La Musica fra dimensione sociale e dimensione vitale

Abstract

Research about music has been traditionally associated with language studies and music has been usually considered as its derivation or precursor. Instead the perspective here adopted is that of Steven Mithen: music and language have an only precursor. This perspective allows to look at music and language as two features of the human being, as two unaltered biological traits that find their actualization within specific sociocultural contexts. Nevertheless, the substantial difference between music and language strictly emerges in the dialectics between biology and culture. While the language is always inextricably connected to a specific social reality, the music seems to be more independent. This is confirmed by the fact that if we want to understand a different language, we need to be taught to do it, while we may often be capable of understanding a music, that doesn't belong to us, perfectly.  Music more than language is connected to our “deep vital side” and, better than any other symbolic instrument, is able to express it. The best example of this ability is, paradoxically, given by language. There is a type of language called maternese, the principal purpose of which is not to transmit information to a newborn baby, or to educate it but it serves to comfort it and to make it feel protected and loved, it serves to affectively tune in with it. Thus, perhaps music is an instrument that allows us to manage our constitutive ambivalence, making the loneliness possible in company.