Narrating Without Words
September 12th, 2007Imagine you need to tell a story, to walk someone through a coherent thought beginning to end. Now imagine that you can’t use words, and you can’t use visuals. You can use sound, but you can’t use spoken language of any kind, and your audience will be blindfolded. Where would you start? How would you proceed? What messages would you be able to convey? And how limited would your message be?
At first glance, it may seem this format is too limiting for meaningful communication. But that’s not the case: the composers of classical music were great masters of the design and presentation of complex narratives, and they did so without words or visuals. For a master class in story telling, study classical music.
It’s no easy trick. You need to repeat your themes, but not too much. Themes must be presented in different ways, but not too different. And you need to evoke recognition of archetypal structures, but do so without belaboring the obvious.
A well-written classical music piece contains the plot of a great novel or movie: it has a well-defined flow and structure, it tells you where you are going without giving away the ending, and it’s so interesting that you’ll enjoy the ride even if you’ve experienced the story many times previously. When done well, the removal of any one section renders it incomplete. The narrative takes on a life of its own beyond the composer, as if it had always existed but no one ever pulled back the curtain to reveal it.
The sad truth about classical music in the modern world is that most people consider it “background” music. It’s fairly easy to hear simple beauty in classical music moment by moment, one theme at a time. But this is a shallow understanding of the music. In order to grasp its true depth (and unimaginable beauty), you have to “listen big”. You need to pay attention and remember each moment, and then you must reflect on how each moment impacts the next. In the end, the structure becomes clear. A beautiful architecture is revealed, and a deep emotional understanding is imparted. Rachmaninoff described this moment in a piece of music as “the point”. It’s presence is the hallmark of a masterful presentation.
Unfortunately, the attention requirements of classical music don’t mesh well with today’s sound-byte driven world. My college music history professor spent a year walking us on a musical journey through centuries, and his final lecture led to the conclusion that classical music (or more specifically, The Tradition of Western European Art Music) was terminally ill, if not already dead. It was a great moment, and remarkable in that he employed the master’s device on us — he built us up to a culminating “point” where a profound message became clear. Stunned by his prognosis, we were deeply saddened. And we applauded.
The next time you hear a bit of classical music in the background, consider scratching a little deeper. You might be surprised at what you learn.
October 19th, 2007 at 2:10 am
So true… many years ago I approached instrumental music by listening to movie scores; it involuntarily trained my ears to do the same kind of analysis (”what is happening now ? / what does the composer want us to feel now ?”) with pretty much every piece of instrumental music I stumble on.
The result is something that all those who consider classical as background music cannot fathom : being able to be actually _moved_ by a piece of music without vocals. When a composer does his job well, instruments tell us much more than words