Transcript:
Singing, dancing, and playing are important ways through which all children learn cognitive, language, social, and emotional skills. And then, most of us naturally start prioritizing speech and the meaning of words. And most words we use have become devalued, at the same time as one human language dies out every two weeks. Ok what should we do about it.
My name is Camille, you’re listening to Cosmic, 5 minutes of inspiration on art, change & the music of the universe.
I am often beating myself up for using language that is not sophisticated enough - I believe we all share the responsibility of maintaining and developing that skill, the craft of language. The words we use to describe human processes are highly influential and with this in mind we can get much more sophisticated in our understanding of ourselves.
I learnt that for adults, music and language are cognitively and neurally distinct. As you know people focus primarily on the meaning of speech. But for babies in their first year, it’s a different story: language is like this vocal performance with repetitions, emotional content, rhythmic and phonemic patterns.
Now if you contemplate how society is governed, how decisions are made, and what language is used to achieve most of the structural outcomes - the famous structures of the world, which is in the end what Cosmic is interested in - it’s pretty clear we lost something on the way… Can music avoid the need for these words that have become so limiting in many ways? Can it expand our horizons across human processes and have some sort of a regenerative effect on human communications?
We are preparing an experiment on this topic, involving musicians, words, and a tough communication challenge. If you want to participate or attend from online, please send us an email at hello@cosmic.show and we’ll tell you more about it, we’re working on the how right now and will mail the Cosmic community when we have a detailed program.
As art piece of the day, I am featuring the 40,000-year-old bone flute I told you about yesterday. It’s the world’s oldest music instrument that we’ve found. It’s made of mammoth-ivory, very challenging to make: “using only stone tools, the flute maker would have had to split a section of curved ivory along its natural grain. The two halves would then have been hollowed out, carved, and fitted together with an airtight seal.” Sometimes when cooking I feel like giving up on cutting the vegetables thin or in harmonious shapes. This craft story makes me feel really embarrassed. And you? How thin do you cut your tomatoes?
Can music avoid the need for these words that have become so… limiting in many ways. Can it expand our horizons across human processes and have some sort of a regenerative effect on human communications?
We are preparing an experiment on this topic, involving musicians, words, and a tough communication challenge. If you want to participate or attend from online, please send us an email at hello@cosmic.show and we’ll tell you more about it, we’re working on the how right now and will mail the Cosmic community when we have a detailed program.
In this soundtrack by @christianscottofficial you can hear the immense talent of flutist @ElenaPinderhughes, which I am symbolically connecting to this episode and to this 40 000 year-old bone flute crafted in mammoth ivory. Gourmet food for the right brain!
Cosmic Dynamics is also available on Spotify & on podcast apps.
Thank you for tuning in.🎧
