Musical Structure as Narrative in Rock
John Encarnacao, University of Western Sydney
Introduction
The word narrative is often applied to studies of pop and rock music as an organising principle. Musical eras and stylistic movements are arranged to tell particular histories the works of a particular artist are construed as tracing a stylistic journey, the life story of an artist is invoked to give greater understanding to this or that album, as in 'that's his divorce album or 'all her records have been crap since she went to rehab.' In each instance, musical works are woven into a constructed narrative in order to make sense of the history of popular music or of particular repertoires. The intention of this paper is to contribute to a discussion of narrative as it occurs in individual music At this level, the idea of narrative is most readily applied to a song's lyrics-the extent to which linear sense can be made, or the extent to which a recognisable emotional state is evoked. Rather than this, though, my intention is to consider the assumptions of narrative from which the structure of much rock music proceeds examples of rock
In particular, this research stands at odds with approaches that concentrate on the lyrical content of rock music. Though a study of song lyrics can provide much insight into the attitudes and philosophies of particular groups of people in particular places at particular times, and even help to shape discourses about culture at a broader level, to ignore the sound of pop and rock tracks is to do them a great disservice. The impact of these pieces fuses sound with ideas embodied in the words. A song lyric need not conform to a
PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, January 2011.
Terpsichorean Architecture Special Issue, guest edited by Tony Mitchell.
ISSN: 1449-2490; http:/lepress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index php/portal
PORTAL is published under the auspices of UTSePress, Sydney, Australia.
