Jazz, Music, and Language

Thoughts about language and music

Language and sound are fundamentally identical. Language represents a form of sound, and music likewise. Due to their shared nature, verbal language and music can communicate similar things. Music is simply a verbal language with letters that are notes and words that are chords.

The lack of rigidity regarding the use of notes and the meanings one can assign to a musical sound — in contrast to many of the prescriptive rules placed on language through grammar and the well defined meaning of words — indicates that increased subjectivism is more accepted and differing interpretations of one musical piece become equally valid as a result.

Though musical forms have their own rigidity as well, once in the realm of genres such as jazz, the style of music becomes more improvisational and free flowing, allowing for even greater ranges of subjective experiences and interpretations.

Miles Davis’ style takes this improvisational quality in his song “All Blues” in his album Kind of Blue. “All Blues” represents an individual’s journey into a dreamscape or a similar reflective state, indicated by its initially lulling and salient tone that pervades the beginning and ending sequences.