Introduction: On Music and Sound in The Tempest:
We all know that music and sound are important to many forms of theater. It can help to build the environment in which the story we are experiencing can play out, enforce a theme, or make the audience feel an emotion before they know why. Film as well as opera are a few examples, but it is not nearly as widely seen, or rather heard, in plays. The Tempest does a great job of incorporating sounds and music to construct the eerie, magical feeling of the island, the energy and chaos of the first scene, and the suspense of the last. Interestingly, music is not only used to ‘trick’ the audience, but to manipulate the characters as well. This nuanced use of audio draws attention to music as an artifice …show more content…
The fake tempest with its thunder and shouting; and this scene with the voices and music of Ariel are both great examples of this. If you think about it, the island would be completely ordinary and likely very boring without the magical sounds and “voices” that Caliban describes; just as theater would be less exciting to the audience without the artifice of music to bring energy, suspense, and emotion to the story. Is it possible that shakespeare is making a point about the nature of reality and perception by using one of the least appreciated artifices of theater? It would explain the last scene as the end of all of these illusions and give it a much more profound meaning than it otherwise has. All of these illusions are built up (with the help of necessary but underappreciated music and sound) and then they are all disbanded: the survivors of the “shipwreck” all find each other to be alive when they thought each other dead (the hammer over the head being that a tent is opened to reveal Ferdinand to his father), all of the royals realize why they are here, Prospero realises that he has no stomach for revenge, Caliban realises that Stephano and Trinculo are fools rather than gods, and the illusion of the play itself is shattered when Prospero breaks the wall and addresses the audience. I do not believe that Shakespeare did this on accident. I believe he chose to use music, a truly powerful artifice of theater to make a profound and yet subtle statement that developed throughout the play: life can be a violent, windy, and confusing
We all know that music and sound are important to many forms of theater. It can help to build the environment in which the story we are experiencing can play out, enforce a theme, or make the audience feel an emotion before they know why. Film as well as opera are a few examples, but it is not nearly as widely seen, or rather heard, in plays. The Tempest does a great job of incorporating sounds and music to construct the eerie, magical feeling of the island, the energy and chaos of the first scene, and the suspense of the last. Interestingly, music is not only used to ‘trick’ the audience, but to manipulate the characters as well. This nuanced use of audio draws attention to music as an artifice …show more content…
The fake tempest with its thunder and shouting; and this scene with the voices and music of Ariel are both great examples of this. If you think about it, the island would be completely ordinary and likely very boring without the magical sounds and “voices” that Caliban describes; just as theater would be less exciting to the audience without the artifice of music to bring energy, suspense, and emotion to the story. Is it possible that shakespeare is making a point about the nature of reality and perception by using one of the least appreciated artifices of theater? It would explain the last scene as the end of all of these illusions and give it a much more profound meaning than it otherwise has. All of these illusions are built up (with the help of necessary but underappreciated music and sound) and then they are all disbanded: the survivors of the “shipwreck” all find each other to be alive when they thought each other dead (the hammer over the head being that a tent is opened to reveal Ferdinand to his father), all of the royals realize why they are here, Prospero realises that he has no stomach for revenge, Caliban realises that Stephano and Trinculo are fools rather than gods, and the illusion of the play itself is shattered when Prospero breaks the wall and addresses the audience. I do not believe that Shakespeare did this on accident. I believe he chose to use music, a truly powerful artifice of theater to make a profound and yet subtle statement that developed throughout the play: life can be a violent, windy, and confusing