We know immediately if a word describes high energy or low energy: for example, lethargic instantaneously suggests low energy. It also immediately implies musical factors: slow tempo, low volume, probably not high-pitched. Doesn’t this tell us a lot about our everyday language and its implications for the analysis of musical energy?
Another word that comes to mind is mysterious. What musical elements does that suggest, what makes a passage of music mysterious? I imagine it would be hesitant, not straightforward. Straightforward music would have clear rhythms, clear pitch structure (melody, harmony), clear phrasing, would probably be easily audible but potentially quite soft. So mysterious would imply or apply to music that contains hesitant rhythm, which would be rhythm with pauses obscuring, omitting or at least not conforming to regular beats. In a context where one expects regular phrases, one would think that irregular phrasing – starting after or before the phrase would normally begin – might produce a hesitant feel.
Mystery means questions outstanding, unanswered. So any number of musical elements that form patterns might leave things open, especially the traditional items which provide closure, such as those that form cadence. In common-practice period music, we have terminology that applies to these situations, and a widely-accepted rating of cadential strength (a term that conveys degrees of certainty in ending phrases). Some of those are in the realm of harmony, some are in the world of meter (strong-beat vs. weak-beat ending), some are without standard description (the tendency to end in the middle register makes ending very high create an expectation of continuation, for instance.) Not knowing if expectations will be met, even having no idea what to expect, at least a mild sense of fear: does mystery involve unknown potential energy? Of course, movie music has acquainted us with a number of musical tropes that incorporate common musical elements we rather automatically, without any kind of musical analysis, interpret as mystery.
What is important to understand in considering energy words and what they say about music – in other words how they offer rudimentary yet deeply important analyses – is that they reflect performers’ assessment of what is inherently to be discovered in the notes by one familiar with a given style. A series of notes in a given rhythm is (potentially) a melody, and produces a set of possible energies to be conveyed. When a composer is present, you will often hear the question, “how do you want this played?” The answer is almost invariably some kind of energy description. Answers like faster, slower, snappy, light, heavy, sinister, or mysterious all can be deconstructed to uncover musical parameters that create those energies. And when a composer is not present, markings in the score will supply the same kind of information. Modern music in particular is filled with descriptions as brief as “flowing” or as intriguing as “like a tender and sad regret”.
I have always been amazed at how just a few words of this sort can put experienced performers in exactly the right mindset to make intuitively the multitude of adjustments to the manner of performance that will create a desired energy. What is equally fascinating is how persistent some aspects of energy are, remaining present despite changes to other aspects of character. In 2017, I did a study with a class using the exact same melodic fragment altered successively by register, dynamic, articulation, and tempo. Over 400 participants rated the energy of the fragments in the various guises, and it was clear that my hypothesis regarding the cumulative effect of parameter changes (now louder, now louder and higher, now louder, higher, faster, etc.) was on target. And yet, those changes never escaped the energy carried by the notes and rhythm. A few blog posts back, I posted Melody as Relationship. Pitches and rhythm form the most common and fundamental relationship in music, a starting point to be diverted, commented upon, even twisted by other parameters (musical elements).
What this leads to is a realization that the subtle energies perceptible by seasoned listeners to a given style give rise to what we call meaning in music, that composers and performers create deviations from the expected in numerous ways that can make us pause to think, take note, react.
There is a tremendous amount to be gained from just considering the way music is described, and what parameter values we expect to be attached to them. As I’ve said with other topics, more discussion of energy words to come!