Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Question 1: What makes Interpol’s music so addictive?

Greetings to all. As I wrote in my last entry, my purpose for this blog is primarily for the discussion of questions you all may have about Interpol’s music. As a music theorist, I hope to offer you cogent ways of understanding and describing your experiences with their highly compelling pieces. To that end, let’s look at Question #1:

"What do you think makes Interpol’s music so addictive?”

~ This is an important question that deserves far deeper consideration than I can give it here; for now, I’d like to focus on how Interpol’s music influences a fusion of intellect and sensuality in us as listeners, something which I think many of us strive for in our lives, and therefore something that would cause us to desire to experience Interpol’s music over and over again.

~ As you may have noticed, Paul Bank’s lyrics tend to lean heavily on the side of physicality, that is, a preoccupation with the body, physical needs, and appetites. For example, “touch your thighs, I’m the lonely one” from “NARC”; “I haven’t slept for two days/I’ve bathed in nothing but sweat” from “Rest My Chemistry”; and “we have 200 couches where you can sleep tonight” from “PDA.” Even when singing about the non-corporeal soul in “All Fired Up,” Banks invokes physical sensation: “I’ve got this soul/it’s all fired up.”

~ So how does Interpol’s music influence a fusion of intellect and sensuality in listeners? The music itself is highly orchestrated and “contrapuntal” (referring to independent lines that sound harmonious together), and if you’ve ever seen them perform you’ve probably noticed the intense amount of concentration that is required of them by the music. Each musician has his own unique part that must be performed perfectly for the song to sound complete.

~ This precision is uniquely combined with cyclical harmonic and melodic motion—much of Interpol’s music could feasibly continue to repeat ad infinitum. That is, it doesn’t demand an ending, and it doesn’t command expectations from the listener, rather leaving us free to exist within the song as we please. And all of this is executed within a rich texture that is highly satisfying, as both the low end (e.g., the bass) and the high end (e.g., many of the guitar riffs) generally receive equal weighting in both the construction of the song and in its production.

~ This precise, cyclical, and rich music is paired with lyrics that are wide open to interpretation; lyrics that in a way tease us with possible narratives or meanings, but which require us to engage our intellect to come up with a meaning that speaks to us individually.

~ That’s all for now. Maybe I’ll pick this topic back up in a later entry, as I feel we’ve only scratched the surface of why Interpol’s music is so compelling.

Love from,

Meg

P.S. Many thanks to those of you who have submitted questions. I’d like to encourage any and all of you to send in questions and also to comment on the answers that I give – let me (and the other fans) know what you think about these entries.


Extra bits:

~ You also may have noticed that during interviews the band often discuss their collective compositional process, and it is my general impression that Paul creates his vocal line and lyrics toward the end of this process, so that his lyrics are woven into—and reflect the content of—an almost-completely formed musical communication (rather than the music communicating the content of the lyrics). Therefore, we could say that Paul is receiving (as well as creating with his guitar line) some sort of musical communication about physicality that inspires the writing of his lyrics.

~ The concept that music can communicate to us without words is an old one (Plato even talked about this), and theorists love to argue about how this is actually achieved. I personally believe that much of the communication we receive from music is contingent upon our culture; this is what makes Interpol a particularly extraordinary band, as their fan base extends far beyond their native USA.

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Monday, October 29, 2007

Welcome to my blog - an introduction to my work

My name is Meghann (pronounced Meg-Ann), but feel free to call me Meg. I am a music theorist, which means that I spend a lot of time thinking about how music is put together, and how it is that music can affect me the way it does. I’m sure you’ve all had an experience with music where you’ve gotten tingles down your spine, or you’ve had some intense libidinal response, or maybe your experience was more spiritually transcendent. Whatever the specific type, if you’re reading this blog, chances are that music has been a mind-altering experience for you on more than one occasion. But how is it that music can make us feel this way? And how can we talk about our physical, emotional and intellectual responses to it?

~ Some of you have recently been exposed to my analysis of Interpol’s song NARC, and I’d like to use this blog as a forum for addressing some of the questions that you have had as a result of this exposure. For my first entry, however, I’d like to describe the path I took in arriving at my analytical interpretation of NARC.

~ Perhaps the most important thing to understand about music theory is that it is indeed a theory of how music is constructed by musicians (perhaps you are one of these) and communicated to you, the listener (I’m hoping all of you are one of these). Music theory is a way of thinking about music – there is no inherent truth to the claim I make about Carlos’ bass line being “in B Phrygian.” Also important to understand is that there are multiple theories of music. Certain Indian musics, for example, have their own, highly sophisticated theories, and even within what is commonly called “Western tonal” music theory (which deals with a style of music whose origins are traditionally located in Western Europe starting around the 16th century) theorists argue all the time about which is the best way to characterize such-and-such aspect of this style of music.

~ This “Western tonal music theory” is the one from which I draw most of my analytical tools in my examination of Interpol’s music. I have many reasons for doing this, the most basic of which is that I believe that their musical processes have as their basis those processes of the Western tonal style. But this is a whole other topic unto itself.

~ So when I write about the modal qualities and the harmonic content of NARC, I am drawing on a theoretical knowledge of music (one that I have acquired as a result of my particular musical education), and I am using that knowledge to make interpretive decisions about what Interpol are communicating to us via NARC (or at least what they’re communicating to me). And this particular type of theoretical knowledge is one that has a long history, extending essentially all the way back to the ancient Greeks.

~ I hope that this brief description of the path I took to NARC will provide us with a decent foundation upon which we can build a fruitful discussion about this amazing band’s music, and the amazing effect it has on us.

Love from,

Meg


P.S. While I’m guessing that some of you may have quite a bit of Western theory already, if anyone cares to hear me extemporize on the nature of scales, harmonies, etc., let me know and I’d be happy to post something up here along those lines.

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