Metaphors in Musical Discourse: the Contribution of Imagery to Analysis.

Abstract

Metaphors use existing words in new ways, describing perceptions of the world that are difficult to capture in literal language. Musicians often prefer to describe musical works metaphorically despite their knowledge of a technical vocabulary. In a situation imitative of casual conversation, three groups of musicians were asked to describe Chopin's Prelude in B minor, Op. 28/6 (m. 11-12) in metaphoric terms. Then they described the features of the piece that evoked their metaphors. (Transcripts of responses are provided in the appendices.) Though metaphoric preferences and competences vary, types of metaphors that recur relate musical structure to spatial, temporal, and processive aspects of listeners' experience. Group 1 (undergraduate-level class) developed a dynamic metaphor, "a labored breath," and cooperatively elaborated and refined it. Group 2 (composers) used "tension" and "release" and focused on applying these rather vague labels. Group 3 (musicology students) incorporated metaphors in their technical descriptions, for example, speaking of the piece as a large-scale melodic "arch." Metaphors contribute to analyses by suggesting or summarizing structural observations. They can provide an interpretive framework, including progression of events, quality of experience, and degree of intensity. The resulting technical analyses emphasize interactions among events and yield more dynamic models of the piece, incorporating complex and contradictory views of events within a single coherent model. Physical metaphors like "breathing" are responses fused with structural insight, both of which contribute to the underst and ing of music. By incorporating the precision of technical language with the succinctness of metaphors, both can have their place in musical discourse.