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Emphasis is very important in communication: It helps to establish what is of primary importance, versus what may be supporting or of secondary relevance.
Verbal communication contains a variety of strategies for creating emphasis. For instance, you’re instructing your children on pool safety: Don’t run next to the pool, no splashing in other people’s faces, etc. But most important of all: No children allowed in the water without a grown-up. How would you emphasize this statement’s import? You might repeat it several times; you might raise your voice; you might grab your child’s hand and look him or her in the eye; you might sit the child, down, pause, and then speak.
How is emphasis created in a piece of music? Being able to recognize and interpret such emphases is essential to active listening. When a composer is communicating with you through music, it is very helpful to know what he or she considers to be of primary importance.
Musical emphasis may be created by duration, change and extremes. When emphases are coordinated to help illuminate musical structure, rhetorical reinforcement is created.
Music is a time-art: Therefore, if you want to emphasize something in a piece of music, make it last . The longer something is before the listeners’ ears, the greater the importance it assumes.
The ends of phrases in this Bach Chorale are emphasized through duration.
Duration is used to emphasize the words “Rote fürßtliche Rubine” in this movement from Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire .
Repetition creates a durational emphasis . As in the Bach Chorale above, the ends of phrases are emphasized in Chopin’s Prelude in A-Major , only this time the chords are repeated rather than held.
Repetition is used to create two powerful durational emphases in this excerpt from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring .
Through repetition and other means of prolongation, durational emphasis can span a whole section of even an entire composition. Marriage is a form of durational emphasis: A favored relationship outlasts passing acquaintances. Similarly, in a piece of music, that which endures has a priority over that which is fleeting. A melodic idea, a rhythmic pattern, a particular texture all may be sustained throughout an entire work.
A rhythmic pattern is prolonged throughout Frederic Chopin’s Piano Prelude in c-minor .
In the third of Elliott Carter’s Eight Etudes and a Fantasy , a single chord is held throughout the entire piece. The instruments constantly shift so that the chord is never voiced the same way twice. Nevertheless, throughout the subtle surface motions, one sound is clearly emphasized by duration.
When listening to music, concentrate on what is most persistent . That which lasts longest is most essential; everything else is supporting. In a non-verbal, time-dependent art form, duration is the composer’s primary means of emphasis.
Change is a second way of creating emphasis. We change into our pajamas to indicate we’re ready to go to sleep. We all notice when the weather changes. If the lights go out, it will catch your attention. If the crowd noise suddenly rises at a sporting match, you will want to know what happened. Likewise, in music, a change—of register, texture, density, speed, dynamic, etc.—will create an emphasis.
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