Jabberwocky
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”¹
– Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
If we take away from the introduction to this series of essays the thought that music is not a language in the strictest sense, we can, at least, identify correlations between the language of music and the language of words, or as one linguist said to me, “music is language-like.” From 1969 to 1973, as an undergraduate composition student at Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, I was required study the works of 20th century, contemporary, and avant-garde composers; composers such as Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Boulez, Xenakis, Ligeti, Penderecki, Lutoslawski, and others. I listened often and in earnest, but mostly I just didn’t get it, though I wouldn’t admit to it then. These were composers my teachers assured me were masters, ground-breaking musicians to be revered. To admit I didn’t understand their music was to confess a deficiency in my musical aptitude.
There are some of those works that now, do work for me – Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw and Pierrot Lunaire, for instance. But I’m much older now and I’ve worked at understanding new music for some 50 years since then. Thankfully, much has changed since I was an undergrad. Reactions to the complicated music of the composers I struggled to understand led to the minimalist music of Terry Riley, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, and the lot – music much easier to get a handle on, but sometimes with a trade off – often, the music is process-obvious and doesn’t have much substantive to say.
As I discovered when I returned to academia in 2007, today’s composers find themselves in a good place. Tonality is no longer taboo, conservative compositional approaches are no longer frowned upon. As a result, today’s composers are free to choose style and technique appropriate to the task at hand – even within the same work. Craft is still necessary – perhaps even more so – in order to avoid inflicting auditory and stylistic whiplash on the listener. But a composer is no longer confined to a singular compositional approach.
As with verbal language, ones ability to understand a piece of music has everything to do with vocabulary and syntax. Think of how we learn or teach our children our native language. We begin with basic vocabulary – words alone. A child learns the meaning of individual words and gradually, through repetition, builds up its vocabulary. It takes much longer for them to grasp the syntax of a language, but even with incorrect (often comical) syntax, they are still able to get their point across. I imagine most of us were introduced in Literature or English class to the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, from his novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the first stanza of which is quoted at the start of this essay. The vocabulary in this poem is filled with nonsense words, but because the syntax is familiar, one can still glean some sense of meaning – it’s not entirely foreign. A different poet may utilize vocabulary that is completely familiar, but alter their syntax in creative ways (e.e. cummings). As long as either vocabulary or syntax remains familiar, we have a means to attempt to discern intent or meaning. When neither vocabulary nor syntax is familiar…most often we are lost.
Music has its vocabulary and syntax, as well. Musical vocabulary entails harmonic (vertical) content, intervallic (horizontal) content, pitch sets, scales, or modes employed. Syntax involves things such as phrase structure, contrapuntal techniques, harmonic progression and formal structure. In short, a composer’s musical vocabulary is comprised of the sounds that he employs – his musical syntax is the way those sounds are connected and associated. Music theorists have made a career of determining and describing a composer’s musical vocabulary and syntax. It is an effective way of gaining an understanding of a composer’s works as well as discriminating among music from various historical periods.
Most of us grew up listening to music based on what is often referred to as the Common Practice Era – music from the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods – utilizing major/minor tonalities, tertian harmony, functional harmonic progressions, and clearly recognizable formal structures. Common Practice Era musical vocabulary and syntax is what I knew – what I understood – like English. Back in Cincinnati, when I listened to the music of those “modern” composers, I understood neither their vocabulary nor their syntax – it was like trying to understand Russian or Mandarin.
Understanding the importance of vocabulary and syntax in music is crucial for composers. Choose to stray from what an audience is used to hearing and you run the risk of alienating them. There is a time and place to be adventurous and push the vocabulary or syntactical envelopes. An anthem commissioned for the anniversary of a Presbyterian Church is probably not the time or place, while a contest submission to a new music ensemble certainly would be. It’s also important for choir and orchestra administrations to keep in mind that continually programming music that alienates their audience, runs the risk of also alienating their financial support.
¹ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories; (New York, Barnes & Noble, 2010), p140, ISBN: 987-1-4351-2294-9.