Songs Without Words, Part 2

In an earlier post I wrote about why our song collections include songs without words — songs sung on vocables instead of language. The short version: when you remove words, you reduce cognitive overload and give a young brain more room to focus on pitch and rhythm.

But there's a bigger idea that goes beyond simplification. The idea of emotional depth by understanding music as something without language.

A lot of the music children encounter in school and in daily life is being used to deliver words or understand concepts. Songs that teach the alphabet. Songs that help kids remember the days of the week. Songs that make a task more fun. That's fine. But it's not really music. It's fun with words. And it reduces music to something that only exists to serve language. But really, those things that have nothing to do with music at all.

If that's all children experience, they learn something limiting: that music needs words to have a purpose. They learn that music on its own isn't enough.

Think about how much of the music the world has produced is instrumental. It never had words and never needed them.

Think about Ashokan Farewell — the fiddle waltz from Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. Most people assume it's from the 1860s. It carries loss and longing in a melody so simple. No words and none needed. 

Think about the Satie Gymnopédie — a quiet piano piece most people recognize even if they've never known its name. It sounds like nostalgia. Like remembering something beautiful that's already passed. No words could say that better than the music already does.

Think about the many instrumental processionals that bring tears when a bride is walking down the aisle.

Or think about what happens when a Sousa march starts up. You feel something in your chest before your brain has time to think about it. That's music doing something words can't touch.

Sadness. Nostalgia. Exhilaration. All without a single word.

When we limit music to being a delivery system for language, we cut children off from all of that. We teach them that music is a crutch. It’s incredibly limiting. Music and sound play a much deeper role in our humanity than helping us remember a list.

The songs without words in our collections aren't just a developmental tool for young brains. They're an early invitation to experience music as something that stands on its own. To understand music as something that doesn't need words to mean something.

That's worth starting early.

There's a spot for your family. Come see what a class sounds like.