[This post was sent in by Anne McNulty, a senior majoring in international studies who works part time for IGHID]
People often say that music is a universal language. But is it really? A recent study conducted by Thomas Fritz and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences suggests that there is something truly universal about the ability of Western art music to communicate emotions. The study looked at the ability of women from a remote village in Cameroon to correctly categorize the emotion being evoked by 42 excerpts of Western instrumental art music. The results showed that the women’s ability to do so was significantly higher than chance itself would allow.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Regardless of whether all music can truly be said to be universal, we’ve all experienced music’s power to transport us and communicate in a way that other art forms can’t. Such was the thinking of UNC-Chapel Hill graduate and Fulbright scholar Andrew Magill of Asheville. Magill graduated from UNC in 2009 with a degree in cultural studies. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship that partners with mtvU to encourage international understanding through music.
Magill’s project is focused on telling the story of AIDS in Malawi through music. He is making a documentary and an album focused on the narratives of families living with AIDS from all over Malawi. Magill is working with fellow UNC alumnus John Haas on the documentary, entitled “If My Eyes Could Sing,” which is set to be released in the spring of 2011.
For the album, Magill is collaborating with fellow musician and activist Peter Mawanga of Malawi. Mawanga, who recently spoke and performed in Chapel Hill, is another believer in the power of music to effect change. After losing his father to AIDS as a young boy, Mawanga turned to music as an essential means of expression.
Magill and Mawanga use music as a platform for talking about otherwise taboo AIDS-related issues in Malawi and internationally. “If My Eyes Could Sing” and the accompanying album will shed new light on HIV/AIDS in Malawi not only by matching faces to the numbers and statistics that reach us here in the U.S, but by giving those faces a voice that reaches across language barriers through song.
- Anne