Music, poetry, and abstraction
cynicallyjaded asked: I'm not entirely in agreement with your comments about music being more pure than words (I'm paraphrasing :)). I think they're equal considering how many times the same human sentiments about love and life have been expressed but in different ways, that till this very moment, someone's take on an old theme still touches the heart in different ways than something similar that may have been said a hundred years ago. Music, in my mind, is the same. Different compilations, similar effect.
Hm, I understand your point and I do agree to an extent. Yes, words are very strong and timeless tools and I personally use them more as a medium than music. But I would disagree with the last sentence. I don’t think the effects are similar. I’d say it has a lot to do with the ambiguity of music. When you’re affected by words, to a certain degree, you can pinpoint why. You can say that these words strung together create a beautiful imagery in your mind. You can also say that the message the words are conveying is something you can relate to or feel strongly about. For instance, whenever I read these lines by Anne Sexton:
… and when we touch we enter touch entirely. No one’s alone. Men kill for this, or for as much.
I am moved. But I can tell you why, though I admit, not definitely. I can tell you that it’s the combination of words and the explicit message I get from it. Yes, it can be argued that words are sometimes used to mean something only implicitly, but you can figure it out and dissect it and argue about it on the basis of the text.
But music is different. The effect it has on you is unexplainable in a way that you really can’t say with considerable certainty why you’re moved to feel a specific way by a music piece. You can say that the crescendo makes you nervous, or the melody makes you sad, but ultimately, you have to ask why and how. There is nothing specifically attached to each part of a musical piece, as in words, yet most of the time, you feel what the composer wants you to feel. I listen to Gymnopedie and I am sometimes moved to tears, but the best explanation that I can give you is that it’s beautiful. I can’t tell you what the notes mean per se, but I can tell you what it says to me without saying anything at all. That is where I think the freedom of music lies. Like I said, there’s ambiguity in it, so you can take it and make it more personal. It’s like the composer is merely your guide as you tell the story of the music. It’s yours for the taking more completely than words.
I’ll say this over and over again. Words are chosen by the artist with preciseness, but limitations are already part of the words. As ambiguously as they may have been used, as in poetry, the artist still points you to the exact direction. The nuances arise only from the different experiences of people that allow them to take one interpretation over the other. Notes are also chosen with preciseness, but notes are not innately limited. The direction can never be certain. Music is the man pointing you to the general east when you ask for directions.
Thank you for your thoughts, though. :) I love honest responses to my thoughts. I’d have to say, to, and maybe you agree, words still have a way of haunting me.
Let me make two quick points. The first one is that music does have semantic content the way words have, although its semantic content is a lot weaker that the content of words. There is certain music that we associate with ideas and emotions that we associate them as such by convention. Are the minor keys sadder per se? I don't know. I do know that the minor keys are often used in European cultures to communicate sadness. The second one is that although music lacks the precise semantic meaning of words, music is more physically real than words. it is a lot more immersible since we experience music with our ears and through our body and skin. Unlike words, which have to be decoded, the vibrations are the message. Looking at it from this perspective, words are more abstract than music is.
