When we listen to language we hear the words and then express those words in ways that we are personally programmed to understand them. This is fraught with problems, when we say something the meaning that we connect to the words can often be lost in translation with the words meaning something else to the listener. Take for instance a word like ‘dog’ this will mean something to a dog lover and something emotionally different to someone with a fear of dogs.

Words take on different meanings with the introduction of tonality and emphasis. Language is unreliable just listen to a politician and notice how they ‘answer’ a question. When we think of the word myth we often interpret that word as lie or fairy tale but myth was something much deeper than that.

Myth contains within the story truths hidden in the text using deep structure and metaphor therefore within the tale there is a truth that connects with the unconscious. It is possible to view many ancient stories in this way bringing new meaning to them such as the Arabian Nights and the stories of the Genie being an instruction manual of the mind and how to reprogram your thoughts. It is the same with language, that much is going on in the deep structure of the communication which the great orators in the past understood.

Music has the same aspect of carrying emotional messages through the song both in the sound and the lyric much of this is locked into your memories of when you heard that music originally but much of this is about deeper things in the sound.

There seems very little of this being passed on to pupils when they learn, particularly in classical music. Only much later does the idea of the musical energy seem to be introduced, if at all, shame it seems to be what music is all about.

Vic