Globally, music is meant to convey a message, whether it's spiritual, cultural, political, or emotional. Certain pitches, melodies, chords, etc. will evoke different emotional responses in various regions of the world. Subjectivity often creates great debates of what the music is intended to mean, so is it up to the composer or the listener?
Humans are natural at making patterns and association, and musical pitch or “timbre” (quality of the sounds/pitches) are no exception to this rule. This is prevalent in church and choral music as of late. Most “composers” or writers of music, used music to express emotions that they don’t have words for. Many of the “greats” in western music wrote for God in
(Credits: https://demandville-images.s3.amazonaws.com) Christian/Catholic faiths to show their true devotion to Him. This created association between the instruments used and their timbres to this heavenly sound. Organs (popular among religious music) are even named “God’s Instrument” and choirs are considered ethereal when in a hall or cathedral that allows for echo to ring throughout because of their extensive use during the religious music eras (Here is the Largest Working Church Pipe Organ and Mormon Tabernacle Choir). This is across the globe as well. Javanese “Gamelan” music is sacred music performed for the divine. While the music may sound simple or dissonant (music with tension) with no release to our western ears, it is “right up there with Beethoven” (Youtz 2015) in complexity. Each sound is unique and their ultimate display of faith in the divine through this music, and thus have an association of Gamelan to this practice.
Pitches are used to create certain kinds of emotional arousal. When a set of pitches, are stringed together in a type of melodic pattern, which are known as scales, they create backbones for melodies to create a particular emotional response. In the Indian classical music system,
(Credits: https://imcradiodotnet.files.wordpress.com) scales or ragas as sitar performer Niladri Kumar explains, are not just predictable structures that indicate intervals between pitches like in Western music, but are ways to focus on the pitches themselves to develop melodic phrasing and represent human emotions. Kumar demonstrates this concept by playing a raga shree in the key of D, a particular scale performed at sunset. The set of pitches in this scale were “D, E flat, F sharp, A flat, A, B flat, C sharp, and D”. With these sounds, Kumar creates a peaceful sounding melody with colorful undertones (Darbar Festival, YouTube, 17 May 2014). Kumar’s use of these pitches from the D raga shree were used meticulously to give off his interpretation of what peace sounds like. He used (in Western terms) “major” pitches to build the melody that conveys peace, while using the “minor” pitches to add depth and dimension to this feeling. Even though these pitches themselves sound like they don’t go together, Kumar shows that the pitches can work together if one knows the ragas and how to use them correctly. Thus, pitches achieve certain emotions through scales because they can develop the melodic mode for a tune, add emphasis to the feeling the musician wants to convey, and the meaning and interpretation behind the musician’s melody can give pitches its intended sound.
Specific pitches set the mood of a piece, higher pitches like that created by a flute or piccolo highlight a sense of energy, brevity, and lightness as in Paganini’s Caprice No.2. While contrastingly lower pitches, created by bass instrument such as the tuba, can darken the mood with powerful, menacing pitches, as in Reinhold Gliere’s Russian Sailor’s Dance, they can also serve as a propeller for the melody, as in Gustav Holst’s Mars, from The Planets. Due to association, these pitches still invoke darker feelings within the piece according to modern day listeners.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ piece Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis utilizes drawn out notes, creating massively beautiful sets of pitches under the main theme to invoke a sense of majesty, a sense of wonder, capturing the imagination and sending it through a whirlwind of settings, from a beautiful castle amongst an open plain, to the very clouds that dabble the skies. Vaughan Williams exemplifies the darker plea that Tallis originally wrote the hymn for.
All praise to Thee, my God, this night,
For all the blessings of the light!
Keep me, O keep me, King of kings,
Beneath Thine own almighty wings.
Forgive me, Lord, for Thy dear Son,
The ill that I this day have done,
That with the world, myself, and Thee,
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.
(found at http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/l/allprais.htm )
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The words have a dark sense of dread within them, as a plea to God for forgiveness. While this is holy music (as demonstrated by the orchestra example above), Tallis and furthermore Williams put the sound into darker timbres, and to grieving emotions. As with a great number of things the emotional responses felt by the listener will always remain subjective.
So, is it composers or the listener that chooses the mood? What about society’s influence? We ourselves have our own opinions of what the music should convey. All in all, society tells us what we are supposed to hear as “happy” as “sad” as “sacred” and as “secular”.
CREDITS:
Idea: Nick D, Erika Q, Holly W
Videos Paragraphs 2 and 5: Erika Q
Videos Paragraph 3: Holly W
Videos Paragraph 4: Nick D
Editing: Nick D, Erika Q, Holly W
Pictures: Holly W
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