reply
+86

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8.
12

3-25-11
Bhattarai Aman says:

Dear Nimesh,
I understand your teacher Miss Perri will denitely circle it. However, you can write in this way.
It shouldnt be complete informal. We are academic writing students so GP needs to be formal
but the presentation can be a bit informal type as shown in the essay. I have read some World
TOp essays which were somehow similar to these.
CIE looks 3 things in an essay. An individual argument proven with specic examples(contents)
with good usage of English.
Regards,
AB

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+25

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 9.
3-28-11
samikshya siwakoti says:

Nimbuzz Niranjan Sir does not need very formal essays. I get more marks when I write sth
informal like I had begun my essay on advertisement.Be beautiful in just seven days These
kind of tag lines can be seen in many ads these days but how far r they true?..aja I had
examples like why should the girl shorten her dress in order to go out with a guy using
axe?Sir acknowledged it! Give it a try albeit, do not forget the format hai (1 para=only 1
idea)..or else it will confuse him n AB could u post da essay on Maths is the universal
language..

thnx

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+25

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10.
3-29-11
Abish says:

I guess some people like me have much interest in music than words, I dont know perhaps
dierent people have dierent views

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-5

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1. Music is meant only for the relaxation nothing more. Do you agree?
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4. Reading is a lost art. Discuss
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