Thursday, November 10, 2011
11/11/11 Response
What I found most interesting about Langer was her theory about why music works. She pretty much said that music resembles some of our most basic bodily functions like breathing and the heartbeat. This was interesting to me because these are two things that as children even as adults we find extremely comforting so it was interesting to see her use this comparison.
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I agree, and I will also bring up that I feel that it takes rhythym AND melody to make music "work," for me anyway. Rhythym is the longing for the body to be able to move a certain way to certain things, or no certain way at all. The want for our body to move on time. Our whole body and life is constantly rhythyms (heartbeats, footsteps, etc.). Melody seems to be the emotional expression in music, colouring whatever rhythym it might be put over.
ReplyDeleteExample: Just because a rhythym is slow doesn't make it sad, and just because a rhythym is fast doesn't make it happy or peppy. There are such things as fast sad songs (more so melodically than lyrically in this context) and happy slow songs.
Rhythym is the beat or tempo that the body naturally wants to move to, and melody is the musical coloration that sets the mood and expresses thought.