Today, while listening to 'Fade to Black - Metallica' I thought about one of my favourite topics. 'Emotional interpretation of music'. According to me, a song has two parts, to both of which I attach significant importance without any priorities: music and lyrics.
When I hear a song devoid of its lyrical content, I can feel multiple and contradicting emotions depending on my imagination and visualization. By that I mean, I can interpret an extremely depressing song as one of a very inspirational quality, if it is without lyrics. The point that I am trying to drive home is that lyrics help in selection of 1 or few emotions that an artist wants to convey in the song from an ocean of emotions that a person could otherwise feel.
'Fade to Black - Metallica' is an extremely sad song. When I was hearing it today, I ripped apart it's lyrics in my mind and concentrated on music alone. I thought of musical notes as blows delivered by a person to his pain and sorrow, as his will to fightback against all adversaries. With each advancing note I could imagine him reaching closer to his goal. When the music ended, he emerged victorious. But, then I recited the lyrics and they were screaming of a disillusioned person with shattered self-confidence.
Hence, I manipulated it's lyrics and made them sound real positive and symbolize a determined person. Here is a beta version of the same.
When I hear a song devoid of its lyrical content, I can feel multiple and contradicting emotions depending on my imagination and visualization. By that I mean, I can interpret an extremely depressing song as one of a very inspirational quality, if it is without lyrics. The point that I am trying to drive home is that lyrics help in selection of 1 or few emotions that an artist wants to convey in the song from an ocean of emotions that a person could otherwise feel.
'Fade to Black - Metallica' is an extremely sad song. When I was hearing it today, I ripped apart it's lyrics in my mind and concentrated on music alone. I thought of musical notes as blows delivered by a person to his pain and sorrow, as his will to fightback against all adversaries. With each advancing note I could imagine him reaching closer to his goal. When the music ended, he emerged victorious. But, then I recited the lyrics and they were screaming of a disillusioned person with shattered self-confidence.
Hence, I manipulated it's lyrics and made them sound real positive and symbolize a determined person. Here is a beta version of the same.
Life, I say, will shine from today
Brighter, brighter every day
Getting lost within my work
Nothing matters, no one else
I have found my will to live
Now have everything to give
There is so much in it for me
I accept, it won't come for free
Things not what they used to be
Loving one inside of me
Deathly loss, and that is real
Will stand the hell I'll feel
Confidence, bubbling in me
To the point of ecstacy
Fading darkness, fading dawn
I wasn't me, now am my own
No one but I will save myself, it's not too late
Now I can think, think how will I put up a fight
Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Tomorrow greets me warm, now I will just say
Brighter, brighter every day
Getting lost within my work
Nothing matters, no one else
I have found my will to live
Now have everything to give
There is so much in it for me
I accept, it won't come for free
Things not what they used to be
Loving one inside of me
Deathly loss, and that is real
Will stand the hell I'll feel
Confidence, bubbling in me
To the point of ecstacy
Fading darkness, fading dawn
I wasn't me, now am my own
No one but I will save myself, it's not too late
Now I can think, think how will I put up a fight
Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Tomorrow greets me warm, now I will just say
"Come over guys."
Link to original lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/metallica/fade+to+black_20092126.html
I think, with same music and above mentioned lyrics if a song comes into existence, it'll be an inspiring one. It leads me to a question. Is music non-absolute?
Your argument is interesting and can be convincing to the casual listener.
ReplyDeleteHowever, to me this post is funny and some might even feel that it is an insult to Metallica or music in general.
First, please define the term "non-absolute" if you are using it and are leaving it as a question to the reader. For my comment, I'm assuming that it means "having no meaning in itself".
I have always believed that music and lyrics are two very different art forms. You require different forms of cognition to understand/appreciate them.
Now, different people have different levels of development of these forms of cognition. Thus, some are able to appreciate music-in-itself more than lyrics while others rely on lyrics.
This is actually great: you can have greater variety when you mix both art forms. On one end of the spectrum, you will have instrumental music, and on the other end, you'll have something like Ghazal. Each Genre has its own appreciators.
Yet, this only indicates that they are two different art forms, and are not, as you claim, dependent on each other.
The "multiple and contradicting emotions" that you feel are maybe because you aren't making an effort to understand the music-in-itself. It requires patience and a little getting used to.
Also, most music is not about "one single emotion". It is usually a very well-devised combination of emotions, full of structure and layers. This enables the listener to enter the universe the artist is creating. In this universe, the listener experiences and responds to situations/scenarios/pictures. Due to life's variety, you as a listener can often associate something that has happened to you with this structure and experience a "journey". It's like reading a story: the "structure" of emotions I speak of are like the plot.
Calling "Fade to Black" just a sad song will be like calling "Harry Potter" a happy story.
Finally, there are elements in "Fade to Black" that are definitely "sad" or "depressing. The initial riff on the acoustic.
ReplyDeleteThe frustrated/angry vocal melody, the "angry" distorted guitars that are interspersed with the song are just indications of upheaval.
The best indicator is how the song ends. The riff is without hope and sad. It keeps on repeating, and the solo just keeps on going as the song just fades out. Just this makes me feel that the song expresses helplessness and hopelessness.
Interestingly Sonata Arctica covered the song and it has some different emotional outcome,just because they have made a few changes to the structure of the song and the way it is sung"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ErNlS0XsLE
Also, listen to this and experience the "journey". The song has just one lyric:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh3bleXWaCk
@ anonymous_comment 1:
ReplyDelete1) 'Non-absolute': Not able to generate identical output under different and distinct conditions.
2) Para 4 - Para 7:
In precise;
Your say: 'Music and Lyrics are two independent art forms'.
My say: 'I agree'.
'Entity_1 is dependent on Entity_2' implies that for Entity_1 to achieve its desired objective; existence and co-operation of Entity_2 is essential. Now , firstly, I never discussed the desired objective of a music piece. In fact, that is what the blogpost is about. Non-absolutism of music. Secondly, I am too human to do that. But what I discussed was the altered impressions that a listener can get when he/she superimposes one art form on another. In this case, lyrics over music.
3) 'It requires patience and a little getting used to'. I thought, 5 years are sufficient. I think, 5 years are sufficent!
4) Paragraph 9:
I have very precisely written, '1 or few'. I am not involving myself in a futile discussion about difference between 'few' and 'combination'. Moving on, if in the Universe that a listener falls into makes him feel two different, to be precise, contradictory set of emotions under different set of conditions (Trust me, I can complicate it further, but it is not advisable to do it on blog), is it conceptually wrong or incorrect? Has the musician failed or is it the diversity that a listener must not fail to acknowledge?
5) Last line: I love it! I simply love it!
Thank you for your genuine comment.
@ anonymous_comment 2:
ReplyDeleteI have listened from start to end. I agree to you in one frame of mind, disagree in another. I like Metallica and 'Fade to Black' is my favourite Metallica song till now. I am not interested in making a mockery of it in any way.
Oh well, I'm not going to carry out any further discussion since you already feel that it is futile.
ReplyDeleteMy argument here is that music-in-itself has meaning and will provide with you the same set of emotions under any condition. One has to learn to tune oneself into it, and forget any external factors.
I often listen to music for this effect. In a way, it "soothes" my soul.
Finally, as I mentioned in my second comment, changing the structure or form of music can change the emotional content. This essentially proves my argument.
*provide you with
ReplyDelete@ anonymous:
ReplyDeleteThank you for showing the interest. What I surmise is that your argument lacks reasoning and is based on emotional attachment with music. I conclude this based on the last line where you self-proclaim the proof of your argument.
'I avoid buying an argument that lacks reason'.
Was reading my old blog posts. Came across this one and read the comments. Apologies for being a little intolerant to criticism. I do not know whether you'll ever read this again, but I am trying mathematically to explain in a very concise way what I meant back then and still feel.
ReplyDeleteLet's say;
Emotional effect = E
Music = m
Lyrics = l
According to me,
E = f(m,l) ... (Assumption: Only 2 parameters and differentiable)
I assert that in most/all of the cases:
partial dE/dl != 0 && partial dE/dm != 0
If you insist that partial dE/dl == 0, then do you not support the partial dE/dm == 0? Your explanation was pretty unbiased (two diffferent ends of spectrum), should not the outcomes be?
And if you agree to both, then what we get is E = constant. As a consequence, you can start with any song and make changes to its m & l, and end up at a different song, but still feel the same Emotional effect. That is obviously incorrect. We know that it doesn't happen.
A plot of a function as simple as E = m + l (just a model) will make it graphically clear what I wish to convey.
Thanks a lot once again. I appreciate your thoughts and efforts.