USE OF MUSIC IN A PLAY

A detailed Summary of USE OF MUSIC IN A PLAY

Music as an art of the theater has its roots in primitive ritual and ceremony and its branches in every modern means of theatrical presentation. Its functions are as varied as the forms require and range from being the primary reason for performance, as in opera, to mere noise, filling a vacuum in imagination for some screen and stage presentations.

Theater music is all music composed to govern, enhance, or support a theatrical conception. Music composed for theatrical purposes obeys different laws than does the music for concert performance or conventional opera. Whereas in opera the music dictates the form in which the dramatic visual imagery is presented and governs its development, in other kinds of theater the music is, at best, an equal partner among its principal elements. In concert, of course, the music is the sole factor that determines the experience.

Theatrical music is variously related to the type of a character and his behavior. Music can accompany character's actions such as movement and his behavior. In some instances music is dominant, in some it is subservient. If a character is moving quickly, you would have an instrument such as a violin playing rapidly and have i

Before Dr. Rank arrives, Nora is a cheerful and playful person 'like a bird', so a piccolo could play a set of quick, high notes to show her motion. Nora stay like this when Dr. Rank arrives, but the situation calms down when he tells her that he loves her. At that point, the quick music would stop, because Nora would have been confused. A violin could play something slow until Nora decides what to reply. This is a good point because the change is spontaneous. The music would go from quick and cheerful, to something very slow and rather depressing to compensate.

This music would then slowly decrease in speed and loudness as he slowly looses his anger and starts calling his wife animal names such as in this case 'where's my little skylark' and therefore a flute should be playing something soft, to show his passion and love towards Nora.

Act II is the act where Nora makes most changes. As a reader, you are imagining different musicals at different episodes, which satisfy the character's behavior. Reading the play in this manner creates more meaning as well as more life to the actual play.

As a reader, if you take in consideration what music could be played when and using some imagination, reading a play in this manner would create more meaning to the overall play, and help the reader understand the true nature of the characters.

So far we have had either happy or depressing set of tones accompanying Nora's character. When Nora reads Krogstad's threatening mail, a violin could play something sharp but not so fast, in order to create a tense, threatening situation. This would make the whole episode more dramatic for the audience, because music would be showing that there is something tense occurring which maybe the character wouldn't be able to perform. On her way to Christine, the music would stay the same, but as soon as she reached her the music would stop.

In the beginning of the act, Nora talks to Christine. Christine reproaches Nora for having borrowed the money from Dr. Rank to pay for Helmer's rest cure in Italy. Empathetically the girl denies it, for, she says, she would never allow herself placed in such a

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Approximate Word count = 1451
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Arts