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Writer's pictureJudith May Tamayo

Im Just Joiking.



When listening to the joik sung by Ida Maria, it brought me back to a time in history where there were wars and empires. As her voice was powerful in the beginning, I imagined that that symbolized strong family bonds, or strength and power. However, as the pace of the joik began to speed up, and as her voice became more deeper, I imagined that the was a disruption or war that occurred. In continuation, when her voice became more powerful again, I thought that that symbolized some kind of comeback, or it showed an overcoming of fear. Finally, when he voice became quiet, and she took the mic away from her face, I took that as a sign of peace, like the fighting has finished and the dust has settled.

Now analyzing the joik done by Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen, I mostly thought about adventure and family when listening to it. Being that it had a more upbeat tone, I imagined a family having fun and riding on horses in a field. Moreover, thoughts of love and the rollercoaster of emotions that love and bring a person came to my mind as the beat of the song went from fun and fast to slow and cool.

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Language can be impoverish in a way because for example, languages like English don't have a complete set of vocabulary that describes the depths of human emotion. Most of the time, one of the reasons why people argue is because they can't describe how they feel to the other person, thus both parties become frustrated. There is multitude of emotions that humans feel on a daily basis, but don't have the words to describe it. So as a result, the limitations that languages have can actually separate people as some struggle to express their emotions to others. Therefore, language's restrictions can be one of the main causes for the lack of human connection in this world.


Music could be considered a language because through the words alone, a song can have the power to make a person feel a particular way. And being that people use language to transfer their emotions, music has a very similar use. For example, if a person is listening to pump rock music, then they would probably dance around or yell the lyrics, whereas if a person were to be listening to sad music, then they would also feel a sense of sadness inside of them. Thus, music alone is capable of transferring emotion.


Other forms of art that transcend language are things like dancing or painting. Even though there is no words behind these arts, a person can feel the intended emotions by watching or looking at the pieces. Through dance, a person can feel pleased or saddened depending on the movements of the dancers. and through paintings, the viewer can feel any sort of emotion, depending on what their looking at. Thus, these two types of art forms have the power to convey emotion without the use of words.


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