Narrative in Music
In 1878, the great Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed the opera Eugene Onegin, a riveting and tragic tale about a young woman who falls in love with a man named Onegin, only to marry a prince in the end and leave Onegin in despair. When an individual watches a performance of Eugene Onegin, the production bombards their senses. Lights, motions, costumes, but most importantly music. Imagine you are sitting in the back of the Bolshoi Theater in Russia, watching Eugene Onegin for the first time, you are sitting in the back, in a high balcony far from the actors. At the climactic moment where Onegin cries out in despair for his unattainable love, people around you weep, you feel sad too. However, the opera is in Russian, you cannot understand a single word, nor can you see the expressions and movements of the actors very well. How does music elicit such a reaction, and how does one define a ‘climax’ in music? Using Jerome Bruner’s The Narrative Construction of Reality, I will identify and analyze three main qualities that make music a powerful narrative. All ten of Bruner’s qualities of a narrative arise in music but I will focus on the three most important. These are narrative diachronicity, hermeneutic composability and canonicity and breach. Also, I will differentiate music’s narrative character from a ‘universal language’ as it is often called. It is important to differentiate the two because many people have noticed that music causes an
The novel is able to share how music is of great importance and is able to affect people’s moods and thoughts.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, musical value through various ideological positions grew up. In general these positions suggested, that the highest possible value arises when music can be said to posses certain properties. For example: ‘eternality’, meaning that the music as a certain value which will never die; ‘universality’, meaning that music has the ability to express ‘the human condition’; ‘originality’, when music breaks with convention to establish new stylistic norms which would influence future generations; ‘complexity’, for example counterpoint, executive demands on performance,
Often music is consisted not only by sounds made from musical instruments, but also by voice and verbal messages. The structure of the voice, or as Roland Barthes describes it ‘the grain of voice’ is the element in a certain piece of music which is responsible for creating the emotions when listening. The grain and the lyrics make the signified and carry out the message. The vocal part of music is formed of words, text, which communicate and make the representation and expression of what it is sung - talked about. According to Barthes the emotive modes of the voice and the changes of the tones from low to high is what delivers the final message and makes us feel the music. (Barthes, R. 1977 [1972]).
Music plays a critical role in the narrative films as it is important technique that filmmakers use to support the narrative and influence the way that the viewer interacts, responds and interprets the events as they unfold. The godfather, which is one of all time Hollywood movies, represents a good use of music that succeeded in supporting the dramatic events that take place in the movie. Moreover, both diegetic and non-diegetic music in the godfather movie are used to achieve the overall purpose by using the different principles and functions of film music that range from setting the mood of the viewer to providing continuity within the movie. In this essay, we will take part of the godfather movie in which we can observe and analyse the
Through studying and analyzing ‘Maestro’ ,written by Peter Goldsworthy, and by viewing and analyzing the film ‘Edward Scissorhands’ directed by Tim Burton, it is evident that the composers of these texts allow the audience to see distinctive experiences with our eyes as well as with our minds through distinctively visual. The many visual, written and literary techniques have the ability to create a significant and impacting visual.
From the creation of harmonies to singing to instruments, music has been an abstract form of human expression. Although an auditory collection of pitches and volumes, musicians can manipulate the same notes and bring them alive for their audiences. The true emotion and energy that’s felt in music really comes from the player as feelings are transferred to and through the listener. This interaction between performer and the house is catharsis, the complete release of strong repressed emotions. Thanks to the musician, music has the ability to grasp people and cause them to sense emotions and feelings without lyrics or images even being necessary. Although it’s believed we can only hear with our ears, something about music makes it emotionally if not physically tangible. In James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues,” a narrator certainly unaware of the impact of music invites himself to experience jazz for the first time. Baldwin uses the final scene of his story to argue that music has an effect on those who are able to experience it. Baldwin does this in one single moment by letting the fixed, practical minded, “well-intentioned” narrator experience catharsis from jazz as his growing, free-spirited brother communicates with him through jazz.
