One of the most unique musical projects I have participated in was called "Timezone." It involved the collaboration of musicians from Russia and Humboldt County. Recordings were made in studios in Moscow and Trinidad and a CD was completed before most of the musicians had met one another. The only musician that knew everyone was the author of the project, Jon Humboldt Gates. He hand carried the tapes between Moscow and Trinidad four different times. In addition to sponsoring a series of concerts the local university and other organizations granted money to bring the musicians from Moscow to perform with the musicians from Humboldt County. During the month of rehearsals before the concerts I had a very insightful experience as to why we call music the universal language. One night while going over a passage in a song there was a conversation between the drummer and the bass player (both Russian), I was playing the keyboard. The drummer felt the tempo was too fast and the bass player was explaining why he thought it should be quick. I quickly added a suggestion in English before it hit me that the conversation had been in Russian.  I do not speak Russian but I had understood what was said.
    The concept of the Universal Language series is to combine the script of different cultures with the notation of music to form new hieroglyphics within an abstract format to visually portray the universal language of sound which is music. Some of the scripts used are Tibetan, Assyrian, Arabic, Japanese, English, Hittite, Phoenician (the basis of Western alphabets), Aramaic (the basis of Eastern alphabets), Babylonian, Easter Island, Cretan, Cherokee, and Cree.