Music is ubiquitous. It accompanies the celebration of a
baptism, a birthday, a wedding, an anniversary, a march into battle. It also
sustains us as we grieve at funerals. And beyond the decisive moments, music is
also with us in the everyday moments. It is part of worship in churches,
mosques and temples. It is the lifeblood of a carnival, it is that ‘very
personal’ song between lovers, it is the throbbing beat from spectators at a
sporting event, the anthem we sing, the background score to the films we watch,
the insidious, and sometimes, irritating ambient tracks in a lift or lobby, the
live music in a concert hall, at a party or from a busker on the street, the
bedtime song we sing our children, the whistling in the dark, the singing in
the shower, the aerobics accompaniment, on the car radio, on home stereos, on
personal headphones; in fact you can think of hundreds of different scenarios
where music is part of our lives.
Music is also universal
in that in some form or the other, it is created, performed and enjoyed across
races and cultures. Afro, bhangra, bel canto, boogie, bolero, calypso,
carnatic, celtic, cha-cha, flamenco, ghazal, hillybilly, hindustani, jazz,
polka, qawwali, rumba, salsa, samba, swing…the exercise of simply listing out
some music styles throws up a rainbow of impressions of each culture and
geography that gave birth to each of these genres.
Researchers from McGill University and University of
Montreal in Canada and Technische Universität Berlin in Germany played specific
musical compositions to two extremely different groups - first, to forty
Mebenzélé Pygmies in the Congolese rainforest and second to forty Canadians.
The findings (published in the journal 'Frontiers in Psychology', 07 January
2015) showed that the music (including both western pieces and Mbenzélé
melodies) elicited similar types of responses in both groups for key musical
characteristics such as tempo, pitch and timbre.
If I were to briefly list a few of the memorable moments in
cinema that I recall involving some form of appreciation of music, it becomes
clear to me that art is indeed a universal language:
In ‘The Mission’, Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) scales the
mighty Iguazu Falls in South America and, reaching the jungle above the Falls,
he sits down and plays his oboe. The fearsome Guarani warriors who emerge from
the jungle, ready to strike down the intruder, are instinctively captivated by
the music and let him live.
In ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, prison inmate Andy Dufresne
(Tim Robbins) (wrongly convicted of murder and serving time at Shawshank State
Penitentiary, managed by a cold and brutal warden) does the unexpected when he
locks himself in the room in which the warden’s LP record player is located. He
then plays a recording of Mozart's ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ over the prison P.A.
system. In a prison where not even basic human rights are honoured, the divine
music wafting out to all the prisoners is a lifeline for many (although it
results in Andy being mercilessly beaten by the prison guards after they break
down the locked door).
In 'The Prince of Tides', football coach, Tom Wingo (Nick
Nolte) is saying his farewell to the young violinist and football beginner,
Bernard Woodruff (Jason Gould) at the train station. He makes a final request
to the boy before the train arrives. He asks him to play the violin for him.
The boy promptly opens his violin case, takes up his violin and plays with
astounding passion and artistry in the midst of the bustling station. The coach
is moved and says something to the effect that if he could play the violin like
that, he would never touch a football.
