Tonal language and western music expression

Here is a hypothesis that I recently posed to a Chinese native
speaker. The hypothesis was confirmed in that one instance.I would
like to know if the hypothesis is correct, plausible or wrong.

In tonal languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and others, the
meaning of words are determined by the tones involved while speaking
them. ex. the word "mai" in Mandarin can mean either "buy" or "sell"
depending on the tone. Westerners imbue words with tone to modify the
emotional context of words - not to change the meaning. "Go to the
store." Can be said in a number of ways to indicate various emotion
content: impatience, resolution, panic, question, etc. This means
that vocal tonal gestures Westerners transpose to music such as
crescendo/decrescendo, accelerando/ritard, etc., and which are natural
to the western language idiom and carry emotional meaning are not
naturally understood by one who comes from a tonal tradition, where if
you change the tone, you change the actual meaning of the words.

It seems to me that tonal speakers would have to learn the emotional
content of western music which is natural to western children. I know
it is a common myth that Asian players are great technicians but are
"dry" and lack emotional understanding of western music. I have heard
cases where that is undeniably true and cases where it is obviously
false. So the question I present this hypothesis to the readers of
this newsgroup who happen to come from tonal first language traditions
to discuss, verify or deny this phenomenon in their own study of
music.

Kevin Taylor
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Tonal language and western music expression
    ... Westerners imbue words with tone to modify the ... emotional context of words - not to change the meaning. ... this newsgroup who happen to come from tonal first language traditions ... Five tonal accents include cute accent, grave accent, tidle accent, ...
    (rec.music.classical.guitar)
  • Re: Tonal language and western music expression
    ... Westerners imbue words with tone to modify the ... emotional context of words - not to change the meaning. ... Can be said in a number of ways to indicate various emotion ... this newsgroup who happen to come from tonal first language traditions ...
    (rec.music.classical.guitar)
  • Re: Tonal language and western music expression
    ... Westerners imbue words with tone to modify the ... Can be said in a number of ways to indicate various emotion ... this newsgroup who happen to come from tonal first language traditions ...
    (rec.music.classical.guitar)
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    (rec.music.classical.guitar)
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