Saturday, December 7, 2013
"If Music be the Food of Love, Play on"
Reflecting on our latest English project, I wanted to use this blog to discuss the role music has in literature, our culture, and the world. In class, we put music to act 2 in Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night and What You Will to gain a deeper understanding of what was occurring in the scene. The music we chose was able to influence the emotions each person felt. The scene could be perceived differently depending on the genre that was chosen. The same goes for music with movies, plays, television shows, and even novels. Music surrounds our lives and I want to know why you think it is so influential in everyday lives. People link memories to certain songs and choose songs that are special to them. Is music a way to express what a person is feeling when they do not have the words? Why does music compliment literature so well? Why does Shakespeare reference music to love?
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I think that everyone is able to relate to music. Music contributes to a person's emotions; it makes them feel a certain way. Maybe the lyrics to a song describe a struggle that someone is going through. That person, then, is able to relate to that song. Perhaps it makes them feel like they aren't alone. The music in a song alone can contribute to people's emotions. If it's slow, calm music, one might feel that it's a sad song. When someone is sad, they are more likely to listen to sad music. I think that just as music compliment's anyone's daily life, it also contributes to literature. There is some sort of music that can relate to almost any daily situation or emotion that someone feels. In literature like Shakespeare's works, stories are prominent with dramatic scenes and emotional characters. Musical pieces may connect through lyrics, and often times through the music itself, with stories in literature. Often times too, songs are written based off of literature. For example, Taylor Swift's "Love Story" directly references Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet. She says in the lyrics, "Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone. I'll be waiting, all there is left to do is run." The song is written about her situation, but she compares it to Romeo and Juliet. Anyone lovesick could relate to this song, as well as to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that music can contribute to a person's emotions. Music is so embedded into our society that we are influenced by it. If we hear a sad song, we tend to create more negative sad feelings. It is just the opposite when listening to a happy song. In literature and the media, upbeat songs are often associated with happy scenes. Music can help the audience feel what the characters are feeling. This helps them create a more influencial story. Music has a lot of power in our thoughts and actions.
DeleteI notice that music tends to stick in my head a lot easier than say just plain words. Many of the phrases that a singer sings seem to influence me more than other words just because I do remember them. There is a song for nearly every circumstance which causes us to be able to relate to the song. This makes the song even more powerful. I often associate certain memories with certain songs. That song might have been playing at the time. Music has a different significance for everyone. There is no right or wrong way to translate a song. I think that music has more power than the average spoken word; therefore, literature and the media use it. It is just another way a director can get his/her point across to the audience. I believe that music can be attributed to nearly everything not just love. Love songs definitely have a major part in our society because we strive for love from others.
ReplyDeleteI agree that when we are able to link the emotions of the moment to another moment, we are more likely to remember it. Music is helpful because it makes it easier to remember and relate to what message is being presented. I agree this is why the media uses music. This is why love songs affect us so much because most of us are always looking for love and approval from others. This allows us to easily relate to the feelings of the other person.
DeleteWhen we hear words that empower us or make us realize something about ourselves, we will believe that those words changed our lives. Those words stuck out to us and they created a new way of thinking in our minds. It is however, difficult to remember the actual words used. We may remember a paraphrase of the words to later share with others, but it is rare that we remember the actual words. This is of course, very different when it comes to music. We all can admit that we remember the words to songs we listened to as children. If we to hear songs after several years, we would start singing along just like we heard the song yesterday. Words put to music click inside of our heads because we can remember the tune and the background music along with the words. It is easy to remember because we heard them so many times and they became apart of us with extra tools included. The melody and sometimes even rhyme make them stick inside our mind, which means that musical words hold more power than spoken words.
DeleteI think that Music is so influential because it is every where around us. Not only is it around us from day to day life, we have it inside our very bodies. We are born with a heartbeat, a rhythm, that stays with us until our last breath. Also, music is the one language everyone can understand. No matter where they are from or what dialect they speak, we can create a connection through instrumental music. Music is a constant influence in our lives, weather it is the music of the wind or a babbling brook, or a hard core rock song, it can make us feel and act in different ways. Music can make us feel happy, sad, angry, peaceful, or even in love. We are able to connect with the music because we can easily bring these feeling to the front of our minds and sympathize with the composer and how they were feeling. The different parts of music, such as the meter, the melody, and the harmony all combine to create on full sound. Our brain then takes this sound, picks it apart, and decides what we should be feeling listening to this music. I think that because it is so tied into our lives, we understand ideas better when they are put to music. This is why several writers and directors put music into their plays and movies, to help the audience understand what is happening and allow them to connect to what the character is feeling.
ReplyDeleteI like how you connected the world to music. There truly is music all around us, and we can create music from nothing. We can pick up something that isn't necessarily an instrument and make it into one. When we sing, we make music through ourselves as well. Singing is one of the greatest human attributes in my opinion. We can express our feelings through singing better than just by speaking most of the time. When we hear music in a movie or play, we can usually relate to that piece from some event in our lives and we understand it better.
DeleteI think that the reason music is so influential is that there is so much. We can find a dozen or more songs at once to relate to our current situation. Whether we're feeling happy or sad, there are many songs to choose from that can influence our mood and either change it or extend it. We choose to find songs that we relate to in order to keep whatever we are feeling alive. When we feel sad, we listen to sad songs. When we're happy, we listen to happy songs. When we feel like we are in love, we listen to love songs. Movies and plays play off of this to make us feel the emotion in a scene. If there wasn't music, we may not feel the same way as we would if there was dramatic music playing. Action scenes in movies are always accompanied by music that keeps us on the edge of our seats. Scene where a favorite character dies? Sad music, to make the viewers even more sad about the instance. We relate to music and the emotions that can be unlocked within it. We can come to rely on music if we use it to enhance every emotion we feel, as the entertainment industry does. When we connect to music, we usually try to connect to the lyrics of the song. If it is an instrumental song, we connect to the sounds within it that amplify the emotion. We feel like if we cannot express our emotions, then music can.
ReplyDeleteYou are very right; music adds drama to everything, whether it be a sad, action-packed, romantic scene in a movie. We depend on music to give us not only an amplification of emotion when it is necessary, like in a scene from a movie, but we have also come to depend of music as a comfort to us. When we feel down, music may help us feel as though we are not alone in our sadness. It may also help us to feel better. It can help us release our anger or sadness, and it can even help us to look on the brighter side of our situation.
DeleteMusic is one of the easiest ways to relate to something. In life, we each have our own experiences and ideas that make us who we are. Music has a way of reflecting each individual. We hear music and it is easy to understand because it, for the most part, for the most part is all about emotion. We love this because it means that there are other people out there that are going through the same stuff as us. That makes our own lives more bearable because now we have the peace of mind that somebody understands us. Words in literature carry emotion and meaning to make them powerful. The words in music are able to carry so much more emotion and meaning because people can hear the emotion playing instead of creating it in their own head. Music has the extra steps past words. The dynamic of music along with words makes people feel the story even better. It is such a simple way to reach out to other people. Shakespeare references it so that people will be able to imagine the scenes easier and their own music will start playing to make his plays a more personal experience.
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