‘A reference point for a world in crisis’

Through the lens of Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along the Watchtower, Dr Nikki Moran explores how music communicates meaning and the social power of sound.

If there’s one thing that pretty much everyone can agree on, it’s that music is a fantastic medium for communication. Whether we’re talking about the blues, Viennese classics, opera, or death metal, music opens doors to meaningful connections.

One way to think about musical communication is to focus simply on the sound signal. Consider Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and reflect on the seemingly endless layers of signification and meaning contained in these 241 seconds of music.

There are some simple ways to speak about the technical composition: the narrative structure of verses and guitar solos (there is no chorus); the cyclic harmonic progression (there are only three chords), the three-player instrumentation.

Dylan’s lyrics evoke something more obscure (‘a reference point for a world in crisis’, according to one of many scholarly interpretations of the song); yet even Dylan famously considered Hendrix’s interpretation to have found and created new depths within the song.

It is powerful stuff: the cycling chord progression holds us captive, but the invention never stops. The record communicates with such integrity and conviction that we can step into a coherent, imaginary place and just be there for a while, absorbed in 241 seconds and just 12 lines of lyrics.

Widely regarded as one of the most significant in 20th century popular music, the record was created through the work of Hendrix and musician collaborators Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding, and Dave Mason, with the assistance of producers at two different studios over a period of months. In the past half-century, it has received fairly continuous attention from listeners, critics, film directors, scholars, and musicians.

“All Along the Watchtower” was first released as 7” vinyl; today you can listen to it through digital streaming. Such portable, easy access emphasises the idea of music communication as oneway transmission. However, the science of acoustics reveals complex interactions between performers, instruments, listeners, and environments, and cognitive science sheds light on the interplay between auditory perception, cognitive processing, and cultural influence in shaping our experience of music. It’s intuitive to approach musical communication by focusing on the sonic signal. Many people appreciate music and view it as part of their identity, although most don’t consider themselves musicians. This can lead to a view of music as a cultural artifact. However, musically-structured sounds communicate more than that – they reveal our physicality and options for movement. Melodic pick-ups draw attention to phrases with unique energy and contour, while timbral qualities convey variations in materials and instruments.

Back to “All Along the Watchtower”, the driving, high-frequency percussive energy of the rattling tambourine arrives and indicates something changing, something new. Through Hendrix’s delivery, Dylan’s lyrics signal characters and narrative sequences unconstrained by reality.

Research into music’s role as human communication has evolved substantially alongside critical and technological advancements. Sociologists and ethnomusicologists have written about musical communication as a means of organising human behaviour. Music exists through shared practices and social interactions: scientifically, we can frame music as process, and our understanding of the way that people use music to co-create meaning, identity, and connection is growing.

Advancements in technology and the widening scope of research have exposed to scientific study only a fraction of the diverse contexts in which people engage with music, but have thoroughly expanded academic discourse around music, and weakening the effectiveness of any one theory that tries to explain how music communicates meaning.

These advancements shape how we conceive of music as a medium for connection, the communication mechanisms we conceptualise, how social coherence is engendered, and the forms of musical engagement that connect individuals. Such intricacies can only be grasped by considering the interplay between technical, creative, and social factors, which is why research-focused university music departments are inherently multidisciplinary.

At the University of Edinburgh, for example, music brings together expertise not only in performance, but also musicology, music psychology, composition, sound design, and acoustics so that students learn how music’s profound impact on human experience facilitates connection – between individuals, communities, and cultures.

Dr Nikki Moran, Senior Lecturer in Music, University of Edinburgh, Editor-in-Chief, Psychology of Music journal, and RSE Personal Research Fellow

This article originally appeared in ReSourcE ReSourcE Autumn/Winter 2025.

The RSE’s blog series offers personal views on a variety of issues. These views are not those of the RSE and are intended to offer different perspectives on a range of current issues.