Emotion and Meaning in Music

Sadness/Mourning

Sadness is the interpretant. The object of that interpretant comes from missing my family and friends. When I think about missing my family and friends, one of the people I think about is my eldest brother, who was the first person in my family to leave home for school. When I think about my brother, I remember how much I loved to listen to him sing when he was at home. One of his favorite songs to sing was called "I Am Not Yours," a choral arrangement that he sang with his chamber choir in high school. Therefore, this song is a sign that represents sadness to me. The lyrics are taken from a poem by Sara Teasdale.

Joy

My index for joy is love and happiness and dancing and being with others. This song, "Be My Honeypie" by the Weepies, is a perfect sign for that emotion in my life. I hear the music and the lyrics, and I feel like dancing and tapping my feet along in rhythm. Dancing is a sign that, in my internal framework, means family and together-time. Family and together-time is always joy.

(I am sorry for continually returning to my family on these assignments, but it seems like that is where most of my strongest memories and emotions come from.)

Belonging

During my senior year of high school, the music department put on Cole Porter’s Anything Goes as that year’s musical production, and I was a member of the pit orchestra, a role that required several weeks of long hours of practice and rehearsal jam-packed with many others in, well, the pit. Unlike the actors on stage, the orchestra is in every number, and so when I say long hours, I really do mean long hours. Of course, the only songs I, and everybody else in the pit, had stuck in our heads for months were those from the musical; countless times during those weeks, we would spontaneously burst into song with others in the orchestra in the middle of the hallways, singing, dancing, and tromping around with our version of the choreography.

Belonging is the interpretant; this feeling came from being a part of the orchestra, or more specifically the pit orchestra. My personal index associates the pit orchestra with the musical Anything Goes.

Gender

Or in other words, what it means to be who I am. The words I would use to describe myself are loving and kind, open and honest. The most recent index I have in defining myself comes from yesterday's color activity, and I cannot seem to put that out of my mind either, so I'll add soft, sweet, and warm to the list. When I try to put a musical idea to these words, I imagine a simple song with few instruments, something acoustic, calmer. To me, fewer voices in an acoustic setting are signs of clarity and natural, genuine feelings. The song I decided upon is by Joy Williams, titled "What Can I Do But Love You?" Although the song is meant to be a romantic one, in light of this assignment, I see it also holds an element of surrender to happiness and love, as if love was the most natural and effortless thing in the world.