When we think about songs, we often resort to the typical definitions that mention lyrics and music as their fundamental elements. The melody, the rhythm, the harmony or the words and verses are undoubtedly part of any song, but the relationships and substances that run through these special compositions are varied and, perhaps, not so obvious.
Sound and Meaning Today we will talk about sound and meaning in songs. Let's go there.
The content of the songs
The interior of the songs is a very interesting place. There, interactions occur between their components and characteristics that turn them into that powerful gadget that we all know. But, if we leave aside, for just a minute, these classic divisions, the “words and music” or “melody, harmony, rhythm and words”, we can go up a level and see the elements that make up a song as two large groups. of elements: the sound and the meaning. Every detail that appears in a song is going to have those two qualities, even if at first glance we only think of one of them. When we hear a chord, for example, we think about sound almost exclusively but, really, that sound combination is going to carry with it significant potential, too. Culturally, the sound of a distorted guitar or a synthesizer will, by itself, communicate certain information to us and activate some specific personal references in our brains. Probably, then, those sounds are already going to mean something to us. In the same way, a verse or stanza, which we would clearly place in the group of elements with immediate meaning, also has a particular sound. The words resonate in a unique way, the verses build a verbal rhythm and the combination of meter in the lyrics, rhyme or even pauses and silences, will provide the verbal set with a specific sound, a specific musicality that, with the choice of other words or lyrical structure would have been different, as writers and poets know perfectly well. Let's briefly examine, to begin with, what we mean by sound and meaning.
The sound
Sound is a physical phenomenon that consists of the propagation of waves through a medium. It's the reason we hear something.
Waves These waves are the consequence of the vibratory movement generated by a body, for example, our vocal apparatus, that is, our voice, or a musical instrument, or any other activity or natural accident that produces these vibrations. The medium that takes them from one point to other points has to be fluid or elastic to some extent to be able to propagate those waves. For example, water, or air. These changes in air pressure that each vibration causes are mechanical, physical. This is important. It is not a flying magic that carries words or noises in a capricious way until it finds us. They are vibrations that can be measured and that have a force and a direction or directions, among other characteristics. If we had adequate vision we could see these vibrations with our own eyes go from one point to another, as in the special effects of some movies. Think about the circular waves caused by a stone thrown into a pond, or the flow of water that comes out of a hose colliding and modifying other waves that it may find in its path. Later, if we are lucky, these waves are perceived by our ears, although only a part of them. First, we capture those sound waves that the eardrum membrane can transmit. The mechanical signal collected by the eardrum is then transformed into nerve impulses in the inner ear. Finally, nerve impulses through the auditory nerve are sent and interpreted by the brain. In what concerns us here, music produced with instruments or the sound of words being pronounced go all that way before reaching our head. So much for the birth and journey of what we call a sound.
Listen and understand
The meaning
But there is something else. On the other hand, we have the meaning, the words, which also have their own sound, as poetry knows very well. It happens that this set of sounds that we call words are not just a sound, but those specific vibrations are associated with one (or several) referents in our brains, which receive those sounds and relate them to their mental contents. If I say the word tree, each listener will think of a tree, each one their particular tree or trees, their own referents, but in principle, if no distortion occurs in the process, it will always be a tree. The meaning of words is a convention, an agreement between a group of speakers by which when pronouncing words, phrases and other verbal devices, we more or less understand each other.
Conclusions
This whole explanation may have seemed a bit technical or theoretical to you, but it is of enormous importance when it comes to understanding how we listen to and perceive our favorite songs, how they are made, why an element is presented in a certain way and not in others. So. Why this combination? Why NOT just words, or NOT just music?
Perception, sound and meaning Good. If we think about sound, melody, music in general, it will not be difficult for us to agree that it has an evocative and suggestive power, without equal. A few notes or the simplest rhythm you can imagine can have an instant and almost magical effect on any of us. But to say something concrete, to be completely meaningful, it may not be possible to reach us with music alone. To say “I love you” or “I hate you,” for example, music, no matter how masterful it may be, is not going to be able to communicate it effectively. And music, by itself, is very subjective, there is no dictionary that says: “the note F 4 of the grand staff means heart”, or “the middle C of a piano keyboard means world”, or “the sound of the first string of the guitar is equivalent to the concept of air” etc… Music itself, if we want this point of clarity, we can say that it does not mean anything in particular. Instrumental music is the most sophisticated tool that exists to evoke, to excite, to create an aroma, a texture or a torrent of sound information that our ears, which our experience will later transform into history, memories or concrete sensations. These are, in principle, its powers and its limits. On the other hand, words have that communicative power, that potential for concreteness and meaning. And that power is at the same time its limitation, since to express our feelings or our desires and so on, words often fall short. There is a plane, a depth that its very significant weight does not allow it to reach. Following the previous examples. “I love you”, “I hate you”, yes, very good, fantastic, but how do you love me? or how much do I hate you? Poets have strived to push words far beyond their limits and, to a large extent, they have succeeded. But there remains one point that they cannot overcome, a human desire for more varied expression and communication that, by its very nature, is beyond their reach. Music has that more ductile expressive component, more appropriate for conducting a verbal story or an emotional description to regions of the human being that are unreachable with only sophisticated words. Where the word alone does not reach, no matter how poetic it may be, perhaps it can reach in the form of a song. Where instrumental music fails to concretize a message, an idea or a feeling, songs have the ability to offer a perhaps more complete artifact. As you can see, songs are not a coincidence but, practically, a necessity, something inevitable for all of us. The same need, surely, that we have to listen to them and sing them. Podcast episode dedicated to sound and meaning in songs Listen to music, sing, make songs, create music or write lyrics, verses, whatever you want. The world is waiting for you. #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_column_with_background { padding: 10px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_column:not(:first-child) { margin-left: 20px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_paragraph { line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_segment_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_select_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_radio_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_checkbox_label, 3 .mailpoet_list_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_label { display: block; font-weight: normal; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_select, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_month, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_day, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_year, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date { display :block; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea { width: 200px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_checkbox { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_submit { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_divider { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_message { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_loading { width: 30px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_loading > span { width: 5px; height: 5px; background-color: #5b5b5b; }#mailpoet_form_3{border: 1px solid #fcb900;border-radius: 40px;text-align: center;}#mailpoet_form_3 form.mailpoet_form {padding: 20px;}#mailpoet_form_3{width: 70%;}#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_message {margin : 0; padding: 0 20px;}#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_paragraph.last {margin-bottom: 0} @media (max-width: 500px) {#mailpoet_form_3 {background-image: none;}} @media (min-width: 500px) { #mailpoet_form_3 .last .mailpoet_paragraph:last-child {margin-bottom: 0}} @media (max-width: 500px) {#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_column:last-child .mailpoet_paragraph:last-child {margin-bottom: 0}} Please leave this field emptyDo you write songs or would you like to?
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