As a vocal principal music major, one of the main things that I have put emphasis on is sound. Trying to achieve the correct quality of vowels in order to have resonance in my voice. For the most part the focus is on how you sound.
When we listen to a piece of music we focus on what we hear. The Rhythms, Melodies, Harmonies, Lyrics, etc. We listen to all these different aspects. Now, let me mention something a bit radical-try listening to a song for nothing. Yes, nothing. Listen to a song whilst honing in only on the silence in it. Or think of a song you know very where and think of spots where silence occurs.............It doesn't seem to be as easy to do is it? It's very common with instrumental music, but a lot of vocal music, or contemporary music doesn't really emphasize silence. It's less emphasized now than it used to be; instead contrasting dynamics are more common. It ironic, because it seems as though silence has really become silent.
The reason I point this is, is silence is just as important and loud as sound. A common mistake that I made in Aural Skills in the 2nd semester of my freshman year is that I glossed over and skipped rests when we were sight reading melodic phrases. Disappointment struck my teacher's face when that happened. Her response was: "We are in College, we are Musicians and we must follow and count rests." Rests, a point of silence, hold just as much importance as regular notes. What I'm really trying to get across is that silence isn't something that is there when no sound is present but ornaments the music.
Here are a few examples:
Modest Mussorgky's Night on Bald Mountain
Benjamin Britten's Rosa Mystica
In the Mussorgsky piece you can easily hear the use of silence within the first thirty seconds. The quick call for silence followed by an accent beat then back to silence. It's abruptness makes a statement with the dynamics slowly creeping in as it becomes louder and louder. The Britten piece is different. The silence I'll point out is around the 2 minute mark where for the majority of the piece up until this point the basses and tenors are singing an A throughout the piece while the sopranos and altos sing the melody. After transitioning into a different section and then all parts are unison. It becomes quiet for a brief second (2 minute mark). Next are several phrases which are set broken apart through a pause. This itself is an interesting technique. As after this section, the tenors and basses resume the A and the altos and sopranos go back to the melody. This creates a nice contrasting section compared to the rest of the work. The text is easier to hear, crisper, and it's as though the message of the song is contained in those fragments.
Sometimes we become too concerned with the sounds of music that we disregard the importance of silence as well since no sound waves are being amplified in your ear, transmitted into electrical signals, and sent to your brain. Though the beauty of it is that it is an ornamentation of sound itself, without the sound. If you don't believe me...well if you've ever played Slender or seen someone play it. The game starts out with barely any sound/no sound, and when you see Slender...BAM!!! A loud chord is played and it's quite startling! I mean, have you ever seen a horror movie with a hefty movie score? Silence just isn't a break or a rest to breathe, but it adds life into the music.
I really like this topic, and I find that sometimes the silence is just as important as the music. My band director always said to play the rests because that is part of the music too. Sometimes an instant of silence can have just as much impact on the listener as the big crash of a gong or the bass drum. You just have to listen to the Sounds of Silence...pun intended.
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