Why we need to rethink the place of song in the language classroom
Listening to Grimes’ pop hit Genesis is less about extracting literal meaning from the lyrics than about engaging with its musical vibes. A euphoric dance piece that Grimes has described as intentionally obscure, it uses the voice as instrumentation—implying meaning rather than communicating it explicitly. Reportedly, Grimes initially resisted recording the song because of the unfinished nature of the lyrics, describing it instead as a live music experiment.
There are many examples like this in modern music that offer insight into what the voice can do, how language and music intersect, and how they challenge traditional notions of both.
The voice—both in song and in speech—often moves beyond the linguistic. There is a range of other sounds we make: inflections, intonations, and non-literal ways of producing meaning. Our voices create a kind of music that includes both lyrics (words) and sound.
As David Byrne of Talking Heads puts it, in singing, “everything is true.”
This blog piece is intended to provide examples which underscore how music can function as a language, and should push us to rethink how we conceive of language learning in the classroom.
“When we are singing, I know the way we look, swimming, drifting, floating on and everything is true. Everything is true.”
Glossolalia, a fluid, rhythmic utterance of speech‑like syllables, is a phenomenon sometimes featured in modern music and can be heard, for example, in the work of the Cocteau Twins. Pearly Dewdrops’ Drops is an amalgamation of Gaelic, French, and English word stems, mixed with whistles and whoops, a style drawn from Gaelic song traditions. The vocals are intended to carry emotive significance rather than linguistic meaning.
The phenomenon is also linked to some charismatic revival music, as well as to the Quakers. Actor Amanda Seyfried has referred to the improvisational vocal work she undertook in preparation for the musical film The Testament of Ann Lee.
Contemporary vocal sound artists, such as Korean‑Australian Sunny Kim, also work in this way, drawing on ancient song traditions in which vocalisations use timbre, prosody, rhythm, and bodily gesture to create meaning.
Vocal and sound artist, Sunny Kim, explores the voice beyond lyrics.
Following on from these examples, works by neo‑classical and avant‑garde composers similarly explore the voice as both a vehicle for language and a form of musical instrumentation. This can be heard in the work of Max Richter,, for example, and in the meandering fragments of singing that weave through the background of Ichiko Aoba’s Parfum d’Etoiles. Björk’s album Medúlla (meaning “marrow”) is almost entirely a cappella, and again demonstrates the versatility of the voice—as sound, texture, and expressive force—even with a little help from electronic looping and other effects.
An almost entirely vocal piece by Björk, made using variations of the human voice.
Kendrick Lamar’s voice, heard in isolation in this Super Bowl recording, highlights the precision and physicality of his delivery. Subtle shifts in tone, rhythm, and intensity carry as much meaning as the words themselves, with breath, pause, and emphasis shaping the performance. Even without instrumentation, his voice retains a percussive, musical quality, functioning as both narrative and rhythm.
The voice expresses the music and language that live inside us—not only through song and speech, but through our heartbeats, bodily rhythms, gestures, and even our patterns of thought and movement. When you overhear a conversation from a distance, or listen to a language you don’t understand, you may notice not only the qualities of the language itself, but the distinctiveness of the speaker: their intonation, rhythms, and melodic contours.
If we understand music broadly as patterned sound and silence unfolding through time and space, then language itself may also be understood as inherently musical. This is deeply embedded in the history of human communication.
Song and language through time
Ancient song traditions across many cultures combine language and lyrics with non‑linguistic chanting, whistling, and other vocal expressions. These practices point to a deep and enduring connection between song and language.
Our brains are highly attuned to the prosodic features of language, its rhythm, pitch, and stress patterns. Linguists and evolutionary biologists have long suggested that song and language share an evolutionary origin; Darwin himself speculated that language may have begun as song.
In ancient Greek, mousikē encompassed music, poetry, and language. It is only in relatively recent educational history that music and language have been separated into distinct disciplines. Yet musical and vocal modes remain central to how humans think, communicate, and share meaning.
In many traditional cultures, song and music function as vital modes of knowledge transmission, including in first nations (Noongar) language contexts, on the Channel Island of Jersey, and in South Africa. These examples remind us that language learning is inseparable from culture and history and that meaning is carried not only through words, but through voices shaped by place, experience, and identity.
Even in contemporary societies, the popularity of podcasts and headphone‑based listening reflects our continued orientation toward sound. It suggests a need to re‑evaluate the relationship between sound and language in ways that move beyond purely technical approaches and toward a more artful understanding of speech.
What does this mean for teaching in the classroom?
If song and language have evolved together, and if the voice carries meaning beyond words alone, an important question follows: what might this understanding offer language teaching in the classroom?
Oral language education should therefore extend beyond speech‑sound accuracy to recognise and value the diverse pronunciations, rhythms, and vocal qualities that speakers bring to a language such as English. In classrooms, song can create playful and inclusive spaces for attending to speech sounds, melodic variation, and rhythmic patterning shaped by different backgrounds and experiences.
Supporting students to attune their attention to the melodies of different voices also helps them recognise tone and inflection in more subtle forms of communication. French provides particularly rich examples of this, but the principle holds across languages: skilled communicators express meaning through delivery as much as through content.
Attending to the musical qualities of language invites us to listen differently. It asks educators to value voice not merely as a carrier of correct forms. When rhythm, melody, tone, and variation are foregrounded, language learning becomes not just an act of acquisition, but one of attunement: to culture, to difference, and to the expressive possibilities of the human voice.
Tips for teaching language through song
So what might these aspects of voice mean for the classroom? Here are some ways to build and develop song in your classroom for language learning:
Start the day with a song
See resources from the Australian Youth Orchestra’s ‘Rhymes and Songs’ collection
Integrate songs from various language traditions
Learn which songs are significant to the children in your class, to their parents and to their grandparents. Develop a class song list, and link the list to learning across the curriculum in History, English and Personal Development areas.
The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) has published a book of children’s songs from around the world and includes a Spotify playlist.
Song improvisation
An obstacle to singing and using song can be a fear of being ‘good enough.’ Because singing is not integrated in most modern societies we need to become more comfortable with singing as a more emotive and playful extension of speech.
Try some circle singing with your class! [See. video example from Dr Suzanne Hanser below].
Folk song with word chains (OECD resource)
Try this lesson plan for children aged 7-11.
Circle singing with Dr. Suzanne B. Hanser, Berklee College of Music, as a way to build improvisational singing and singing for enjoyment