Music and Feelings

*ramble alert*

I was very young when I first heard somebody say that music was a language that all people could understand. It was ridiculous, how could you tell somebody your name, or ask where the washroom was, just by using music? "Pssh," I thought, "that's baloney."

Years later when I was studying French, I was intruiged to find out that there were some things that could be said in French that had no real equivalent in English. It turns out that most languages have this feature! So... maybe music is a language after all, it's just that we use it to say different things... I heard a musician once say that music was the true language of the human spirit. So maybe music is the language of feelings? How many times have you tried to express a feeling but couldn't find the words, yet were able to find a song that matched that feeling perfectly?

Some philosophers have postulated that our ability to think is limited by our ability to express our thoughts. In other words, our ideas are limited by our language. I think it's reasonable that language could be a prerequisite to sentient thought. So what about music? It seems to me that music (listening and creating) is a huge part of our abilility for feeling and emotion.

Here's a kicker: music isn't exclusive to humans. Whales, dolphins, and probably other creatures have music too.

What do you think?