Plow Men Take My Herb?

It is difficult to determine whether oral presentation or written text is a more effective means of communication because humans are made up of rational and emotional components of understanding. For the most part, music and speech, forms of oral communication, can relay an emotional message much more effectively than a piece of written text. Listening to Bob Dylan is going to evoke more meaning and be more effective with an emotional message than simply reading his lyrics. Though what we must understand is that writing is a part of musical and speech processes. By utilizing writing (rational) and sound (emotional) they have a theoretical advantage, so what really might be the deciding factor is who is writing the text and performing the speech/music. Another thing to wonder is that sometimes we cannot understand what is said in some music. Obviously it is ineffective communication if we cannot understand what is being said. Or is it? It depends on what is trying to be conveyed. Now, this is when written lyrics (text) could be more effective in communicating, because we could read what is being said. However, understanding the words in music is not essential to experiencing the emotional message of it because we are able to bypass words and focus on tone and emotionality. When I listen to Dylan, I cannot understand what he is saying half the time anyway. On the other side of things, poetry along with great novels have the ability to evoke some serious emotion, so I find myself still torn at the end of this discussion. The consensus might be that written communication can be more effective to rational understanding and oral communication to emotional understanding. However, they both display each quality, so this is a much more complex question to answer in absolute terms.