Tim Sharp gives us a realistic look at the universality of music when it comes to literacy:
Like it or not, as we work in the 21st century, in every other way, music is NOT a universal language. Accepting that it simply “is” does not cut it any longer. On the subject of style alone, every time I witness a choral reading session, I watch groups scurry into tribes of style and taste. When we measure the literacy rate among the people we work, we find rampant illiteracy. In Paul Hill’s recent research published in The Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Course Utilizing Hymns to Teach Basic Music Reading Skills to Adults (Shenandoah Conservatory, 2007), only one-half of the adults tested realized that the basic five-line, four internal space, music staff does not change from page to page.
But it is universal:
While I do not believe that music is a universal language, I am absolutely convinced that music is one of the most universal of art forms representing a universal language, and that language is the language of life. Music eloquently speaks the language of what it means to live—the negative and positive dualism existing within all things. The vibrations and sounds available to almost all of us help us express and experience this language, and do so democratically through choral music.
Tom Hale says
Tim Sharp says