The artistic concept of emotional environment is simply an artistic and theoretical way of viewing, labeling and describing the musical components that create the artistic passion within a song. There are three basic "environments" used in American music with endless variations and combinations of these three primary colors. These are, major, minor and the blues. Got a favorite of these three?
So why would we want to do this? Well, basically in that it helps us to understand and view a musical composition as a whole entity, examine and label it's component parts and attempt to get a sense how the sum of these parts creates the passion and magic of the piece. By doing so, we gain perspective and can better understand and appreciate new or unusual combinations of musical elements, all of which might potentially enhance our own creative endeavors. So artistic perspective? Yep. Cool?
So often these labels used to analyze the musical components of an emotional environment represent the broad categories of elements found within the equal tempered system, one of the two main resources of American music, ( the other being the blue notes ). These categories include but are not limited to the major, minor, modal, pentatonic, augmented and diminished groups of pitches / colors. Within this text, the concept of emotional environment also can designate musical styles such as the blues, Latin sounds, rock, jazz etc. When composing, we can define our initial idea in terms of the emotional environment it creates, examine the theory of it's pitches, then explore from this core outward, shifting from one emotional environment to another, creating musical journeys for our listeners and tell our stories.
Another cool use for this term and concept helps to organize the music a player knows. A situation that sometimes arises among players jamming together is trying to decide what to play. Using the term emotional environment in regards to musical style can perhaps help. When someone says to me "what do you want to play Joe?" I usually respond with "what style?" Perhaps a member of the group will say, "lets play a Latin tune." Just that much begins to define certain aspects of the emotional environment. Maybe someone will suggest to play music in a minor key or the minor tonality. So, now we are perhaps looking for a Latin tune in a minor key. Knowing this, coming up with a melody and changes is greatly simplified in narrowing things down to decide what to play. Oftentimes saying just, "oh, how about a blues?" is more than enough to define the musical environment. In blues music with experienced players, just choosing a key or tonal center and tempo is oftentimes enough info for the players to count it off and commence the jamming.
With this in mind, click and compare the examples which follow illuminating a few of the common emotional environments of our music.
Major tonal environment. Example 1.
Minor tonal environment. Example 2.
Are the major and minor tonal environments the Ying and Yang of our musical system?
Minor blues in C minor. Example 3.
Blues in C major blues. Example 4.
Minor to major tonality in a Latin setting. Example 5.
Nice lines eh? The Latin thing is so very cool. So, is it all about our perceptions, what a particular sound triggers in our hearts? Does a particular sound trigger similar responses in different folks? Does it matter? Is the idea of an "emotional environment" a valid one for your way of thinking? Cool with the ideas here?
So, with the above ideas in mind, think of your favorite song, of the moment or whatever. In musical terms, how would you describe it's "emotional environment?"
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Other artistic considerations? How about artistic techniques?
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Beethoven
