Why listen if you can’t understand them?
There’s a world of music out there, but it’s in another language
As the sun sets from a hot summer’s day, enticing guitar chords flutter into your ears. Unable to stop yourself, your body moves on its own to the vibrant beat of the music. Clearing your throat and ready to butcher those Spanish lyrics: you are ready for the reggaetón ride into Latin America.
‘Despacito’ by singer Luis Fonsi was an introduction to many in the UK and USA into the world of music beyond the lingua franca of English. South Korean boyband ‘BTS’ too have break danced their way onto the charts of both countries.
Personally, I have had an extensive (maybe obsessive) history of loving both genres. Evident from the truckload of K-pop (Korean pop) albums in my room I avidly collected as a teenager. This being alongside the many musical telenovelas I devoured. Japanese music too has a home in my heart, I mean come on, those anime songs are works of art. But what is drawing more people to go beyond their mother tongue, and listen to the variety of music in other languages?
Well, this is all to do with the universality of music according to a study by Samuel Mehr and a group of scientists in 2019. Music essentially transcends the boundary of language. Music has common traits, in which it contains: lyrics, usage of motor skills like dance, a fixed set of tones and similar melodic and rhythmic patterns — but can have a different form depending on the culture (Mehr et al, 2019). I strongly agree this is the thing that pulls us to this music in another tongue, but what of other potential reasons for listening?
The internet is the hive for music from different cultures across the world, and we are the curious bees. While buzzing along to the beat of the musical hive, you may bump into bees from different lands — forming new friendships. What I mean by this personification is that listening to a song in a different language can lead to friends from another culture, all the way across the world. Whether that be on the internet realm or real life.
Being a part of a fandom is like being part of a family, and many music artists and groups have these. A fandom is known as a collection of fans. Artists from another part of the world are likely made up of international followers. Even if you are a more casual listener, scroll to the Instagram comments on a post by the artist and you will see avid discussions between people of various cultural backgrounds.
If you are a K-pop fan, I have a short anecdote for you. I was a buddy, which consisted of showing a Taiwanese girl my school life once. As soon as I told her I loved K-pop she immediately introduced me to her fellow K-pop loving friends. Thus, a community was formed during her visit. We watched, listened, and laughed over the music and all its quirks together. Music is a universal language for uniting us in more ways than one.
So why not give it a go today? Listen to a song in another language and if you like it — why not make some friends across the world in the comments? I hope this article inspires you to try listening to something new today.
A last note: make sure to check out the study I mentioned here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax0868
