To Whom?

Super smart fella Sam Carner has written a super smart article with the title of 'Will I ever make a sound: modes of musical communication in the musical theater'.

And he asks this question.

"When characters sing in a musical, who are they singing to?"

Interesting.

"Another way of framing the question would be: when one character is singing in a musical, what do the other characters hear?" 

Now that really is a smart question.

We're used to hearing questions about about why characters sing in a musical and how they sing and, in particular, how they move from speech to song. But I've never really considered the question of 'to whom?'.

And Mr Carner has done some of the answering too. With categories. (I love categories.)

He categorises non-diegetic songs thusly: 

1. Soliloquy - character expresses internal thoughts and emotions but essentially talking to himself. The audience is 'listening in'. Generally the character is alone but, even if they're not, the other characters can't hear the soliloquy.

2. External Narration - character is addressing audience directly. So the audience aren't 'listening in' as in a soliloquy. However the other characters on stage are generally not being addressed and can't hear the song.

3. Monologue/Dialogue - characters are singing to (or being heard by) each other. The audience is once again 'listening in'. Think of a love duet. What's interesting here is how whether or not we imagine that the characters are actually hearing each other sing. Probably not. Instead, as Mr Carner puts it: "music and musical style often becomes a theatrical metaphor for what the characters understand to be happening".

4. Communal Consciousness - neither audience, nor characters are being addressed directly. Instead the song arises out of a characters sharing an emotional experience or event.

There's even a helpful table to summarise the categories. (I love tables.)

Here's where it gets even smarter. Musicals constantly shift between these musical modes. Not just between the different songs but in the middle of songs too. That's part of their dramatic power.

"Musicals can also achieve much of their impact and storytelling through explicit shifts in the mode of musical communication. When a song or a theme moves from one mode to another, the change can offer an audience important perspective on the story being told. Such shifts are also emotionally charged."

Yet despite all these complicated shifts in modes, it all feels very natural.

"When watching a musical, we do not consciously track these varying and shifting modes. The analytical part of our brain is not engaged, so this musico-dramatic mélange envelops us, bypassing the logical part of our consciousness that might ask why characters are moving instantaneously from singing songs to singing speech to singing thoughts (let alone from speaking to singing). And yet, this very combination is inherent to creating a musical world. The musical depends on a variety of modes of musical expression for its very status as a musical."

And that's why I like musicals. Dramatically, there are plenty of complicated things going on but audiences aren't sitting around parsing their External Narration from their Communal Consciousness. No matter how complicated, audiences instinctively 'get' what's going on in a musical.

There are lessons here for musical writers.

"As a musical theater writer and educator, I encounter a number of works in development...and one of the frequent problems I see has to do with the nascent work relying too heavily on just one form of musical expression—usually the soliloquy song... But when the writers wonder why their piece does not feel as theatrical, as dramatic, as envelopingly musical as they would like, they can often find part of the answer in the uniformity of their musico-dramatic mode. The form of their piece is likely too coherent, too consistent, too rational."

Bring on the irrationality.

You have to be genuinely smart to understand how crazy musicals can be.