It is now confirmed that, at our musical roots, puns conquer all. In the main article we read for this weekend, "The English Madrigal", it discusses much of the amusing nuances that these early writers caught on to. In discussing the madrigals of Thomas Weelkes, the article says, "In his score for six unaccompanied voices, the composer revels in every conceivable chance to have the music illustrate the text. The words 'descending' and 'ascending' are predictably set to scales going down and up" (2). I am unsure where I came across this information, but in the modern musical setting, this nuance is still heavily practiced, with many writers trying new, innovative ways to word-paint. In the musical Wicked, much of the chorus of "Defying Gravity" is in, you guessed it, a higher vocal range than the rest of the song. My personal favorite example of word-painting is in the musical Hamilton, when King George is singing "You'll Be Back". Every time that he says "Oceans rise, empires fall", the scale goes the opposite direction, so there is a drop on "rise" and a height in "fall". This ironic type of word-painting connotates a different meaning for these words, possibly either a positive perspective for the fall of an empire or its inevitability with a mindset like King George's (If someone wants to talk about this to me later, hmu).
I commented on Clabo's and Braylan's posts.
Jamie, I love how we both wrote on the exact same thing but used completely different examples. I wasn’t even thinking musical theatre when I was writing. I think the term word-painting has probably been replaced by another term that I don’t know of or that I’ve heard but simply don’t remember. And of course, you would be the one to reference Hamilton.
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