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Writing music, language as music?

  
 
telyn
01:17 / 09.05.03
Right now I am trying to write an essay, and considering that I have no idea how I ever manage to finish one. I just feel so disolcated from text. However, I was also remembering what it is like to write music and realising that is instinctively how I approach writing essays. I want to treat them like a plastic entity: create something, remold it, create, remold etc... I try this with essays and find that it doesn't really work (or rather it takes absolutely ages). Language is too full of detail and structure for it to be 'remoldable'.

The thing that I can (generally) do with music is create some dynamic motion, some flow. I can think about music as a plastic entity, and it is definitely possible to reform and remold music (especially the recorded sound variety).

So my question is: words and music are both forms of communication, but do they work in the same way at all?
 
 
Char Aina
01:50 / 09.05.03
i think the main difference between the two is that in writing harmony is not a concern. there is one line of text, usually read one word after the other in an order intended by the author.

with music, at any one time you usually have several sounds, whether they be the six strings of the guitar, your ten fingers on a piano, or even just bass and snare drums together.


writing lyrics will be similar, but thats so obvious i am not sure if its worth mentioning.
 
 
telyn
02:03 / 09.05.03
in writing harmony is not a concern. there is one line of text, usually read one word after the other in an order intended by the author.

do you mean that context isn't as important in language as it is in music? It is true than is music (especially stuff with harmonic content) context is everything and a single note changed can turn everything upside down.

I guess a major difference is that words can have absolute meanings that relate to ideas pre-existing and external to the text, but that music can only ever communicate music.

do you mean writing lyrics will be similar to writing music or am I just being dense? (sorry, it's late here)
 
 
Char Aina
02:16 / 09.05.03
sorry... i meant lyrics, being a form of wordsmithery will also follow the rules of prose/poetry.


imagine a guitar string.

imagine being able to play it so damn fast that it was indistinguishable as seperate notes, except when you wanted it to be and slowed down to leave gaps.

that would seem to me to be more like a sentence.
 
 
The Strobe
07:50 / 09.05.03
Context is vital in language. Otherwise we'd never use all the many wonderful pronouns available to us.

What hasn't been addressed yet is the goal. Is the goal of music communication, or entertainment? Entertainment might be too loose a word. But music is not something used for quotidien, normal conversation. There is use of it for communication in the ritual sense... but that's all so formalised anyway, it's pretty much the same as reading from a prayerbook (eg). So I think to try and suggest that writing them in a similar way might be a little fruitless given this.

However, if you're writing essays, you can do a lot worse than look at sonata form. In your exposition, you essentially restate the question and consider how you're going to answer it. The development is your discussion and elaboration, and in an essay, is the real meat. Finally, there's the recapitulation, where you summarise everything gone before, perhaps restate the question, and then (bamf!) pull off your mind-blowingly awesome conclusion. You see? It's quite similar to the analogy in The Last Samurai of essays as chess games (you have an opening, a midgame and an endgame - but everything you're doing is just in an attempt to set up an endgame). Dynamic motion and flow? Absolutely. That's vital to writing. When finishing my dissertation last month, I made sure that though they all flowed into the next one, every single paragraph also made it quite clear what conclusion I was heading to. You don't have to make it obvious, just make it so that when you get to the end the reader goes "oh, yes. Of course it was going here all along!" Dynamics are present in writing; the subtle shifts in topic, the changes in direction and tone. Essays are not a selection of paragraphs placed in order. They can be, but if that's all they are, they're usually crap. Every paragraph flows into the next; it reminds you of the one before it and yet hints at the next. I'd call that dynamic motion.

Text is very malleable. You can remold and rephrase, alter structure endlessly. Too full of detail and structure? To the non-musician, so's music. I have friends who want to learn stuff from me, just simple dance-music type stuff... but actually, even stripping it down, if they are to learn from me, they need an understanding of harmony, of syncopation and polyrhythm... I was trying to work out how the hell to explain chord progression and harmony to an almost non-musician and realised it would be almost impossible. Even stripped to its basics, this stuff isn't easy. And you cannot just reshape one bit of music; corresponding harmony has to be altered when the melody changes; rhythmns may be syncopated but they probably shouldn't be antagonistic, you know? The thing is, the detail and structure in music is probably implicit to you - you just know what you're going to have to alter in the whole thing when you make one tiny change at point x. Well, it's the same with language. Language has syntax to restrain it; music has its own form of syntax. And yes, syntax is perhaps more malleable in music, but just go and ask James Joyce and any one of his descendents if linguistic syntax isn't malleable too. For the purposes of communicating fact - essay-writing - I'd guess you might like to stick with the same syntax as the rest of us; avoid the microtones and obscene polyrhythmns. When you're creating, though, go to town

Text is about communication, and if what you intend to communicate may be malleable, so are the words with which you do so. You hit the nail on the head when you say "it doesn't really work (or rather it takes absolutely ages)". These two expressions are not identical. It does work. It just happens to take you ages. Have you considered that doing a similar thing in music might take other people, even those with a degree of musical talent, ages?

I don't think they work entirely in the same way, but I hope I've pointed out that there are probably several analogies between the two that might help you with writing. Instinctively approaching text as writing music should, from what I said above, be helpful; however, it does depend on how you personally write music. Language is a wonderfully plastic thing, and so is sound. Might say more later.
 
  
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