A distinctly visual aspect of demonstrating the experience of the characters kindles curiosity in the audience to involve and instill emotional understanding of the context. Through the use of distinct and unique techniques, composers create an emotional response that can have a significant effect on the responders’ attitude on the world. The play ‘The shoe-horn sonata’ explores the crisis of circumstances as John Misto depicts the forgotten history of the women captured and imprisoned during WW2. Misto explores the experiences of the Australian nurses and the government’s response to their pleads of salvation, to emotionally bind the audience and the characters. Likewise, David Douglas Duncan involves the audience by evoking a feeling of pity and empathy in his Korean War photograph. He creates sentiment for the loss of innocence and employs distinctly visual elements to convey the horrifying nature of war. He profoundly highlights power in the photograph to explore the despair felt by the weak fleeing Korean citizens. Hence, both authors elevate the context with a visual representation of the individuals’ struggles to create curiosity and emotional rapport with the audience to improve the understanding of the characters experiences.
Many composers use various techniques in which they communicate the distinctly visual. John Misto’s ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ and Alexander Kimel’s ‘The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942’ represent significant issues in our world by using various literary and dramatic techniques. Through using these techniques it is evident that the composers of these texts allow the audience to ‘see’ with our eyes as well as with our minds. The many literary and dramatic techniques have the ability to create a visual that
Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen of the Multi-cultural convention, I have been selected to address the statement, “The Language used by composers has the ability to present responders with opportunities to challenge their perception of self and the world”. I will be doing so by closely analysing the language used by Komninos in ‘Hillston Welcome’ and ‘Back to Melbourne’ and John
Music is known to leave its mark on people helping them to overcome challenges in their lives or to give them courage to defy the odds. In one’s daily life, music is normally taken for granted or is seen as nothing special. As ordinary as it may seem, music can convey emotion in times when the body is numb or all hope is lost. Similarly, in The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, the cello’s music gave people hope and determination to live their lives in spite of the rampant siege around them. Therefore, music very much impacts the lives of the principal characters Dragan, Kenan, and Arrow.
Milos Forman's "Amadeus" is one of the most hazardous bets a producer has taken in quite a while - a rich film about Mozart that challenges to be anarchic and saucy, yet still gains the significance of disaster. This motion picture is in no way like the bleak instructive representations we're accustomed to seeing about the Great Composers, who appear to be cobwebbed profundities overloaded with the weight of virtuoso. This is Mozart as an eighteenth-century Bruce Springsteen, but (here is the virtuoso of the motion picture) there is nothing shoddy or unworthy about the approach.
Thesis: Music is a unique form of sound powerful enough to manipulate mood, feelings, and cognition.
Music is a very powerful tool. It has the power to bring happiness or sorrow. It can stir up old memories that someone has forgotten. In Berlioz’s case he uses one of his most famous pieces, Symphonie Fantastique to tell a story. Berlioz combines the use of instrumentation, rhythm and dynamics in a stunningly effective way that conveys to the listener a tragic tale of an artist, whose true love didn’t reciprocate his feelings leading him down a path of self destruction.
It is when the artist begins to add nuances and harmonies to the melody that the work becomes inaccessible to the unlearned ear, thus isolating a portion of the audience. When works of art are created to express the universality of humankind they are more beneficial to it. As an example, this view is dissimilar to the view if Dante, who believed that the language of a work should be elevated. Tolstoy argues the more details that are given in the work the more opportunities for disconnection from its message the audience has (391).
Orchestra concerts are an example of music being presented in an emotional and artistic manner. Often people, mainly think of contemporary music when they hear about orchestra concerts. Music composed in the late 1970s to 1990s. But its music extends to much further than that. Scores have been performed from many composers in grand concerts that originate from many sources. These sources include movies, television shows, and even video games. The level of emotion that these concerts express varying from excitement, sadness, intensity, and many others. As a listener, you feel absorbed in the dramatic conducting of the composer and the unity of the orchestra as a whole. Even the setting of the concert can be cinematic as other displays show the grandeur of an orchestra. Our bodies were meant to take in the sounds of music more so than the images. What we derive happens automatically as we drown in the mixture of emotions orchestra has to offer.