Music with words and action. Much of the charm of music lies in its association with words which carry the message, as in song. The center of interest in much of the vocal art lies in the meaning conveyed by the words where the music serves as an artistic embellishment. This is true of the lullaby, the lover’s plea, and grand opera. Likewise, much of the charm of music lies in its association with overt action as in dances, work songs, marches, and games, where action is rhythmic.
This added power of the music lies not only in the dance steps but more conspicuously in the suggestive rhythms divided into intricate patterns often far surpassing the score or the physical performance. That is what we mean when we say music carries. In such situations the musical appeal may lie for one person in the verbal message or the overt action and for another, purely in the musical appeal. Yet both words and action on the one hand and music on the other are enriched through the association.
Symbolism. Music finds its highest and most universal expression in symbolism. Music is primarily a way of expressing moods, attitudes, feelings, and longings in generalized form. The listener tends to live himself concretely into the feeling suggested. In the esthetic mood he is not aware of the mechanics of the symbolic suggestion, for which the art has many resources, and he may not be aware of the music as such; but he lives realistically within his own personal realm of interests. Thus, music sounds the keynote on great festive occasions in the powerful forms of festive music, as in the great sacred oratorios and simpler but beautiful forms of church music or in triumphant marches and other festive celebrations in major form. But minor forms, as in tone poems and haunting melodies, work on the same principle and perhaps fully as effectively. From the grandeur suggested by the sonata to the serenity arising from the simplest bit of improvization in voice or instrument, music has unlimited power to seize the individual for some form of dreamlike realization of the subjects of his longings.