Music vs. Lyrics
dirt.fyi
dirt.fyi
6 months into working with my current teacher he told me "ok, well you're not going to like this part, but this is the point where you have to learn and sing all the lyrics to all the tunes we work on". He's in his late 70s and learned the old way, which was you learned the lyrics to all the songs, and improvisation comes from singing them through your instrument (in my case piano). And then you start realizing just how many of the jazz musicians knew all the lyrics to all the standards.
I'm still mainly attracted to the music first, particularly rhythm, but I've gotten a new appreciation for understanding things lyrically as well.
e.g. here's a verse from "All This Time" by Sting:
> Teachers told us the Romans built this place \ They built a wall and a temple \ And an edge of the empire garrison town \ They lived and they died \ They prayed to their gods \ But the stone gods did not make a sound \ And their empire crumbled till all that was left \ Were the stones the workmen found
> All this time \ The river flowed \ In the falling light \ Of a northern sun
Just reading this does nothing for me. It's certainly not great poetry. But hearing it sung to music for me evokes the feeling of the inevitablity of decay and the simultaneous glory of human achivement and the pathos of human mortality. [0]
In rock music I think "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" by Genesis achieves that pinnacle. After nearly 50 years the Lamb stands alone in that it blends a weird, complex story line riddled with references and allegories to classical literature with an equally complex score of music that fuse together into a cinematic, theatrical and intellectually stimulating musical experience. Nothing, I mean nothing, in the rock music catalog comes close to what the Lamb achieves: what other album weaves in references to Sondheim's West Side Story, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Keats' Lamia, and Carl Jung? The storyline was almost entirely written by Peter Gabriel, who loves word play, which is peppered throughout the lyrics. Even the title itself is an allegorical word play, as the story line is about a young man Rael who goes on a spiritual journey; in literature a lamb is a symbol of self-sacrifice for redemption.
The Lamb is headphone music to ponder by. It's not party music, it's not to dance to, just as one doesn't read Huxley or Cervantes while on the beach.
> just as one doesn't read Huxley or Cervantes while on the beach.
Why not? And anyway, which Huxley?
:-)
You can be a lyrics person when you listen to Bob Dylan, and be a music person when you listen to John Coltrane.
When I asked Schoenberg to teach me, he said, "You probably can't afford my price." I said, "Don't mention it; I don't have any money." He said, "Will you devote your life to music?" This time I said "Yes." He said he would teach me free of charge. I gave up painting and concentrated on music. After two years it became clear to both of us that I had no feeling for harmony. For Schoenberg, harmony was not just coloristic: it was structural. It was the means one used to distinguish one part of a composition from another. Therefore he said I'd never be able to write music. "Why not?" "You'll come to a wall and won't be able to get through." "Then I'll spend my life knocking my head against that wall."
(I read it in his book Silence, but I grabbed this text from https://www.johncage.org/autobiographical_statement.html)
I definitely didn't grow up in a musical house. My parents rarely played music, even in the car.
Having said that, I still listen to and enjoy vocal music, but only as another instrument. I enjoy vocals with complex chords and chord progressions.
And it’s not that I ignore/don’t enjoy lyrics. They’re just secondary to music.
I think that’s the reason I don’t enjoy rap — it seems to be on the extreme end of lyrics > music (e.g. other than rhythm, rap has relatively little instrumentation to it, by definition).
Mind you, I'm a music person - never paid much attention to the meaning of lyrics nor sang along, but rather, as some of you already commented, listened to them as another instrument - but it was just when realized how almost all, if not all popular music in here, is made towards the goal of _saying_ something - it's the music that seems to be built around the lyrics and not the other way round. Maybe that could explain how most the music in local popular genres have really simple, repeating structures (_reguetón_/_"urbano"_, _ranchera_, _popular_, _vallenato_) and the dominating figures are solo singers rather than bands.
Of course I'd bet there are more lyrics people than music people in the world, but it struck me that here it's getting to the point that music and lyrics aren't getting hand to hand, but music is just a mere veiled background to lyrics.
Funny because a song is that which is sung. Technically you can sing non-lyrically (vocalizations that are not words) and still be singing a song, but that's an edge case.
An instrumental piece is not a song even if you have a music player or database where that word is the field label. They use that word in that place because it's a decent fit enough of the time, but if you look up "song" in a dictionary, the definitions do all involve things like singing, vocals, lyrics, etc. The members of an orchestra don't ask each other what song to play, they talk generally of pieces and specifically of concertos, études, etc. until a guest vocalist appears for a song.
Pure music without context usually comes across to me as just noise. Context can be many things, not just lyrics, but that is probably the simplest form.
