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Thread: Why We Listen to Music With Lyrics We Don’t Understand

  1. #1
    Senior Member Ducatista47's Avatar
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    Why We Listen to Music With Lyrics We Don’t Understand

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q3gm/why-listen-music-lyrics-dont-understand-sound-songs-foreign-language-macarena-despacito

    (
    A great deal of my listening involves this as well. Usually the Celtic but also Romance languages.)
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    Senior Member Fritz The Cat's Avatar
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    Romance

    Quote Originally Posted by Ducatista47 View Post
    https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q3gm/why-listen-music-lyrics-dont-understand-sound-songs-foreign-language-macarena-despacito

    (
    A great deal of my listening involves this as well. Usually the Celtic but also Romance languages.)
    Tell about your experience with Romance languages! Which is the most romantic language?
    In Switzerland we have 4 national languages: German, Italian, French and Romantsch. According to surveys, people here like the Romantsch (of Canton of Grisons) the most, though nearly nobody understands it. But its sounds great! Is it the most Romantic language of Switzerland?
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    Senior Member DavidF's Avatar
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    Hell, there's so much vocal music in English out there I listen to but don't understand. Sometimes because I can't understand the words, or sometimes even when I understand the words but not what they mean as grouped together. Anyway, to the point of the post I only understand English but I do listen to a fair amount of 'world' vocal music in so many different languages. With some bias, I could add, to some regions over others.
    David F
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    Senior Member Fritz The Cat's Avatar
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    Can, Live in Stuttgart 1975, 2021, Spoon UK, SPOON 63, 3 LP

    Why we listen to music without lyrics we don't understand.
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    Moderator hjames's Avatar
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    What about music with contrived languages?
    I think of Magma - a French band with an artificial language- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magma_(band)

    Or the Scottish group Cocteau Twins, with Elizabeth Fraser's amazing vocals ...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KnYw4EwYGc
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    Administrator Robh3606's Avatar
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    And then there is Klingon Opera!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmQGO5U2n6s

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    Senior Member Fritz The Cat's Avatar
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    Lyrics we misunderstand

    Why we listen to music with lyrics we (German speaking listeners) misunderstand: https://stacker.com/stories/3387/lyr...ongs-explained

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    Senior Member Ducatista47's Avatar
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    Lisa Gerrard

    Quote Originally Posted by hjames View Post
    What about music with contrived languages?
    I think of Magma - a French band with an artificial language- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magma_(band)

    Or the Scottish group Cocteau Twins, with Elizabeth Fraser's amazing vocals ...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KnYw4EwYGc
    The phenomenal vocalist Lisa Gerrard (best known as half of Dead Can Dance) has made original contributions to the art of the vocal, but one of the more unusual is an original language. She often sings in a idioglossia, an idiosyncratic language invented and spoken by only one person. Most often, idioglossia refers to the "private languages" of young children, especially twins, the latter being more specifically known as cryptophasia, and commonly referred to as twin talk or twin speech. But she has no twin.

    Gerrard sings many of her songs, such as "Now We Are Free", "Come Tenderness", "Serenity", "The Valley of the Moon", "Tempest", "Pilgrimage of Lost Children", "Coming Home" and "Sanvean" in idioglossia — although she also sings in English. With respect to such work she has said, "I sing in the language of the Heart. [...] It's an invented language that I've had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language."

    Lisa also employs glossolalia. The same label, 4AD, has recorded both the Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance.
    Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
    Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears


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    Senior Member Ducatista47's Avatar
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    Romance Languages

    Quote Originally Posted by Fritz The Cat View Post
    Tell about your experience with Romance languages! Which is the most romantic language?
    In Switzerland we have 4 national languages: German, Italian, French and Romantsch. According to surveys, people here like the Romantsch (of Canton of Grisons) the most, though nearly nobody understands it. But its sounds great! Is it the most Romantic language of Switzerland?
    Fritz, sorry to have taken so long to get back to you on this. I am not sure how I can approach this because for me that choice is more musically than romantically based. My favorite is Italian currently, but that is because of how many singers I am completely impressed with who happen to sing in Italian (and English coincidentally) because that is where they are from. That began with Maria Pia De Vito many years ago.

    If I define romantic as deeply expressive, not particularly a Romance family language, Irish Gaelic and its close relative Scots Galic pop right up. Lately, however, Norwegian leaves the strongest impression. The reason for that is again a significant number of individual musicians of immense talent who grew up with Norwegian as their first language. Singing either their native tongue or English, they are massively expressive. Examples would be Anneli Drecker, Bendik, and Aurora. Drecker began as the vocalist of Bel Canto decades ago.

    One thing many of these vocalists share is being phenomenal singers technically as well as expressively. De Vito, the Irish Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, and Lisa Gerrard are the best living singers I have heard, period.
    Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
    Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears


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