When Two Brains Go Walking, the Left One Does the Talking
A visitor who likes to compose "geometrically precise perpetual motion things" asked if I am a natural songwriter. I certainly don't think of myself that way. I've always been a harmony and form kind of guy, coming very late to any serious attention to melody and rhythm. I was well into adulthood before I noticed the importance of note selection to some listeners. To the extent I have any ability in writing singable melodies, it stems from my years absorbing positive -- and especially negative -- examples as a choral singer and conductor.
There are singable melodies, and then there are melodies that are actually sung, complete with words. I'm no expert in left brain-right brain analysis, but I have read enough to have formed some ideas I will share with you now. (It's a first in bløgösphère history: the blogging of half-baked ideas!) Tapping into the power of your right brain is the focus of a lot of brain hemisphere discussions, because the right brain is mute. Your speech center is on the left side, so the right brain's activity is not accompanied by words -- it is much harder to describe and seems very mysterious. Lots of creative activities occur when the right brain takes over, putting one in a trance-like state where time's passing is not noticed and the yammering of the internal voice halts. This trance is considered mystical somehow, and is highly prized by many. I suspect the capacity for entering into the right brain trance varies widely among people.
Here's my point: if you are composing instrumental music, you are operating in a pure right brain environment. If your right brain's got what it takes, you are all set. Writing music to a text requires another level: the text's meaning can only be comprehended by the left brain. Thus, skillful setting of texts requires rapid switching between brain hemispheres -- not typically an easy thing to do. I suspect this explains why "one great song is worth five merely adroit symphonies" (as Ned Rorem once said, if I am not mistaken).
Again, this is half-baked. I hope those with contrary opinions or enlightening examples will jump in. See also Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (the review says that although its theory is "somewhat outmoded, it is still a useful model") and also this webpage with more caveats.
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
2 Comments:
Fred - interesting thoughts, on the relative roles of the two brain hemispheres in regard to the activity of composing music. Another caveat to be added to the discussion is that there are so many different types of composing - both different types of music to be composed, and different artistic processes which could lead to the composition of the same types of music - that generalizations are difficult. One need merely to think through a diverse and random list of pieces of music to see this. You correctly point out a distinction between vocal and instrumental music in this regard. But even two very similar bits of music might be composed in very different ways - consider, on the one hand, a piece of music written by Bach, and, on the other hand, a piece of music improvised by him (improvisation being, in the final analysis, a type of composition). Or, on a more pedestrian level, Johnny Thunders when he played with the New York Dolls, and when he played afterwards with the Heartbreakers. Some people compose as an exercise in applied algebra, others as an expression of a nameless spiritual impulse, and still a third group as a mix of the previous two.
That was great Fred, but I believe I have the market cornered on "half-baked ideas." And, evidently, on the old ass-u-me paradigm. ;^)
I don't believe the right-brain/left-brain dichotomy particularly is a half-baked idea at all. To the contrary, I've given it plenty of thought myself. It is the differences within right-brain activity in terms of types of activity that I find most interesting. My intuition works in terms of shapes, hence, my "geometrically precise" bent. Others, however, seem to display a more nebulous and undefinable type of intuition that leads to organic and fascile text setting (For example) as well as plastic and compelling melodies, which I find both fascinating and highly admirable.
It's nice to hear that you learned your melodic sensibilities through experience (Like that nicely melodic but geometrically imprecise fugue subject you came up with ;^D): It gives me hope that I can develop a more lyrical style if I only get an oportunity to practice writing it.
Oh, and mr. smith: I was a roadie and THE DRIVER (As well as Johnny's guitar tech) for Johnny Thunders' 1983 European tour with his band Cosa Nostra. Jerry Nolan and Billy Rath on drums and bass respectively, with Henri Paul Tortosa as the second guitarist. The memory is of a different me in a different lifetime in an alternate universe now.
Cheers,
George
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