Conveying Your Feelings Via Music
View PDF | Print View
by: Jack Wogan
Total views: 5
Word Count: 443
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 Time: 4:59 AM
It may be claimed that, apart from love, classical music is less effective as a means of expressing emotions than popular music, such as rock. True, a Bach sonata or a Chopin one do express love (for divinity or for a woman) convincingly and accurately, but, though Mozart's pieces are definitely expressions of joy or love for life, it would be challenging to establish the exact moment, nuance or details. Maybe that's the case because there are no words there to make things clear.
At least this is how Marilyn Monroe in 'The Seven-Year Itch' distinguishes classical music when the man that tries to seduce her tests the second piano concerto by Rachmaninoff on her: as music without vocals. However funny the scene and stupid the definition, for sure, you can observe the ineffectiveness of classical music as regards the accuracy of the emotions felt and hoping to be felt by others, in turn. Although her seducer is sure of the 'positive' effect on this classical piece on her, what she actually likes is no other than the infamous 'Chopsticks'!
While, maybe, what explains the effectiveness of popular music is the dancing and sharing it involves, we shouldn't underestimate the power of the lyrics. You couldn't possibly mistake the suicidal intentions and utter desperation in some Kurt Cobain's song for anything else, and the same stays true for the anger in Joan Baez's political songs or the (still politically correct) disgust expressed in Dire Straits' 'Money for Nothing'.
But if we don't take lyrics into account, however surprising and somewhat disappointing it might be for some, rock owes its power of expressing feelings also to technique and technology. Thus, what if its superiority to classical music from this point of view would be due to the shortness and compactness of its pieces, going for one feeling at a time, and targeting not a generic audience, but a public willing from the start to empathize?
Though you couldn't find 'emotions', except for perfection and the pleasure of creating it, in Jimi Hendrix's songs enhanced by pedals effects, like Octavia, you can be sure that The Rolling Stones could have never transmitted their lust so perfectly in 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction' without the transistorized guitar effect. And you may be sure of the same when it comes to the clearly sexual messages from AC/DC's songs: no lust pervading without the sexual overtones made possible by the distortion effects. So, if you want to express your feelings through music, you'd better visit the Sounds Great Music right away, to get the guitar effects pedal you need.
About the Author
Helped by the guitar effects pedal from Sounds Great Music you can definitely better the general quality of the music you play.
Rating: Not yet rated
