Next pedagogic project: Musical Rhetoric

I'd like to show you my next project. I'm open to any ideas....

First,  a few words about my background: I'm not a musician, it's not my occupation. In fact, I am a physician (hematologist) and I deal with leukemia, lymphoma, bone marrow transplant, cellular therapy, etc....

But since I was a child, a had a Humanist spirit and I always knew I would not only do one thing in life. So, I have studied many things, in depth.

I love music, and once I had my life on track, I retook my love for music seriously. I studied harmony, counterpoint, reharmonization, orchestration, etc... Partly as a self-taught, partly attending official courses.

I started a blog (in Spanish) because I noticed there were almost no information about many techniques. And more, many things were explained or simply exposed in a theoretical way. I focused on how to use tools for composing. 

I tell you this to put one issue on the table: I have little time to compose music in large formats because the remaining time my occupation lefts, I use it in this "pedagogical" projects.

Perhaps, some day, I'll stop learning myself and showing others what I discover, and begin to write what I like. My natural style is contemporary, but I believe a composer must know how music worked in the renaissance, baroque, classicism, romanticism, whatever.

In my journey, I have discovered that the biggest pillar or music is to convey emotions. The Baroque era was a peak when we think of it. They took a lot of elements from the past, and the legacy is currently seen in music.

Baroque musicians (or any artist) based their music on the theory of affects, or emotion, which is constructed by: 

a) Musical patterns that wanted to express something (many many years later called Schemata)

b) Musical rhetorics.

Rhetoric in the simplest sense is the art or the craft of persuasion or discourse. It began even before the Greeks. In the Middle Ages (cantus firmus) it was incorporated to the music - text to influence the people. When music took other direction, baroque composers translated many thetoric figures of speech into music, trying to give music an expressive side.

Well, I have worked a lot in schemata, and wrote a lot of examples in my blog.

Now I am diving in musical rhetoric. As you can guess, there is not much information about it (even in English). There are many references to many many many books and treatises written in the 18th century explaining this. But today, it is difficult to understand them. The examples were taken from modal and ancient music. Besides, rethoric figures can be understood in many ways.

How would you use ephiphora, chiasmus, polysindeton, etc.... in music?

That's what I'm triying to answer.

.... To be continued in the next message (this is too long).

Now, let's go to he nitty gritty.

I am doing a research about what is musica rhetoric and what rhetoric figures of the speech can be used in music. There are dozens and dozens.... Some of them are known by most of us (metaphor, climax, etc.....) Other sound like "martian" to us.

I started to "translate" those figures into music. Let's have an example. For each figure, I am writing two examples: one more traditional, other one more "modern".

I am making them bilingual. Now and them, I'll write a longer piece putting together several resources of this kind.

I think I will start a new blog because the one I am running now has almost 400 entries. 

What do you think? any ideas? I have already written music for nearly 20 figures, but there are many many more.

Thanks for reading.

ANÁFORA A

ANÁFORA B

Hi Luis,

2 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

First,  a few words about my background: I'm not a musician, it's not my occupation. In fact, I am a physician (hematologist) and I deal with leukemia, lymphoma, bone marrow transplant, cellular therapy, etc....

You are amazing! I really find many guys here passionate on music! You ARE definitely a musician for me, since you are even more passionate than some of the musicians.

2 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

When music took other direction, baroque composers translated many thetoric figures of speech into music, trying to give music an expressive side.

I am reading a book on musical aesthetics. Baroque musicians adopted a theory of imitation, thinking that music should imitate speech that will best express its emotional power. 

2 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I am making them bilingual.

Hurray!!

Very interesting topic, and thanks so much for sharing! I always love your posts here since every posts I can find something new to learn!

Henry