Character and Setting in Popular Music
Whether it is through music or written literature, such as a novel, characters convey emotion and thought. The audience understands through the characters present. Just as we find characters we love we also find characters we despise. Setting is much the same. Whether the setting is explicitly given or simply implied, the audience has a picture in mind. Sometimes it is a place of great beauty and sometimes it is a place we would rather disregard. It is my observations however that character and setting are to some extent present in every song I listen to. Character and setting are not only additions to music and songs, but seem to be what makes the songs.
Of the popular music available today, we can find songs dedicated to telling a story about a lost loved one, a favorite place of recluse, love in general. But not each of the popular songs lay out the setting or give the embodiment of a character. Listening to these songs however, the listener is transposed into the song and can see as the speaker talks. For example, Alicia Keys’s song “Diary.” This song is the voice of a woman speaking to her lover. “Lay your head down on my pillow,” she sings. “Here you can be yourself.” So from the beginning we are invited to witness the sweet whispers of lovers in a room. The bed, inviting and comfortable, sits in center stage. We listen to the woman tell of her love and the security her man can find in her and she in him. “I am the pages of your diary,” she sings. Again, Alicia does not tell us all the details, but somehow the picture is so clear.
Another example of a popular song that has setting and character is a song by India Arie entitled “Nature.” In this song she is telling a loved one to slow down: “Let’s sit and watch the flowers grow…let’s sit and watch the river flow.” She believes that nature is a show and there is music there. And although she doesn’t really give us a clear character we can relate to, we can see the singer as the character.
Charlotte Lennox’s opinion towards love is expressed clearly in her piece “A Song.” The poem’s female speak...
The article “ In Defense of “Trap Queen” as our generation’s Greatest Love Song” by Hanif Abdurraqib, who is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, writes about todays modern “love song’s” and their meanings. Hanif believes that todays modern generation love songs are not the same as they once were, because the meaning of love has evolved over time. Love songs have a different kind of passion then the once did, they have evolved the passion of love towards each other to a whole different level of passion. The meaning of a love song has changed its not all about only love towards someone, its changed to the love for the life style they live with the success they 've made to be where they are. This life style involving money, drugs. and sex, which is very blunt about how they describe it, is what “love” is to them and the young crowd
The Magna Carta of 1215 is a record that constrained the hand of King John of England and decreased the ruler's control over the individuals who existed in England so they could structure a parliament to set the premise for the privileges of English subjects. The target behind this archive was to help the individuals to rein in the lord while
One of the most significant ways for O’Brien to relate his war experience through the reader is to embellish the truth of the story. By doing this, O’Brien is able to add dialog between characters, spark interest to the reader, and add personality to the book. O’Brien’s purpose for writing false information from true events is because O’Brien doesn’t want the book to be just factual information. In this way, the factual information in any war story can be unrelatable to the reader. The fiction aspect of the novel makes it more appealing and understanding to the reader. “But listen. Even that story is made up. I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” (O’Brien, pg. 171) Through this statement, O’Brien discuss how he uses fiction to help to reader understand his emotions. For the intention of connection O’Brien’s perspective to the reader, he utilizes the genre of autobiographical
"A Pair of Tickets" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" are good examples of how setting explores place, heritage, and ethnic identity to give us a better understanding of the characters. In "A Pair of Tickets" Jing-Mei Woo discovers for herself what makes her Chinese and the setting played an important role in helping us understand how she came to this discovery. The setting in "Everything That Rises Must Converge" gave us a good understanding of why the characters acted as they did to the situations presented. The setting in both of these stories greatly contributed to the understanding the characters better and in general the whole story.
This study demonstrated that pop music influences happiness mood. As hypothesized participants in the pop music category were influence by the music and seem happier. The analysis revealed that participants in the rock and classical music categories didn’t have an effect in their mood. The results for rock and classical music did not supported the hypothesis, which rock music causes a person to have an aggressive mood, and classical music will lead to a calmer mood. The data support the primacy effect pop music results supported the hypothesis that pop music leads to a happier mood. The results from this data support from previous literature research such as the pop category. The results could also interpret as support for (Hargreaves, 1999). People make their music preferences based on the emotional state they are in (Hargreaves, 1999). The analysis revealed that pop music scored higher than students who had rock or classical. The implications for this study are to examine if music influence mood in a negative or positive aspect). As an outcome happiness mood correlated with pop music . There wasn’t no effect between rock music and aggressive mood. Classical music didn’t have a relationship between classic music and calm mood. The results of this study wouldn’t be able to support (Jordana Mena, 2007). This consists of classical music being composed with different emotions based on the key and time signature it is on. If the classical piece is written in a higher key then they saw different mood responses than the classical pieces written in a low key (Jordan Mena, 2007). This study has provided that music is more than just a piece, of a lyric, beat, or instrument it has been proven that music can help people ...
