{"id":384,"date":"2021-09-23T18:35:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T18:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/?p=384"},"modified":"2021-09-23T18:35:14","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T18:35:14","slug":"musics-effect-on-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/2021\/09\/23\/musics-effect-on-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Music’s Effect on Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Through listening to some excerpts from Handel’s The Messiah<\/em>, we were able to observe how music can influence words and even entire scriptures and passages from the Bible. The music behind the lyrics can actually symbolize the words, providing listeners with not only a great image of the words but a greater understanding of the words. I personally find this concept very interesting, and we can find examples of this all throughout the oratorio.<\/p>\n

One example can be seen in the excerpt of The Messiah<\/em> called “Every valley shall be exalted.\u201d In this section of the music, the word “exalted” is often drawn into multiple syllables, each consecutive syllable going up and up in pitch. This musical tool helps demonstrate that \u201cevery valley\u201d will be lifted up by God\u2019s grace. Another great example is from the excerpt “All we like sheep have gone astray.\u201d In the beginning of this particular excerpt, the music gives a very “wandering” and almost fun connotative feel, but the connotation changes throughout the excerpt into something that is much more sorrowful. This change produces the idea that even though it may feel okay at first, straying from God is actually a very negative thing, something that is likely to fill one with sorrow. There are many other musical tools that give words a greater meaning. One of the most useful of these is repetition, the effect of which can be experienced in the \u201cHallelujah\u201d chorus in\u00a0The Messiah<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think people often concern themselves with what kind of effect music can have on words, especially sacred texts like the Bible. I certainly had not thought about this before today\u2019s class, but I feel that it is so important to pay attention to this as it can easily open our eyes to new aspects of the music we listen to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through listening to some excerpts from Handel’s The Messiah, we were able to observe how music can influence words and even entire scriptures and passages from the Bible. The music behind the lyrics can actually symbolize the words, providing listeners with not only a great image of the words but a greater understanding of the… Continue reading Music’s Effect on Words<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9197365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9197365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":399,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/pca263fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}