By JACK HAWES
Sheridan High School Student
Editor’s Note: The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abigayle Williams.
I really started thinking about this question when I found a video by YouTuber Adam Neely. He did a video titled “What does music mean?” In the video he discusses this question and ways to interpret and answer it.
There are many meanings to this phrase and also multiple ways to interpret it. The intended way is what is music trying to tell you. The simple answers are whatever you want it to and/or absolutely nothing. If you take these answers, it doesn’t require much thought. Delving into it deeper is more fun. So let’s begin.
The first and most obvious thing in understanding music would be to look at the lyrics of a song for meaning, but if it doesn’t have any lyrics then you can’t use that. This also doesn’t entirely answer the question. This just tells you the topic of the lyrics. You could also say that the meaning can be found in the notes. Pythagoras of the ancient Greeks was the first to research relationships between notes and frequencies. He found that simpler ratios were easier on the ears and less dissonant, or more pleasant, and happier. The more complicated ratios are more dissonant, or less pleasant, and usually sadder.
He found these by attempting to find the relation between the planets and other celestial bodies. Anything made by humans is merely an attempt to recreate the perfect sound of those celestial bodies. While the ratios themselves are still used and thought of as correct in western music, the ratios between the planets themselves were wrong. This means that the music of the spheres, as it was called, ended up being wrong.
The next sensible thing to go to would be what emotions are being portrayed with music. This is also the easiest solution to go to. In metal music, my favorite and one of the easiest for this example, the emotion is almost always either angry, sad, or mysterious.
The ways these emotions are shown are always different, but very similar in the ways they are achieved. Anger is portrayed best in screams or harsh vocals. The way the artist chooses to do this is literally always different because everyone’s voice is different. Due to this, people will have different ranges and variations on techniques. Some of the coolest and most common are gutturals, growls and whistle tone screams.
Sadness is portrayed usually with cleaner vocals and/or cleaner instrumentals. This can also be shown with screams but these are less used for conveying sadness. The song “Habitual Gloom” by For The Likes of You is one of my favorite examples of singing used to show helplessness and sadness. During the verses there is screaming, but a different vocalist sings during the choruses. He has a more helpless and almost whiny tone.
To achieve a mysterious sound, it is similar to how sadness is achieved. Usually a clean guitar is all that is used. One of my favorite songs to use this is “Midnight” by Joe Satriani. He uses a clean tone with some reverb to help get the sound he needs. He uses very fast riffs with some odd chords to finish the curious and mysterious sound.
As a musician, it isn’t as hard for me to sense these differences and determine how they are achieved. Usually it’s tones or effects used like delay or distortion, but not all music has to have a meaning or anything behind it and not everyone hears it.
This has been seen forever, but many think that now it’s at its peak. With modern music many people will say, “Who cares if the lyrics aren’t sensible, the beat is good,” or, “The vibe from the beat is good, so the song is good.” This is a very simple way of conceptualizing the question, but gives a good example and almost answers the question; however, that answer brings us back to the beginning with, “Music means whatever you want it to.”
Maybe next time you listen to music you will think about what the meaning is or what it could be.