Just looking around at the English class, I see so many musically inclined people. I would be confident in saying that the majority of students that take A.P. English have also taken Choir, Band, or Strings for a straight four years. Has anyone ever drawn the connection between writing and music? Sure, they are both written in symbols and words, but both have power over people. Last year for a Choir final, Mr. Hamid, had us make playlists that matched our moods. For every mood, we made a playlist. It took me until now to realize why those playlists were different. Music, like writing, evokes certain emotions from people. We read some books that I love, and some that I hate, but all of them get a feeling out of me. Besides evoking emotions, the actual symbols used in the composition of sentences vs. measures, correspond quite nicely. In music we call a slow pace Adagio, whereas in writing, a pace is determined by sentence and paragraph length. A short story in English class resembles a Capriccio in music, meaning a quick spirited piece of music. When we mark repetition in our books, musicians mark tremolo in their music. Even the characters of a story line up with music. When in music we have Major and Minor cords and compositions, in writing there’s always a protagonist and antagonist. The conductor of a chorus resembles the narrator of characters. Even semi colons and colons match up with Coda and Al Coda in musical terms. The speed of a musical piece, or tempo, fastens and slows down throughout the piece much like the pace of a read. When I read an exclamatory sentence, I emphasize it in volume and excitement much like when I sing, I emphasize a crescendo vs. a decrescendo. Anyways, enough comparisons already, music and writing are one in the same. It’s interesting to see how likeminded people come together in more than one area of life. For me, music and writing are two things I will always love to do. I would love to hear your thoughts on the two, especially if you love one and dislike another. No wonder Ms. Serensky has us singing at the beginning of class twice a week, it will only better us as writers… that smart Lady! (Crescendo)
Carly, I liked this post a lot! Probably because of my involvement in writing and music. But I thought it was interesting that you equated writing skills and musical skill against what I've always thought, how music and math share more of a connection. The division of measures and notes in different time signatures correlate nicely with the learning of manipulating fractions. Along with, of course, the symbols in math and music and seeing what they do to length and value of a number or note. I just mean to point out that like Ms. Serensky said in Bobbie's Blog Banter about how musicians tend to have higher IQ, music plays a vital role in connecting various aspects of knowledge. I find it especially interesting that music and writing correlate as well as music and math-connecting two subjects that are usually at odds with one another.
ReplyDeleteCarly,
ReplyDeleteAs a proud member of band I thought the parallels you drew between music and English were very interesting. Today in English Carolyn was selected to sing a tune for Bobbi’s Blog Banter and she began to belt out Charanga, a personal favorite of the band, and Jillian and I began to sing along. Afterwards I looked around and realized how many bandies sat in AP English and recognizes the song. I agree that many musical individuals also are members of AP English.