I have had frequent debates on whether or not music is a language, and I
have decided after very careful study that it is NOT a language.  Written
music itself is mathematical and spatial code, with the rhythms standing in
for fractions, and the notes indicating a certain sound's place in space
(the rhythm indicating a note's place in time).  Written music is therefore
four dimensional, having duration as well as length, breadth, and height.
This code, by itself, cannot communicate anything.  Even if you read music,
you cannot glean any useful information about a message or statement from
the printed page.  You know what the music is conveying only if you know
the piece, and have heard it before.

Without this contextual knowledge, it is impossible to know what the music
is saying just by looking at the printed page.  While a langugage such as
English uses words to describe concepts and objects as a form of code, it
expresses its information without an intermediate step.  In English, you
can say "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." As printed music
exists, it is not possible to explain this concept.  At some future point,
a linguist might develop a system of using the twelve chromatic notes in
certain combinations to directly correspond to an existing language, but
until then, music remains simply a code which the performer interprets
and uses to correctly perform the sounds the composer intended.  The
real message of music comes from the heart and feelings of the performer.
Without that feeling, music is listless and without life (sterile and
computerized).

Any comments?

Charles L. L. Dalmas
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