The Role of Music in Speaking Well
One of the most worthy methods to use in speaking well is to speak from the heart. It is not a problem for children to do so but their vocabulary is limited. For adults, even with the wealth of knowledge, practice and experience, speaking from the heart is the last thing they do best. So the design of speaking well from the heart comes in the form of music.
Having taught children who are 3rd language learner of Mandarin, I discovered singing and using musical lyrics do help. However, not every child or adult person is able to follow the beat of a rhythm. And there is nothing in our environment that can actually presents music to them like language does. So how do we incorporate music into our lives that allow us to augment our language skills? Music contains songs and lyrics, that is, language. Music and language are simply a marriage that has to be arranged or integrated by humans, otherwise there can no be role for music to play in our lives. Isn't that so? And that is exactly what musicians and songwriters do. They create music and find the language to fill up the tunes to make sense to the expressions of their personal emotions and views.
Proven techniques in speaking well Music is promoted as most influential on language development but how can we make ourselves believe it actually works. The extent of this influence stops as soon as the song finishes until we replay it again. Music can put you to sleep but great books just keep you up reading till wee hours of the night. With music you can grab a song or two and be happy with it.
With books, well you just have to wait for the next available bestseller to show up on the shelf. Just how much money people had spent just to vote for the next American Idol is testimony to the fact the Role of Music in our society has become more superior than the importance of reading and learning by paper and pen to improve one's own language. We have to constantly fight in our heads on where to store the books in our house but will never argue for a space in our handbag for a good music CD.
The extent of music on your skills to speak, write and listen well is very limiting. One still have to pick up pen and paper to pen down the next note in the chorus or bridge, read and plan schedule for the next concert, write the name of the next singer in a charity concert, and communicate the finished music album to the world through advertising media, magazines and interviews. Music finds its way to our living room only because our ears capture our heartstrings and we decide to grab a copy for our personal listening pleasure. Insofar as improving our speech skills, music is not the instrument we will use. Our instrument for good speaking skills is our mouth and the muscle groups surrounding it.
I have no doubt that I have learned more English words in good music than I do with a good movie, that is because I prefer to listen to music. As I type this article, I have the words of Carpenters ringing in my ears; it is soothing but my ears are intently sieving out the richness of the Karen Carpenter's vocals. She sang every word to its last phenome and still each verse sung is in tune and not one word is minced just so her emotions get the better of the song. I was only probably only 10 years old when I first heard them. How can I, as a non-English person have benefited from her music or many others during those times?
The answer is I have not stopped listening and listening more to good speaking skills of actors, actresses, newsreaders, radio announcers, sports commentators and singers. You can train your ears to listen deep into the voices and discriminate the muscular parts that help produce the different sounds for any language. It is just how it is with speaking well. LISTEN FIRST, SING AND SPEAK MORE, READ LATER. That's how it goes. You can save so much time and money in learning any language once you know how it works.
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