I find comical music where the whole point are the lyrics super annoying. I mean stuff like Weird Al Yankovic, Les Luthiers (in Spanish), etc
I do play many instruments and love to make music, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I can definitely hear a song and then sing it back to you after one or two listens (not all lyrics but at least the chorus and some of the verse)
That's exactly why I steer away from lyrical music! The moment I hear lyrics that bore me or give me negative impressions of the songwriter, I lose a lot of interest in the song. Common cliches are the worst, so while I can enjoy pop I can't usually listen to a pop song on repeat the way many others do.
So I listen to almost all "instrumental" music (including totally electronic). However, those artists who do capture me with the strength of their lyrics I tend to obsess over. (R.A.P. Ferreira, known then as Milo, was one such for many years. The newer works don't hit the same; I hesitate to say I've outgrown his ideas but something isn't clicking.)
edit: Now I've read the article and found a lot of the responses resonate with me. Seems the idea of "music person vs lyrics person" wasn't as solid as the author expected at all.
I myself am more of a "music" type of person. I rarely, very rarely listen to the lyrics. When people ask "but what about the singer then?", well, I listen to the melodies, and the vocal technique itself.
I'm much more into the soundscape. Interesting rhythms, layering, etc.
On the other hand, I've learned to play several instruments over the years and have a fairly easy time learning songs by ear, so I suspect that part of the issue is that I find it impossible not to focus on the musical parts of singing rather than the linguistic part; if I'm focused on the pitch, rhythm, and tone of the vocals, it's conceivable that it could explain why it's lot harder for me to recognize individual words. It's occurred to me that the reverse issue could also help explain why I've had to put in effort over the years to build up social skills around non-direct communication; a lot of times when someone says one thing but means another, the intent is conveyed in things like rhythm and tone, and I likely find it harder to pick up on those cues due to my entire focus being devoted to understanding the words themselves being spoken rather than how they're being spoken.
When going on trip with family or friends, of course I won't play any King Crimson or Mahavishnu Orchestra tracks.
Of course if I'm in the mood for singing, playing Beatles tracks is a mostly safe guarantee it can be understood by teenagers and old grand pas/mas.
Good book if you’re interested in this and art in general, has a black circle on a gray cover, currently found all over the place:
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (producer of Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, etc)
Some good albums with excellent music and lyrics:
Aurora, The Gods We Can Touch
Neil Young, On the Beach
Tori Amos, Scarlet’s Walk
Rage Against The Machine, Rage Against The Machine
Rodriguez, Cold Fact
Wolf Alice, Blue Weekend
Kurt Vile, Bottle It In
Julia Jacklin, Crushing
For me, most women I know are into electronic music genres and most men I know are into rap. Which is probably the only genre where lyrics are often more important than the music. I'm not sure that's an average experience tho. But I do think the absolute top lovers of electronic music are gay men.
My girlfriend is the complete polar opposite, she mostly listens to these super-sad (to me) indie songs heavily focused on lyrics.
I wonder if there is a gender split on music vs. lyrics.
The Grateful Dead were influenced by all American roots music and had phenomenal lyrics by the poets Robert Hunter and JP Barlow.
I'm 100% a music person. My girlfriend seems to be a lyrics person. She doesn't seem to understand why I listen to music that has no words (also, she calls every piece of music a "song", which is all too common, alas). Conversely, I think some of the stuff she listens to is mind-numbingly boring and generic (like Taylor Swift), but apparently the lyrics mean something.
If something can be musically interesting and have great lyrics (like The Beatles), then that's even better. But I'll listen to complete bullshit that is musically good (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg). But if it's got shit music then it's essentially poetry, and I don't like poetry.
"piece of music" is a little cumbersome. Given the choice between being correct, and using a word as convenient as "song", I'll probably side with the changing language. Is there any other alternative phrasing? "Piece" sounds ambiguous to me. Am album could be a "piece of music". Or a playlist. Or part of a song. Or just the flute track.
Analogy: "image" is like "piece of music" in that it is a general term that divides into photo, graphic, and more. A photo album is not an image, it is a collection of images (specifically photos). And across art more generally, "piece" could be a unit of music, image, sculpture, or others.
A piece is a unit. Like a SKU. Like a chocolate bar with a barcode on it (piece of music), which arrives in a carton of many bars (album or playlist) and can also be broken along scored subdivisions (verses or movements). Some bars are milk chocolate (song), others are dark chocolate (concerto), and plenty of other varieties as well. Don't clap between movements, only at the end of the piece.
Is "hoover" a genericized trademark used to refer to many other vacuum cleaners because "vacuum cleaner" is more cumbersome to say in casual conversation? Yes. Is it useful to point that out in an analysis of different vacuum cleaners? Yes.
My point wasn't really about "correct" terminology, though, but merely that in some people's minds music is songs and anything else (ie. without lyrics, and yes, lyrics, not vocals) is not appreciated.