Scientists are puzzled that the area of our brains devoted to sound and music is bigger than the area for language because there is no evolutionary need for sound. Actually, this may not be true. Sound and music have an enormous impact on our bodies and emotions.
Recently, I visited a concentration camp in the CzechRepublic. Because there are no words to express such horror, the experience plagued me until I listened to Gorezki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. A Polish composer, he was only too familiar with having to live with the aftermath of Nazi atrocities. The music took me to a place in my brain which lay far beyond language and, at last, I was able to process the information and, in a strange way, begin to come to terms with experience.
In going beyond language, music can therefore help us with the extremes of emotional feeling, replacing words with sound so that we can find a way to integrate the extremes of human existence rather than being blocked by them.
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