Question: what is the term for a song in a book musical that does not advance the plot?- Page 2

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 7:50pm

Now I'm confused LOL. There was a big discussion about this about half a year back on the Sondheim forum--and I'm pretty sure Sally singing Cabaret and someone singing Happy Birthday are both diegetic--albeit they serve slightly different forms.

That's exactly what I wrote, Eric, or meant to.

Updated On: 12/13/12 at 07:50 PM

[wonkit]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 7:50pm

Source music is music which is being performed within the plot, and heard by the other characters. I believe the entire score of ONCE has been classified as source music.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 7:58pm

I believe "charm song" is definitely a Lehman Engel term. It's one of the assignments his workshops used to assign: charm song for Frankie in a musical version of A MEMBER OF THE WEDDING. (For those who don't know his workshops, the first year consisted of assignments for shows Engel thought should never be musicalized, so that students weren't planning actual shows but stayed focussed on the assignment.)

"I am" and "I want" are emphasized in Aaron Frankel's book, and a charm song can be either.

"I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No" is an "I am" charm song because Ado Annie doesn't articulate a desire.

"Much More" from THE FANTASTICKS is an "I want" charm song as the title would indicate.

Updated On: 12/13/12 at 07:58 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 7:59pm

Wonkit, I wasn't doubting you, I was just trying to understand the origin of the term "source music" and it seems to come from film. As your reference to ONCE suggests, is it now commonly used in the theater as well?

ETA I apologize for not knowing ONCE, but in film, the term seems to assume that the "source music" will come from some source other than the score created for the film itself. Am I understanding the term too narrowly?

Is the "Can-can" title number "source music" because it pretends to be Offenbach (but isn't)? Updated On: 12/13/12 at 07:59 PM

[DWalk]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 8:05pm

I thought I've heard people refer to it as incidental music.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 8:18pm

According to on-line dictionaries, "incidental music" is any music used as background for dialogue or scene changes. I've only heard the term used with reference to non-musical plays. But incidental music may come from another source or be written for the current project.

Either way, it's almost the opposite of what the OP asked, because with rare exceptions (Blanche Dubois and the tune that haunts her), characters pretend they CANNOT hear it.

[wonkit]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 8:53pm

Gaveston - no problem. I hadn't realized that the term was used exclusively for film and TV but it is.

[justoldbill]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 9:43pm

"Source music" would be music coming from, say, a radio or on-stage band under a scene. This probably isn't the technical term defining the question at hand, but I would call it "utility" music.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 10:08pm

I think it's called "bad writing."

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 10:22pm

For what it's worth, Joey, I saw your name on this thread and thought, "A ha! Now we'll get the exact meaning of all these terms."

Wonkit, just to be clear, I was seriously asking, not being a smart ass. I really don't know what term is current for theater usage.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 10:34pm

I don't know the academic side of it at all, just the practical side.

The very idea that a musical would have something called a "diegetic number" seems...well...silly to me.

"Charm number"--that I get. Even "I want number"...okay, sure.

But "diagetic"? Whoever made that up probably thinks it's immoral to button a number for applause.

[kipster]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 10:56pm

Re: source music. In opera, the terms "noumenal" and "phenomenal" are used to differentiate between music that is not heard by the characters and music that is heard by the characters. I don't know how applicable it is to musical theatre, but the term noumenal is often used in opera when a character is singing within the context of the story.
Noumenal vs Phenomenal

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:50pm

Despite Joey's apparent impatience, I love this discussion, because it actually touches on the aspect of the ONCE score that has absolutely confounded me, stopping me cold from loving that show like I expected to. Every single song in that score refuses to accept the essential suspension of disbelief (of folks bursting into song) that all other works of musical theater take as a given. A diegetic song says "here's a song I wrote..." rather than the character just singing what's in his/her heart.

Each song may be beautifully performed or danced with great spirit, but unless the words are truly the thoughts and feelings of the characters singing them, I as an audience member am cut out of the action and that's not what I want in a musical.

Joey's comment "Whoever made that up (the term diagetic) probably thinks it's immoral to button a number for applause" misses the point. EITHER a conventional musical theater song OR a diagetic song can be performed with all the pizzazz of a vaudeville turn-- it's just that the diagetic song acknowledges the singer singing, the orchestra accompanying, and the singingness of the moment. But please, for them to work, the words still have to come from the heart. Does that make any sense?

Updated On: 12/13/12 at 11:50 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:57pm

Do you feel left out at concerts?

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 12:01am

Bingo, Namo! Because concerts are NOT musical theater, however entertaining they may be.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 12:11am

Bingo! Yes you do feel left out at concerts?

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 1:06am

Not left out-- just don't feel like I've been to a play, which is a very different emotional experience.

[~tiny~]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 1:36am

Recititif?

[darreyl102]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 3:08am

Filler Material?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 8:41am

If you are not moved by the songs Steve Kazee and the cast sing in ONCE, you are a cold-hearted Diagesis Addict and I pity you.

You are missing out on an extraordinarily moving experience simply because you think it doesn't follow your meaningless "rules."

Here's a clue: Good art acknowledges the rules. Great art acknowledges them and breaks them.

Academics kill art.

Updated On: 12/14/12 at 08:41 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 9:17am

My exegesis professor said the exact same thing.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 11:02am

Wow, PJ, didn't expect to find myself so diametrically on opposite sides of a discussion with you, when generally I'm in such agreement.

I greatly admired Steve Kazee's performance in ONCE, but kept thinking so much of the time how much MORE i would have been moved had the WORDS he sang been the characters' actual thoughts. (I don't own the cd so could be misremembering details of the live performance--forgive my errors here.) When a character sings a heartfelt song he wrote years before about a previous relationship (whom we never meet), I'm sorry but that is not as visceral an experience as singing something he's written now about the GIRL HE'S IN THE ROOM WITH.

I was dazzled by the ensemble's work in the show-- amazing singing, dancing, and music-playing throughout-- but the songs DID seem like filler to me since the WORDS of the songs never spoke to the story they were telling me that night.

Had the Kit Kat songs in CABARET been actual period songs of the Weimar era with no reflection on Sally or Cliff or the ascent of Fascism, I would have had the same reaction as the songs in ONCE. It was the very connection I as an audience member made between TWO LADIES or IF YOU COULD SEE HER THROUGH MY EYES and the story being told that made it great musical theater. It's that very metaphoric leap that makes musical theater magical for me. Somehow ONCE denied me that pleasure.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 7:36pm

Academics kill art.

Sometimes, Joey. But as theater departments have shrunk, the trend has been to hire practitioners who round out their experience with academic study. In my Ph.D. program there was only one person out of seven who didn't have an MFA and years of practical experience.

The academics we used to mock are mostly in "performance studies" programs nowadays. I'm not saying their work isn't important, but it doesn't have much to do with killing traditional theater by defining it to death. In fact, it isn't much interested in what you and I would call theater at all.

And for the record, I haven't seen ONCE, but I have studied at least 9 or 10 translations of Aristotle's POETICS and I STILL think putting bumps on numbers is absolutely essential to the rhythm of musical theater.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 12/15/12 at 12:34pm

In film, diegetic refers to any sound created in the world of a film. Either characters making music our singing or even a ringing telephone or doorbell.

Non-diegetic refers to soundtracks and sounds added in post.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 12/15/12 at 6:32pm

A charm song for Frankie in Member of the Wedding would almost have to be called "The We of Me." No?