Is music a language? : towards a more accurate description of music education

Today there are many approaches to music education reflecting many different beliefs about what is its goal. Most music educators would agree that their goal is to help students understand music and the practice of making music. The differences arise out of a confusion about what it means to understand music, and in what is significant about the practice of making music. The central problem impeding progress toward a universally applicable, yet logically derived,music curriculum is the lack of clear analysis about exactly what music is, what music does, and how music functions in a society. Particularly, the question of how, and if, music functions as a language, leads to widely different pedagogical approaches which must be justified. This paper is an attempt to show that music has many distinct differences from, as well as some similaritiesto, what we normally refer to as language, and that these differences and similarities have ramifications for the planning of music curricula. After disputing claims that music is a language or languages, it must be admitted that many cultures, including our western culture, have used, and do use, music as if it were a language. Showing that music is not necessarily a language, does not prove that music cannot sometimes be a language, or at least language-like. After rejecting the above claims that music is necessarily a language, a model will be constructed which shows how music and language work together, and borrow from each other, as mutually dependent constituent elements of culture. Understanding the important role that music plays in culture not only gives us a clear justification for the inclusion of music in our public education systems, but it also gives clear objectives for what kinds of things a student must learn during a public music education. Learning music is not just learning a series of physical skills, nor learning about specific composers and pieces of music. A true music education will help students to think more clearly, listen more acutely, andbetter understand what it means to be part of a culture, and part of a society of human beings. Keywords: Nature of Language; Nature of Music; How music and language convey meaning; What is meaning; Importance of Aesthetics in Educatio