Adam highlights the striking similarities between music and spoken language. At a young age, his observation of music being used as a form of communication between professionals, was one of the reasons he went on to pursue this career. Adam Neely is a bassist, and music educator and YouTuber with an engaged subscriber base of 500,000, 2 million monthly views, and 42 million lifetime views. His video essays, gig vlogs and educational content explore what music means, and what it means to be a musician. Sometimes called the "VSauce of music," Adam engages a wide popular audience with esoteric and obscure subjects in music, tying them to other subjects in neuroscience, acoustics, aesthetics, history and art. As a bass player, he also shares his experiences as a working professional session musician in New York City. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx