{"id":19651,"date":"2014-07-14T16:14:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T20:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=19651"},"modified":"2014-07-17T10:21:59","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T14:21:59","slug":"speaking-the-same-language-thoughts-on-opera-and-musical-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2014\/07\/14\/speaking-the-same-language-thoughts-on-opera-and-musical-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking the same language: thoughts on opera and musical theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sigmund<\/a>
Sigmund Freud Mosaic by Paul Van Scott<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sigmund Freud was terrified of music. He had no problems standing before a sculpture, or extracting meaning from the various shapes and colours of an abstract painting. But for music it was different. He could never understand how music could have such a huge emotional impact on him.<\/p>\n

But I can\u2019t help but to wonder how he would have felt about music with words? More specifically opera and musical theatre? Surely he would have found this hybrid drama-music a salve to his musical neurosis?<\/p>\n

Song is without a doubt, the most popular form of music in history, and its success is attributed to the transcendent effect between words and music. Musical forms based on song, carry through to create a powerful third thing that has driven musical disciplines such as musical theatre and opera, from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

This third thing, in essence, is about the passage of words-to-music, and music-to-words, and in so doing, somehow picks up our imaginations, and takes us from our everyday lives into a world of mystery, suspense, horror, love and wonder along the way. I suspect it could have given Freud something to extract meaning from, and at the same time experience the emotional impact of\u00a0music as a means of \u00a0\u201ctransdisciplinarity<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to the theory of transdisciplinarity, Basarab Nicolescu advocated <\/a>a reconciliation between science and the humanities. It has been suggested that this transcendence is at the heart of the power of musical drama.<\/p>\n

But how does this transcendence take place exactly? I\u2019ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and have come to the conclusion that there is\u00a0some kind of a scale at play here, whereby the more extreme the pitch and rhythm of sung or spoken words get, the more readily they come across as music. In other words, as words become more and more \u2018pitchy\u2019 \u2013 our perception shifts from hearing them as language, to music.<\/p>\n

As a side note, some theorists have recently been exploring what happens when we make instruments speak with words. You can hear the striking effects here:<\/p>\n