The Benefits of Multilingual Music-Listening
By Katherine Stallard
A lot of the time when it comes to music listening, we can get stuck in the same old groove: putting on the same playlists, gravitating towards the same comfortable songs. Even when we decide we need a refresh and we strive to branch out by listening to something new from our Spotify curated Discover Weekly, sometimes it feels like in a world full of music, we get trapped inside a bubble where nearly everything sounds the same.
One time, when I found myself in one of these musical funks, as so many of us often do, I sought refuge in one of my friend’s playlists. I tentatively pressed play, and a twinkly 80’s synth spilled from my speakers. A funky bassline quickly caught my attention, and just as I was ready to rush to see the artist, a beautiful voice spilled out. I sat back, and after careful assessment, realized that the language I was listening to was not English. As an American-raised girl that’s never so much as stepped a foot out of the country, and as someone that thought “99 Luftballoons” by Nena was a song sung in English until I was 12, it took me a second to realize that I was listening to French.
Despite my experience in Spanish class junior year learning Spanish songs, my exposure to music in other languages has been relatively limited. Besides those few songs I learned and a couple of French songs my friend had shown me from her French class, I rarely listened to music in languages other than my own outside of an academic atmosphere. Every once and awhile I’d go back to listen to my favorite Spanish songs—shoutout to “Buleria” by David Bisbal—but rarely on my own time did I find myself with the urge to ever step out into the international realm of music.
I glanced at the song’s name to discover it was a sweet French song from the 80’s and I quickly added it to my playlist. While most of the time, my music-listening is still primarily in English, little did I know that one song would open up an unintentional door to my multilingual music listening that I haven’t looked back on.
It’s no surprise that for many music listeners it’s easy to dismiss music sung in a language you can’t understand. As many music lovers like me may feel, the lyrics to a song are integral to the way the song feels, and not being able to understand what’s being said might act as a barrier that takes away from the experience of the song. The truth is though, that in some ways, taking the time to listen to music that isn’t in your native language can open the door to not only an entirely new way of listening to music but perhaps even the opportunity to learn a language in a more accessible and memorable way.
When you listen to music in a language other than your own, it makes it easier to appreciate the actual structure of the song. A lot of the time, especially in live music, the best musical factors of a song can be swept away in favor of a demanding vocal, or under-appreciated due to the brain capacity it takes to understand and unpack lyrics. In the case of music in languages other than your own, however, your ear is liberated to listen more deeply to the complicated layers of sound. Rather than get distracted by memorizing lyrics, or accessing the meaning behind every lyric, you are allowed to be taken away with the song in a way that makes music-listening that much more expansive and enjoyable.
On the other end, multilingual music listening can even improve your recognition of other languages and prompt language learning. As you can imagine, there’s nothing more stressful than having an Italian song stuck in your head without quite knowing the words, and trust me, I know. Because of this dilemma, listening to music in other languages can promote curiosity in listeners and encourage them to look up the lyrics to their favorite songs in other languages. By doing this, music listeners become exposed to words and speech patterns they may never be exposed to otherwise, allowing the music-listening process to become enriched with language and knowledge in a way that the comfort of regular music cannot provide.
While most of the time, I’ll admit, I don’t usually critically assess the language of the music I’m listening to, that’s the best part. Although music that’s not in English to a non-native speaker may seem like a challenge to enjoy or may prompt them to think that they need higher intelligence to access it fully, it’s still just music. It’s just as accessible as any other type of music, and with a little work and receptivity, it can sweep you off your feet. Just the same as any type of music, I sit back, turn up the volume and prepare myself to be transported to a blissful state of music euphoria. The only difference is, when I bump my tunes full blast, I sing the lyrics a little less gracefully than usual when I attempt to belt words that even remotely echo the sounds I’m hearing. And that’s all a part of the fun.