La Bene Vita

Musical Symbolism

The Internet - and Writing-com - are abundant with music-inspired writing. That makes me happy. But the majority of these creations were inspired by lyrics, not the actual music.

I invite you to consider letting instrumentation - the sounds of the music itself - inspire you. I could write an entire book on the various ways we can compose musical instrumentation to represent life and emotions. But it's a busy day, so I'll start with the basics, and we'll call this Chapter 1.

Here are some ways music can shape the images we see in our minds and the emotions we feel. This list is only a subset.

Key
In the simplest example of this, major keys sound happy, while minor keys (sound sad or creepy.)

Instrument Choice
Trumpets are used for fanfare; for example: the king/queen's entrance, the hero's return.

Instrumentation
Solo violin or cello can feel deeply emotional, sorrowful, vulnerable - but collect a whole orchestra full of violins and cellos, and suddenly, they can sound confident, triumphant,

Articulations
A fermata (when you hold a note longer than a listener expects),  creates tension, the anticipation of something coming. A legato melody (with notes that are smoothly connected and flowing) could evoke a river or gentle breeze. A staccato passage (short, bouncy, separated notes) might sound like a playful pet, or bring on a feeling of anxiety.

Combining Strategies
Composers can hone in on a particular feeling or image by mixing and matching the elements above and the ones not listed. For example, if I played staccato notes very slowly, I might evoke the imagery of water droplets falling. A steady, repeated note might sound like a dripping faucet, while a collection of different notes with an inconsistent rhythm might sound like water in a cave, dripping from stalagtites into a still pool of water beneath.

Check out these two examples of musical symbolism in the song "Airplane" by the Indigo Girls. Both passages evoke an image of an airplane taking off - the first with vocals (because your voice is an instrument, too) and then with the piano.

NOTE: Listen to both videos, but only a few seconds. They each start in a different spot in the video.

Vocals Ascending:


Piano Ascending:


Your homework
Listen closely to the instrumentation in your favorite music, and see if you can identify parts of the song - the music, not the lyrics - that remind you of something. Even if you don't have the vocabulary to explain it, I invite you to post a video in the comments and give us the min:sec, so we can hear it, too.

Musically,
Michelle