I think this theme occurs all the time in real life and is important to understand. People understand things in different ways and putting this message/theme into multiple genres will help more people receive the message the author or artist is trying to get across. Putting the theme into different genres also conveys the message with more or less and in different ways. In the book you have to put more detail into the story. This could help the reader or confuse them. With a song it’s shorter and straight to the point. For some people this is easier other need the story with more information.
The setting of a story is the physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs.(Meyer 1635) The setting can also set the mood of the story, which will help readers to get a better idea pf what is happening. The major elements of the setting are the time, place, and social environment that frame the characters. (Meyer 1635) "Trifles by Susan Glaspell portrays a gloomy, dark, and lonely setting. Glaspell uses symbolic objects to help the audience get a better understanding for the characters. The three symbolizes used are a birdcage, a bird, and rope.
“The American Revolutionary War lasted for eight years - between April 1775 to September 1783” (Pettinger). It is now remembered as a major landmark for the United States and its independence. The war began over a rebellion, initially caused by Britain, that eventually led to the demand of taxes without any representation of American representatives in Parliament. American patriots from the Thirteen Colonies of North America: Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Connecticut, New Hamshpere, Massachusetts Bay, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolinas, and Rhode Island won independence from Britain. Throughout the American Revolution, Britain was given dominance over the Americans, however the patriots achieved independence.
fiction of real life, songs with brash meanings and language can cause an effect where
On June 15th, 1215, in a field at Runnymede, King John and the Barons signed The Magna Carta. This was a royal charter drawn up by the barons to insure King John would treat them fairly and equally. This document consisted of political rights and a series of written promises. When the Barons made this document it was there attempt to stop the King from possessing too much power and abusing it.
For example, in the movie The Lion king, the song “The Circle of Life”, the instruments used in the song are a piano, vocals, a small woodwind, and percussion. The music starts with very powerful vocals which grab your attention and pull it towards the screen and what is about to happen. The vocals then turn to harmonies from a choir. The music is primarily background offscreen. This means that it consists of sound effects, music, or vocals that originate from the world of the story. For examples, in the movie The Lion King, the animals talk. In real life, animals do not talk. Also in the scene where they sing “Hakuna Matata”, the music in the movie tells what is happening through the lives of the characters, but in the real life all we see is people talking and screaming but not the music expressing our feelings, like The Lion King. Another scene is where the animals sing “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. The song is telling their love story in through the music but in real life we tell our love story by
Setting is the time and place during which a story takes place. It helps the reader visualize the surroundings of the story, and can be extremely important to the book. For example, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, takes place in the fictional town of Molching, Germany, not far from the non-fictional town Munich, between the years of 1939 and 1943. The setting is significant to the story because Germany is one of two countries to be attacked by the Nazis during World War 2, and that helps build the plotline. To be more specific, the setting of the story is on Himmel street, which means “Heaven,” and Death, (the narrator) mentions that it is very ironic for the road to be called Heaven Street, because there is nothing heavenly about the place.
Music has been many different things to people, an escape, a revolution, an experience, a feeling, a message, a memory, a single moment, peace, class, etc. Music has played a large role in the lives of many. The story of music and it’s evolution is beautiful, from ancient melodies being plucked on a harp, to the british invasion and the popular revolution. Music has changed, and it has effected so much. In the recent decades popular music has manipulated humanity into acting inappropriately.
Each song has it’s own unique story to tell through it’s lyrics. In a single song or multiple songs, things like heartbreak, death, romance, or even friendship can be expressed. For example, a song like “No Good in Goodbye” by the Script talks about the heartbreaking end in a relationship through its lyrics. It starts out with a semi upbeat and fast-paced instrumental with a yearning tone to it’s sound. After the introduction, consisting of just the instrumental, the music begins to slow down and the drums come to a halt and you begin to hear the singer sing along with the sound of a piano playing in the background. This song opens up strongly by singing about the losses that happen when a breakup occurs and all the regret and