Dumbledore said it best.
Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!
If you've ever watched a movie without music (perhaps in the "deleted scenes" of your favorite DVD) then you know: a movie without music is like a bowl of cereal without milk. Subtract the music, what's left? A bunch of dry exposition without emotional or dramatic oomph. Music adds drama, excitement, psychological color. It can even suggest concrete meaning.
Take for example the vintage feel-good corn of the opening theme of the 80s-era sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes.
Change the music, keeping everything else the same, and a Rosemary's Baby-esque tale of murder or supernatural malice emerges: Disturbing Strokes.
Music can accomplish a full 180-degree reversal in the feel of a particular visual. No single component of a movie or video game has greater visceral emotional impact than the music. Probably the most famous example of the transformative power of music is, you guessed it, the genre-defining Star Wars soundtrack.
Everybody knows (or recognizes when played) the Star Wars theme. But what many people don't know is that the Star Wars theme was so successful, so iconic, that it changed the relationship between movies and music in a way that few film scores ever have.
Star Wars is often credited as heralding the beginning of a revival of grand symphonic scores in the late 1970s. While to ascribe this feat single-handedly to Williams is premature, the popularity and impact of the scores was a major contribution. One technique in particular has had a particular influence: Williams's revival of a technique called "leitmotiv", which is most famously associated with the operas of Richard Wagner and, in film scores, with Steiner. A "leitmotif" is a phrase or melodic cell that signifies a character, place, plot element, mood, idea, relationship or other specific part of the film. It is commonly used in modern film scoring, as a device to mentally anchor certain parts of a film to the soundtrack. Of chief importance for a "leitmotif" is that it must be strong enough for a listener to latch onto while being flexible enough to undergo variation and development.
Much of the credit for the world-breaking success of Star Wars should go to the composer: John Williams. Because without that boisterous, over-the-top symphonic introduction, without the menacing stomp of the Imperial death march, without the syncopated offworld rhythms of the Mos Eisley cantina—without the brooding-yet-yearning theme of the Jedi:
...Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars.
And of course, it's not just movies; television, video games, documentaries, newscasts, sporting events, and talk radio all incorporate music in one way or another. We hear music in lobbies and elevators and when we're on hold. We've used music to send soldiers into battle. And at this very moment a copy of J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier is hurtling through the depths of interplanetary space as part of a welcome package which will probably never be found by an alien civilization we may never meet.
Why has music never been applied to standard forms of online writing such as blog posts and online articles?
After all, we embed pictures and video and Flash games on a whim. Why not include a musical selection, chosen by the author, with each piece of online content? Music tastes vary wildly, but couldn't a carefully chosen piece of music add value to the reader's experience? If Hollywood can do it, why can't the blogosphere? Why can't the Internet as a whole?
Why not?
The ostensible answer is that web pages that play music are annoying. But that's really only true of web pages that play music without the user's consent: irksome Myspace profiles, irritating Flash presentations, and the like. Like you, I resent it when a web page makes noise unless I give it permission to make noise.
But what if the "content soundtrack" was optional?
Couldn't we tag each piece of writing with a song, giving readers the option of reading the content while listening to the same music that the author was listening to when he wrote the content? Would some readers enjoy this?
Speaking for myself, the answer is yes.
I'd like to see a "read with soundtrack" button at the top of each and every page of "serious" content: every blog post, every news article, every technical specification.
And as we've all had bad experiences with noisy websites, there would have to be some ground rules:
- The default state of the "read with soundtrack" button should be OFF.
- The button should be small, and presented tastefully at the top of the page.
- Upon pressing the button, the music should play. Upon pressing it a second time, the music should stop.
- Clicking the button should never do anything (such as navigate to another page) that would interrupt the reading of the current page.
- The button should include a small piece of hyperlinked text pointing to the discography information.
And there you have it: a non-invasive way to spice up your content and simultaneously promote and discover new music, all without annoying those readers who don't want to hear it. Again, I'm talking about hand-picking a piece of music to give the content greater impact, not spamming readers with random songs.
Then again, I'm a hopeless music geek. Any attempt to glom music together with anything is going to appeal to me. What about you? Is it a worthwhile feature? Sheer craziness? Would you use it, either as a reader or a writer? Let us know.
Posted by James Devlin 29 comment(s)
