Nonmusical Ideas and Text Painting in Music

What is text painting?

• A technique where you color over your words in your music so you know what you sing

• A technique where the music is used to visibly and/or audibly demonstrate the lyrics

• A technique where someone reads a passage and you paint what you hear

• A technique where the lyrics talk about what is happening in the music

Select all examples of text painting.

• The melody going higher when the word "high" is sung

• The melody going lower when the word "low" is sung, or when the singer sings about feeling sad

• The "Ode to Joy" motif in Jake Runestad's "A Silence Haunts Me"

True or False: Music requires text to express nonmusical ideas.

• True

• False

What does the violin represent in Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending"?

What is a "spinning wheel song"?

• A song about the game show "Wheel of Fortune"

• A song that incorporates the sound of a spinning wheel

• A song where the singer is lamenting at a spinning wheel

• A song with lyrics about the invention of the wheel

What does the piano in Franz Schubert's "Gretchen am Spinnrade" represent?

Describe what you feel when you listen to this piece.

How does the climax of this piece complement the text?

List at least 3 words from this poem that you could use for text painting and how you would paint the text if you were to set this text to music.

There is not one right answer for this, but many - How would you express the nonmusical idea of a jellyfish?