How Can Music Influence and Enhance a Story?
Music is an excellent pacing tool that can instantly convert and control mood and emotion in a story. If you’ve ever watched a musical, chances are you’ve seen this in action, throughout the entire production. With musicals, in particular, much of the story’s narrative is told through songs, but other mediums utilize music as well.
Take commercials, for example. The music used in them are intended to influence our emotions, and thus influence our choices (or at the very least, alter our perception of whatever is being sold or conveyed). Music, in almost every case of storytelling (even if that story is simply why you need this product), is to convey information of some sort. That information can take the form of many things most noticeably how you should feel or how others feel. It is for this reason that music is such a powerful and popular medium, even at times better than speech, because we can derive additional information, from the sound. The sound of the songs provides us with a wealth of information (even without lyrics).
The human brain tends to gravitate towards emotion rather than logic. For that reason, music is such a powerful medium. How many times have you did something based on emotion versus logic, and which do you remember with the most vividness? Idealistically, if our logic and emotion align we would be in the best situation, but many times we may find yourself having to suppress or rule out one in favor of the other. With stories, we can look at a situation from the outside, freeing ourselves from the decision making burden. We can vicariously live through the characters on stage learning their lessons, grieving, and sympathizing with them all within safety. Stories are a learning tool, made better with music.