Adding Layers

Adding words to a song makes it more specific.  The sounds of music are like broad strokes on the canvas.  Lyrics are the details.  They bring the fuzziness of emotions into focus, or increase the effect.

When you add somber lyrics to a somber tune, it intensifies the effect.  When you add worshipful words to a glorious melody, it makes you want to worship.  You can also add irony and tension.  If you mix the two (happy tune, sad lyrics) you can add shades of meaning, ranging from comical to satire.

This is why music says it better.  If you say “I love you” to your spouse, that says a lot.  If you sing it to your spouse, that adds the extra emotions.  (Valentine’s Day hint…)

Creating a Response

We write music to convey something.  The human who creates the music shapes the meaning.  And this applies, I think, to individual performances as well.  One band can mean one thing with a song, but another band plays it and it conveys something else.

We also have our own response.  Art is about expressing Truth beautifully.  As such, the same music can have different meanings to different people.  Rock music is a good example.  To some people, it means to express freely.  To others, it is connected with rebellion.  Always remember the context!  And when you use context well, it empowers the song you write.

Remember, oh you writers of music, the power you wield.

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Music is powerful to us humans.  We consume – no, devour – music for everything.  We play it for celebrations, we use it for sorrow, we use it to vent, we play it to romance.

Music at its core is a language.

Compare it to a spoken/written language.  Music has letters (notes), words (musical phrases), sentences (verses), and together they make stories (songs).  A song tells you something.  That something is its meaning.

Vehicles of Meaning

I read the phrase “language is a vehicle of meaning” and I immediately thought of music.  Music does the same.

For example, if I write a bouncy, light, skippy tune, you might think of something happy.  If I write, a dark, somber, plodding tune, you may feel something sad.  This effect is extremely powerful!  I can make you feel something with just timed sound.

However, I think there are some limits.  I can’t really make you think something specific, like say the day Dad took you to the ball game, or the feeling you felt when your best friend moved.

Music superimposes itself on us.  It uses our past.  If some soul had never, ever heard any music, they probably could guess the bouncy tune was happy, but they would not know that it was written to resemble the way a family dog bounced on everything.

This idea is important though.  There are certain emotions you can convey well, such as happiness, sorrow, longing, anger, or reverence.  Outside of these emotions, you would need some other experience or opinion.  If you heard a certain tune every time your parents were angry, then you would associate that tune with those events, even if the song does not deal with that.

Always search for the purpose of a song.  Especially the intent of the writer and performer.  The whole meaning of a song includes the human intent and the human interpretation.

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