Musical Metaphors
I am working on a paper for linguistics class (I'm an anthropology grad student) on how musicians use metaphor to talk about music.
Specifically, I want to talk about how we describe music to each other, how we use words and visual images to talk about sound - for example a teacher or conductor describing how the music should "sound" or "feel" to get us to play it correctly...
Like:
speaking of a "soaring" melody
speaking of an old dance like Minuet or Gavotte as "stately" and "graceful"
saying something should sound "stormy" (ie-Night on Bald Mountain)
saying something should "swing"
The ways we talk about how we "think of" or "feel" or "see" music (general or specific pieces). Classical, Jazz, Folk, whatever.
For example, I love "Carol of the Bells" and when I hear it, especially the orchestral version, I actually perceive it as 3 dimensional - I 'see' the music 'swirling around me' like the wind in a wild and exciting (but not frightening) storm.
I was also thinking about the names the composers give to works, like Vivaldi's Spring (I don't have a copy but I'd love to get and scan the first page of the solo part that has the 'story' written in the music) or the the nicknames we give pieces like the "Moonlight" Sonata.
I'm going to use the part of "A Soprano On Her Head" where the author talks about her student who literally needed to physically dance out pieces to play them properly.
So - I'm hoping to dip into the collective wisdom and experiences of this board! Can you give me some examples from your own experience? It doesn't *have* to be something specifically linked to a particular piece but those will work best in the context of my paper.
Replies (10)
I have an old CD of the Bach 4th Cantata, which is entirely made out of one theme - remarkable. Anyway, in the program notes it talks about one of the sections as being of "imperishable" dignity or beauty. I love the word "imperishable" in discribing really great music.
Sandy
Ligeti likes to put strange expression markings in his music--a typical Ligeti marking is "Presto luminoso, fluido" or "Come un mecanissmo di precizione" (excuse my poor Italian.) or one of my favorites, "Presto nervoso."
Oh, and my teacher uses some strange metaphors: once she compared my intonation to "canned soup"--not bad, palatable, but missing something special. If I took special care to make the sharps extra-sharp and the flats extra-flat, follow the tendencies of the keys and harmonic changes etc, then it would be a nice, rich, distinctive homemade soup. Later in that same lesson she advised me against a "soupy" bowstroke, so I think she must have been hungry that day.
"Put some daylight between those phrases."
Thanks guys these are great! I appreciate it and any way it's kind of a fun topic to discuss, I think (hope).
Keep 'em coming! =)
Here's another one, that I found in an article about the Takács Quartet: during one particular rehearsal, András Fejer, the cellist, plays a prominent melody line in a rather mushy and unclear way. Károly Schranz, the second violinist, promptly turns to him and complains: "András, you sound like a boat sinking in the fog!"
"this is like the cigarette after sex"
Did he mean it wasn't the best part of the evening?
In a rehearsal, Sir Thomas Beecham once said to a trombone player, "Would you now apply that antique drainage system to your face."
At the sex clinic, they asked me if I smoke after sex. I said, "Gee, I don't know - I never looked."
:) Sandy
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March 23, 2007 at 03:05 AM · It's kind of the opposite in some ways (student to teacher as opposed to teacher to learner)...and one of my students told me he loves playing in orchestra because the music is like a breeze that goes over him.
I've been told to be deliberate, majestic, etc.
One of my conductors uses "crispy", as in playing light, clearly, and exact.
I've heard of conductors using colors..."Play this more of a red than a yellow."
And there's the obvious ones of comparing it to a conversation, telling a story...especially with the violin you need to sing (and sometimes literally sing it like some would dance it to get the feel).
Oh, and one teacher was teaching me the Bloch Rhapsodie from Suite Hebraique...and he told me that I have to imagine, instead of stopping to smell the flowers, that I'd be stopping to smell the dead bodies.
There are some more I can think of that deal with metaphors for teaching technique and how the body should move, but I'm not sure if that's what you're interested in...if it is, let me know.