What came first, the music or the lyrics?

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When reading Women, The Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia, I was struck by the importance of song. How a song sounds can communicate a lot, even before looking at the songs lyrics (if it has any). What is it about certain genres that does that? I'm not sure but I would really like to know. It's pretty well known that songs in a major key sound happier and more upbeat than songs in a major key, but that doesn't explain the differences between things like hymns and punk rock. To my ears hymns have always sounded joyful but reverent. Perhaps that has something to do with how many people typically sing them at the same time and the environment in which they are sung. Although, I think even without those things the songs would still have some aura of calling to a higher power. 

At the same time, it is hard to escape the message conveyed by harsher genres like hard rock or punk. Without hearing the lyrics many of the songs already seem like a rebellious message against "the system". Maybe its the intentional abrasiveness of sound that seems to define these genres. Regardless, I would be very interested to learn more about why certain genres of sound attract certain messages. Did the message come first and the sound then became associated with it, or did the sound come first and people decided it reminded them of this type of message? 

Or.. is this all in my head and I am overthinking it? I suppose that is a possibility as well. 

Stan Rogers :: Borealis Records
Rage Against the Machine Set More Reunion Tour Dates









Rage Against the Machine and Stan Rogers. Two artists I very much enjoy, one a hard rock (or rap metal, depending on who you ask) band and the other acoustic Canadian folk music. 

Comments

  1. Jamie GoodwinMay 8, 2020 at 2:57 PM

    It really is amazing what little changes in sound can do. For example, the difference between high-tempo outrun and lower-tempo retrosynth is profound; even if the songs themselves are very similar, the uptempo one will always make you want to drive a little faster than you should.

    Also Stan Rogers is great.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oskar MattesMay 8, 2020 at 8:08 PM

    I'm not sure if there is really anything inherent to what we associate with different forms of music, it might all be based of of millennia of culturally constructed connections. Yes, church hymns certainly sound innately religious to us, but think about the music that other cultures consider to be spiritually significant. Would Christian hymns resonate as religious to them? Or would only music that resembles the holy music of their culture trigger that response. Regardless, I would love to see large scale experiments to see if there really are some parts of music that hold the same associations in every culture.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TroyMay 10, 2020 at 12:23 PM

    I love how you connect hearing to importance of the lyrics of specific songs. Songs can deep down be so meaningful in so many different ways. Connecting how meaningful they can be to the importance of hearing was so abstract and really made this blog post.

    ReplyDelete

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